Today was just like any normal day, where I woke up groggy, and went to university. However, my first lecture was very interesting, and is the reason I’m starting this blog. Sure, maybe nobody will ever read this, or people wouldn’t like it, but I’m going to do it anyways.
The lecture was about emotional intelligence, something I still can’t comprehend clearly. The professor started the lecture by asking us why we thought emotional intelligence is important, then showed us a clip from Shrek (pretty awesome right?), where Donkey is afraid of crossing a bridge over lava, then Shrek scares him into the other side, and he reaches the castle safely. The emotion in this scene was fear, so she asked us each to think about what our fear in life is. My thoughts jumped to spiders obviously, but then I thought about my deep internal fear, which is to live and die without having accomplished anything in my life, without leaving my footprints, without having affected people on Earth’s lives in any way. Oblivion. And that is something I fear everyday, when I learn how people younger than me or my age make discoveries that save millions of lives, or when my own friends follow their ambitions until they achieve them all, while I’m just moping around and my biggest problems are things like what to wear tomorrow or why is she mad at me.
The professor then tells us that the bridge from the Shrek video represents life, and how we’re going to cross it, from birth till death, but we’ll be accompanied by a lot of emotions, like fear. Fear is a good emotion, she said, it helps us survive. However, if I choose to surrender to some fears, and not move forwards in my life (like how Donkey wanted to go back), I will never achieve anything, I will keep moving backwards until I am trapped in my own cocoon of fear. She told us that we need to keep moving on that bridge, that we’ll always be afraid, fear will always accompany us, but we must not give up because of it, or turn our backs on our dreams and ambitions, we have to keep moving forwards. No one isn’t afraid of anything, the greatest singers, actors, or politicians are afraid when they get on stage, but they do it anyways, because this fear or nervousness they feel before a big show proves that they’re going somewhere in their lives, that they’re doing something and following their dreams.
How did all this affect me? Well, I’m a medical student, which I’m proud of, maybe someday I will save lives and that would be my impact on Earth. However, I’ve always wanted to write. I want to publish a book or a story before I die. I’m not even a good writer, English isn’t even my native language, and all around me are people my age who write so much better than I do, who already work for magazines and get paid for writing, who speak English much more fluently. Heck, a 7th grader I know already published two books! So, I was afraid. What if I wasn’t good enough? What will everyone say if they read anything I wrote? Would they like it? Would they make fun of me?
All this made me hold back, move backwards, and I never followed that dream I had, of being the next Mitch Albom or J.K Rowling. But this professor, I really thank you even though I forgot your name, convinced me of moving forwards, of going after what I wanted, or I will forever be trapped in the same place, feeling guilty about why I never tried, wondering what if i did that or what if I tried?
So here I am, attempting to write, improving my skills, taking baby steps towards my ambitions, and I encourage everyone not to be afraid, and to do the same. Maybe I will publish a book, and that’s how I will change the world. Maybe I will fail, but at least I would have tried, and I won’t have any regrets.
So, here goes nothing. My first post 😀
holybananablogger 