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throughout my life i have seen many movies heard and played numerous songs and read too many books to count all of these things have left their marks by way of expanding my imagination and introducing to me new ideas that i had never dreamed of before choosing the most important piece out of this countless store of items that have impacted my life is a daunting task but i have no hesitation in making my decision though it may not be known for its literary merit and will probably never be found on an ap exam i have to say that out of all of these pieces the harry potter series by j k rowling has had the most influence on my life among my earliest memories is that of my sister reading aloud to me harry potter and the sorcerer s stone and then quizzing me to make sure that i had actually been paying attention to her i was in the first grade at the time and was not much of a reader i had never been interested in reading and relied on hooked on phonics for help i was slow to begin reading but harry potter sparked my interest in imaginary worlds and fantastical stories i began wondering what else might be out there and began my exploration by reading whatever new books i could find by the time i was tested in the second grade i was reading at about a fourth or fifth grade level now i am hardly ever found without a book nearby harry potter has been and always will be among my favorite books works of fantasy have always appealed to me because of the imagination involved in making such worlds come alive to the readers and the complexity of making sure they never conflict with themselves the characters and situations in harry potter are relatable if you take out the magical aspect of it they have realistic scenarios related to school friendships relationships families and even bullies each character has his or her own

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personality and each one grows learns and matures throughout the series in response to his or her circumstances the series also teaches important lessons like friendship courage and standing up for what is right these themes are found in many works but i have always felt them most deeply from this series harry potter is a series that i can pick up and just start reading anytime and is the series that i begin rereading when i have no new books to begin no matter how many times i reread it i always seem to find something new every time harry potter s greatest influence for me however is the fact that it is what got me interested in reading i believe this is important because reading helps people to understand the world around them and to discover things for themselves it can introduce new concepts that may grow into larger ideas that change the way you think about the world helps one s grasp of his or her language and helps peoples minds and imaginations to grow these are extremely important because for civilization to advance it needs new minds to be able to solve the new problems that may arise in the future if people had no imagination we would all think alike and there would be no einsteins and shakespeares to help us advance in science mathematics and literature no one would be able to come up with new concepts that could change the future of our world we would be without advancement because no one would have dreamed of trying new things to help us evolve with the world around us reading inspires creativity and creativity leads to new ideas that reshape our world this belief in creativity has shaped who i am today i believe that people need to be individuals and that conforming will get you nowhere if all you do is copy others you will never learn to think for yourself what if shakespeare had decided to conform and just write what was

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safe we would not have some of the greatest works ever written works that make people think about deeper things if einstein had decided to play it safe and not propose any new theories because they sounded so far-fetched we would not know what we do about how our universe works i used to care what others thought of me a lot but i have become more outgoing in the past few years this is partially because of the friends i hang around with i have seen how different and unique they all are and that people like them anyway i am now able to express myself more freely and am more willing to receive constructive criticism when people learn to be themselves and express their ideas that is when our world moves a step further towards a future where creativity is counted as the most important resource we could possess that is how our world should be.

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