Please rate my essay---- JROTC national essay competition

The Army has many values that we should strive to exemplify in daily life and all situations. Three principles discussed in this essay are to live with integrity, lose with dignity, and win with humility. These three values practically make up all the values that we need.  These values, if applied, will significantly increase the quality of your life and help you gain much more respect and, overall, be a better person.

First, we will go over the importance of living your life with integrity. According to The Oxford Dictionary, integrity is: “The quality of having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.” Integrity also includes strong moral uprightness, strength, and discipline, even when tempted. This integrity is not only something that is shown in front of others but also behind closed doors and even in someone's thoughts. Another way to describe integrity, as stated by C.S. Lewis, is “doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” I believe that integrity is essential because your personal and social life will prosper much more if you have integrity. Those with integrity do not always have to try to avoid trouble. They are doing the right thing, so they usually don’t run into as much trouble, particularly with the law or those in authority over them. Those with integrity never really have to worry about hiding everything because the things they do in private are just as upright as those done in front of others and in public. 

The Second of the ethos is to lose with dignity. This means that you must keep your head up and get back up even when defeated or knocked down. This is important because every human being in the world will go through diversity at some point. Knowing this, the only way to succeed and push past adversity is to keep your dignity and respect for yourself. If you are defeated and dwell on it negatively, you will continue to be defeated. Losing with dignity means looking at your defeat and analyzing what you could have done better. In the aspect of having adversity, it is working to improve the things in your control and accept the factors of the situation that are impossible to control.

The third, equally necessary out of these three ethos is to win with humility. This means that even when you win, you do not let pride get the best of you. While it is okay to celebrate victories, you should have boundaries to that. While these events should help build your self-confidence in most cases, they should not inflate your ego. This is important because our societal structure is built on respect. An effortless way to lose respect is not to be a humble winner. Those who gain the most respect are usually the people who can take a great victory and stay down to earth and humble about it. Those who can achieve this humility are usually the same people who make the best mentors, coaches, and teachers. Winning with humility also helps you to look at your strengths and weaknesses more realistically. Therefore, humble winners usually earn more significant achievements and success than the prideful and selfish people who win.

As you can see, these should be the standard. With more people who demonstrate qualities, the world would be much better than if it was filled with sore losers, liars, and cocky winners. I have shown integrity and loss of dignity by going up to the Colonel and having a face-to-face conversation with him about an issue that I had gotten in trouble about. This showed him that I was already bouncing back from my loss and ready to take my punishment and move on.

In conclusion, these character values tie together well and should govern everyone’s lives. If people apply these principles, it will impact their lives in all aspects: spiritually, physically, socially, and psychologically. Let us learn how to keep integrity, stand up when we are knocked to the ground by life’s challenges, and learn to win with dignity and respect to others. 

🫡 I wish you luck my man. You have my blessing 

What’s jrotc

junior reserve officer training corps.... it practically an extracurricular where u learn us military fundamentals

Oh it’s what toad did

toad?

I believe he is referring to Toad from American Graffiti. If you haven’t seen that movie about a group of teenage friends in the early 60s, cruising the main drag in their little town one night right after high school graduation, deciding whether to go to college, army, or just stay at home, you need to see it! Toad ends up missing in action in Vietnam.

oh sweet

also, js a side note, I'm not joining the army, my school just has army jrotc

Your essay is real, from the heart, and not fine-tuned by a college admissions coach. Good job and good luck!

Beautiful essay, my friend! Good luck with your competition.

thanks! It sure is

thanks!

"I believe that integrity is essential because your personal and social life will prosper much more if you have integrity."

I don't know the expected format of this essay but usually "I believe" isn't something you want to say. I would recommend you cut out the "I believe that"

ok thanks for the recommendation

Nice work. Here's how I'd rework the first paragraph to make it more straightforward and read less like, "this is an essay."

The Army has values that go beyond the battlefield and we'd be well to establish in everyday life. Values such as how live with integrity, lose with dignity, and win with humility. If established, these values will increase the quality of your life and help you gain respect in a changing world.

In general, it's useful to cut adverbs such as 'practically' and 'significantly,' and redundant statements. Also, that thesis statement is a bit broad. Narrowing it down to something like, "it's good to hold these traditional values in a changing world" will make your essay more memorable and your point more precise. Also, I don't recommend quoting the dictionary. Hope this helps.

ok this helps a lot! Thanks!

"This is important because every human being in the world will go through diversity at some point. "

Try saying: "The importance of this is..." instead of "this is important because...", sounds better.

I assume you mean 'adversity' and not 'diversity.'

yeah I thought the same thing