| Name | State | Country | Series | Essay Start | Click for full essay |
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| Penn Jillette, Las Vegas, NV: As heard on NPR`s Morning Edition, November 21, 2005. I believe that there is no God. I`m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can`t prove a negative, so there`s no work to do. You can`t prove that there isn`t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my... | more | ||||
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| Stephanie, Louisville, KY: Looking at my daughter, the clerk behind the counter asks, ``What is she?`` This is not the first time I have heard this question, and the stored up, smart aleck answers swirl through my mind. Instead, understanding that I am my daughter`s role model for handling life issues, I stifle the negativity and respond, ``She`s beautiful, and smart, and well behaved, too.`` The clerk says ``oh`` and ... | more | ||||
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| Cherie, Menomonee Falls, WI: My father told me I was fat. And lazy. And stupid. I combated my father’s words with words of my own, hiding in my room while my chubby eight-year old fingers scribbled out poems and stories. The words I’d written would lay about me on my bed – my shield and protection to help get me through the night. But by each new morning, my father’s words would shake me awake. The words fat, lazy... | more | ||||
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| Jeff, Columbia, MD: I have something shocking to tell you. Are you sitting down? Brace yourself. Are you ready? Here goes. I didn`t wash my car last month. Isn`t that awful? What`s worse is this: I don`t intend to wash it this month either. Isn`t that terrible? Washing my car is one of the things I don`t do because it doesn`t pass my rocking chair test. When I`m an old man sitting in my rocking chair look... | more | ||||
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| Holly Dunsworth, State College, PA: As heard on NPR`s Weekend Edition Sunday, May 11, 2008. I believe evolution. It`s easy. It`s my life. I`m a paleoanthropologist. I study fossils of humans, apes, and monkeys, and I teach college students about their place in nature. Of course I believe evolution. But that is different from believing in evolution. To believe in something takes faith, trust, effort, streng... | more | ||||
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| Chad, Santa Fe, NM: I believe that people are scared. I say this because of actions that I`ve witnessed in both other people and in myself. I recently had the good fortune of displaying my character to the federal government for the purpose of a security clearance. After all of the background interviews, investigations, and subsequent administrative hearing, it was revealed to me that the government of the Uni... | more | ||||
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| Fred, Weaverville, NC: I believe I learned everything I needed to know about how to live the good life from my childhood dog, Buster. If you want your young child to learn responsibility, get him a dog. That’s what conventional wisdom teaches. And that’s been true in my case. But Buster also taught me more about irresponsibility than any human I’ve ever encountered. When I was eight, I convinced my mother, who ha... | more | ||||
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| David, Lakewood, CA: When I was young, my understanding of events and people was simple: Things were good or bad. This made it easier for me to deal with the world around me. Then, when I became a young man, things seemed far more complicated, and instead of black and white I saw the grays everywhere I looked. This made life dense with meaning and motive and decision, and made life harder. Now, as a man in middle a... | more | ||||
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| Amy, Middletown, MD: The Best Kind of Grief is Gratitude The first thing breast cancer took from Isabelle was her smile. She woke up one morning and the left side of her mouth drooped and sagged. Her left eye was half-closed. A scan confirmed the cancer had speckled her brain in its second and final coming. It was the disease`s arrogant display of triumph. As it grew bigger and spread, Isabelle seemed to grow sma... | more | ||||
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| Cindy, College Park, MD: When Greta and I celebrate our twentieth anniversary this year, I believe we`ll do so as a married couple. Not in the legal sense v that is probably a generation away v but in the best, most important sense of the word (marriage.) When we met, she was an unacknowledged alcoholic and I was recovering from a near-fatal hiking accident. Well, it appeared to be an accident v I had tried to cross s... | more | ||||
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| Joe, Red Hook, NY: One spring morning, as I was leaving the parish hall where I had taken the kids to Sunday school, a young homeless man met me at the door. He was hungry, and shivering in the cold of the brisk morning air. He suffered from Tourettes Syndrome, and his speech was broken by fits, and uncontrollable interjections. He asked for some money to eat, said that he was between jobs, and was on his way to ... | more | ||||
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| Robert Heinlein, Colorado Springs, CO: I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. Take Father Michael, down our road apiece. I’m not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in ... | more | ||||
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| Peggy, Frankfurt am Main, : I believe in insignificance. Grand gestures full of resonance and import have their place in our world, but I speak of the small, insignificant acts which make us all so human. Years ago, I picked up the telephone every day at 3 p.m. from Europe to call my sister in California. She commuted to a hospital in a poor neighbourhood at that time, finishing her medical residency. ``I can`t do it anym... | more | ||||
