Option 1: Life teaches us many lessons. Some of these lessons may include living with the consequences of our choices, taking life one step at a time, living in the present moment, finding balance, developing compassion for ourselves and/or others, living with integrity, and dealing with grief. Choose one of the topics listed above with which you have experience and write a narrative about a particular event in which you either learned this lesson or recognized that you needed to learn this lesson.
Option 2: People often teach us (or guide us to) important lessons in life. Write a narrative about a specific event in your life through which a particular person taught you or guided you to learn an important lesson. Name the person and lesson, describing both in detail, and tell your readers exactly what happened and how your interaction with this person led you to learn this new lesson about life. If you choose someone, like a parent, who has had a large influence on your life for a long period of time, please be careful to choose only a few significant events as representative of the types of experiences you have had with this person. Be sure that the members of your audience will feel like they know this person and the significance of your relationship with him/her when they have finished reading your essay.
Option 3: Choose a place that is significant in your life. This place can be anywhere, but the primary element in choosing this place is that it must have had a memorable effect on your life. Be sure that you can describe this place specifically, using sensory details. Perhaps, you learned an important lesson at this place, overcame a difficult obstacle in your life, or suffered a painful experience. Whatever happened in this place, recreate it for your audience in enough detail that the members of that audience can form images not only of the place but also of what happened there.
Option 4: Write a memoir of yourself as a writer. A memoir is not the same as a writing autobiography. A writing autobiography would cover your entire writing career, leaving little or nothing out. A memoir is more selective. A memoir works toward making a central point about your “life” as a writer. Yes, you will pull from certain events in your past where you wrote, perhaps in school, but you do not need to cover any of them, except those that clearly lead to the point you wish to make about your overall experience.