Has there ever been a fear or challenge in life that you wanted more than anything to over come? In Doris Lessings short story "Through the Tunnel" Jerry wanted nothing more than to be considered equals with the big kids but diving down into the bay and swimming through the rock tunnel. To do so he felt he had to challenge himself both mentally and physically. I can personally relate to Jerry in the sense that during the course of my life I have encountered challenging situations, pushed myself to face them, and overcame my fears.
Fears are something that everyone has. One of mine just happened to be ski moguls. At the age of thirteen, seventh grade, I was living in a small town in upstate New York. During the winters my friends and I would join Ski Club. This was a club made up of both seventh and eighth graders that would meet every Saturday and travel to "Greek Peak", a local ski resort, and spend the whole day skiing together. I used to look forward to this every week because we had so much fun together and although I was no pro skier it was always a great time. On the other hand the part that always got me down was the fact that everyone else could ski anything from The Bunny hill (the easiest hill) to Black Diamonds (the hardest) and even moguls (the bumps on the Black Diamonds that make them even harder). Personally I could handle everything but moguls. They always seemed scary to me and when everyone else would be excited to ski them I would go down the flat slope. Not skiing the moguls was like when Jerry had "looked back over his shoulder at the wild bay as he played on the safe beach" (Lessing 176). It wasn't bad enough that all of the older kids could do it but the majority of my friends could too. I always wanted just once to go with everyone down the tougher slope but I could never bring myself to do it. Along with Jerry "to be with them, of them, was a craving that filled his [my] whole body" (Lessing 177).