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| seeta, Providence, RI: I believe in the power of perfume. Perfume is meant to cover our natural scent, to hide whispers of sweat and the living body in subtle floral overtones. At 14, my desire to be sexy conflicted with my poor understanding of the powerful amber liquid in my mother`s bottle, and I quickly came to prefer my own scent to the overpowering fragrance of my misguided dabbling. I did not understand the beau... | more | ||||
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| Chris, Phoenix, AZ: The Peace That Comes from Animals It was September of 2003 and I was struggling to find work after experiencing corporate downsizing 23 months prior. I had really fallen on some of the grandest challenges of my life and I felt as if the proverbial cards were stacked against me. Nothing seemed to work out the way I wanted it, the way I needed it. I found myself sitting in my house constantly wor... | more | ||||
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| Kelly, State College, PA: I believe in laughter, especially when you can laugh at yourself. And, I’m not talking about a little chuckle or giggle. I am talking about the laughter that makes tears stream down your face, makes your abs feel like you just did 1000 sit-ups, and makes your smiling cheeks burn. My entire life I have been a complete klutz. If there is a ditch, I will turn my ankle in it. If there is a sign... | more | ||||
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| James, Columbia, MO: The Power to Forget I believe in the power to forget. On December 12, 1969, my world changed forever. My father was murdered. I was 11 years old. In the middle of the night I woke to flashing lights from a police car. A knock at the door, and I heard my mom answer it. Then I heard a man say: ``Marlene, Wil`s been shot.`` See, my dad was a cop. And as happens all too often, he was ... | more | ||||
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| Amy, Des Plaines, IL: I believe that play can heal. As a Registered Play Therapist, I see how play can create relationships and help kids become more aware and more whole. James is one example. James was a young gang-banger wannabe with an angelic face and chip on his shoulder the size of a sequoia. He was referred to Play Therapy due to non-compliant behavior. His problem behavior was fueled by anger at bein... | more | ||||
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| Janan, New York, NY: When you only have a dollar, buy an ice cream cone. I believe in the power of whimsy, caprice and momentary lapses in good judgment. Though my mother would be loath to admit it, she taught me this - that sometimes, usually fear-laced times, risk is your only currency. When I was nine, my mother packed up her kids and fled a comfortable home, financial security and, after 25 years, my father’s ... | more | ||||
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| Laura, West Chicago, IL: A man I love is dying. When I first met Michael, 16 years ago, he was speaking to a group of spinal cord injured men during my clinical internship in psychology. Afterwards, I accompanied him to his car, where he discovered he didn’t have the strength to transfer from his wheelchair. Looking me in the eye, he asked, “Have you ever transferred anyone?” “No,” I winced. “Well, you are going to le... | more | ||||
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| Melissa, Bainbridge Island, WA: We Are All Connected Connect the dots by family, by skin color, by religious belief, by politics, by degrees of Kevin Bacon, by whatever method you choose·I believe that each and every human being on this planet is tied to every other human being on this planet in one way or another. As a result, any decision we make·no matter how seemingly small or insignificant·could have a ripple effect on ... | more | ||||
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| Wayne Coyne, Oklahoma City, OK: As heard on NPR`s Morning Edition, February 26, 2007. I was sitting in my car at a stoplight intersection listening to the radio. I was, I guess, lost in the moment, thinking how happy I was to be inside my nice warm car. It was cold and windy outside, and I thought, ``Life is good.`` Now this was a long light. As I waited, I noticed two people huddled together at the bus stop. To... | more | ||||
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| Angela, Sugar City, ID: I believe in the dwindling generation that some people call our greatest and others simply call (old people). True, some of them may shuffle when they walk or need their driver`s licenses revoked, but some of my most treasured friends have been recruited from amongst their stoop-shouldered ranks. I didn`t grow up fearing the elderly. A great-grandmother I can only vaguely remember baked apples... | more | ||||
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| Douglas, North Ferrisburg, VT: When I tell people I have the best job in the world I really mean it. I feed school kids in Burlington, Vermont. It’s my job and I couldn’t be prouder. Almost everyone has some memory of school lunches – “lunch ladies” in hairnets, dishing out mashed potatoes. We have always been an important part of the lives of the children in our schools, often the first person they meet in the morning, the per... | more | ||||
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| katharyne, san diego, CA: Few people had heard of VISTA--Volunteers in Service to America--the year I joined. She and her sister organization, The Peace Corps, founded by President Kennedy and directed by Pierre Salinger, were created to help impoverished people everywhere. While college friends prepared for Peace Corps assignments in Africa and Latin America, I was destined for VISTA. Armed with inner city teachin... | more | ||||
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