The choice is always yours by Keisha

The choice is always yours by Keisha - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

Choices and decisions are such a tricky and at times, almost crippling process to overcome. The obstacles of being a first generation American of immigrant parents brought about a miriad of hurdles that I had to spring towards in order to help my parents make the best decisions for me, themselves, and their extended families. Language, understanding, and comprehension were always my strong suits but my parents, unfortunately, weren't afforded the same opportunities so I sat at the table when my mom and dad had to sign to give the hospital permission to g-tube my baby brother even to their dismay, I sat at the table trying my best to understand and explain real estate jargon at 12 years to my mother before she closed on her home, I sat at the table at 10 years old filing residency papers to get my older brother and sisters over to America from Haiti. I was fluent in common/casual Creole but there was still so much of the language that I didn't know so at times it was impossible to explain to my parents in order for them to make a informed final decision. The hard and final decisions had to rest on my shoulders because I understood the most. I will say in the earlier parts of my life, it helped me to be very sure of myself because I had no choice but to be but, when my decisions and choices started to not pan out the way I thought it would, the feeling of making choices began to feel crippling. I was so used to being right-- or rather having to be right, that when I made the wrong decisions it felt like my world fell right from under me. I spent a majority of my highschool and early adult years taking forever to settle on my choices because I became afraid of making the wrong one. It caused me to feel like I was sitting in the passenger seat of my own life in hopes that someone will be my driver and make the right decisions for me. A terrible and drawn out way to maneuver life by the way. That all took a turn when I started working in music video production. I was working as a producer for my first major music video. I planned everything from budget, location, extras, and art. Everything aligned perfectly for the day of the shoot. As I drove down to the location of the shoot, however, I got a shuddering wave of panic that came over me. The thoughts of "who do you think you are", "this won't work out the way you think", "you're missing something", "one of your choices will make this whole thing fall apart" began to badger me and I started to feel like I was in way over my head. It was insane, it came out of nowhere, but of all times, why now? It was test. Me v.s. Me. Can I trust myself to make this shoot successful? I decided in that moment that I could, it was all or nothing and it was way too late to back out of anything. I push all those thoughts far back away and had my first successful shoot. I realized then that decisions has to be made whether I like it or not, it's my job to make the best informed decision but the final outcome of what may happen is not on me. Choices no matter how minuscule or extraordinary will always be mine to make, so I've decided for the rest of my life to just count down from 5 and make a decision.