Before that, I knew that my strength was a combination of perseverance and diligence. However, I have changed. And again, it felt like I am a whole new person. A person I barely know. So, back to zero. I have to get to know myself, again.
Then here comes college. The irresponsible and lazy girl disappeared. A new kind of woman sprang and made the people around her notice her abilities. She was not the perfect person for her course. She has a lot of work to do to acquire all the skills needed in that career. Yet she did things with perseverance, with diligence, with heart. It was always now or never for her. She was always at her best. Assertive when she knows that she has a point, that her opinion is something to ponder at. To sum it up, another whole new person showed up forcing me to conclude again that the person I knew before was gone. It’s a whole new me again. Again. How many times do I have to know myself? How many times should I surround myself with new kinds of people to finally conclude that I know myself perfectly? How many years should I count before learning what was told to us in our internship so as to become a leader if changing is inevitable? I guess, no such person can finally conclude that he/she knows his/herself perfectly well because in a situation where everything seems uncontrollable and emotions just keep on overflowing, you can never tell how far you can go to survive. You can never assume that you cannot do the things you said you would never do. At the end of the day, it all comes down to this, what is the most important thing for me (as of the moment) and how much am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of surviving and balancing priorities in life. I’d say NO. It’s not knowing yourself which is the most vital necessity for you to have the potential of being a leader in your own little society. Getting to know yourself never ends for as long as we live, changing never ends. There are other factors that contribute to the requirements of being a leader someday. I was just listening to the staff while he was lecturing about that matter. And while he was talking, all these things were running on my mind. I was about to question his principle about this issue but I stopped myself. I don’t know why. I just stopped. And then I realized another thing. The assertive young lady who speaks when she knows that she has a point, that her opinion is something to ponder has suddenly disappeared. Again, I have changed. Again, back to zero. Again, I had to get to know myself. |
Trapped in a Never Ending Cycle
Pacesetter Vol XLI No 1 Broadsheet Issue Last summer, a staff on the radio station where I was having my internship told us that to become a leader, one must know him/herself too well so as to realize strengths and weaknesses and to know where he/she should be heading to and where he/she should not. However, no matter how many times it felt like I know myself perfectly, at the end of an epic shit that had happened, I always find myself asking, do I really know myself? Or am I just pretending that I do? When I was young, I always tend to describe myself as a shy, timid girl who just nods to whatever my parents told me. And I also thought that it’s the reason why God gave me a lot of blessings. Obedient kid gets what he wants. That’s how I knew life. That’s how I knew myself.
However, when my parents bought me a lot of pink colored blouses, I started protesting and instead, I started using dark colored shirts. The black colored ones were my favorite, which my parents hated just because it was a devilish shade for them. It was a very simple issue. Yet, the girl who does whatever she was told to do was gone. Instead, an assertive and a bit rebellious girl came out and exposed herself to tell the world that people around her cannot dictate everything that she should do in her life. So I realized that back then, I was wrong. I did not know myself. For if I knew who I am, I should have stick to the shy and oh-so-obedient girl to continue being blessed. Because that’s how I knew life, myself. Years passed and things have changed within me and with the people around me. When I entered high school it all seemed like a whole new dimension. New people. New friends. New life. The shy and timid girl came back. The nerdy brat was gone. I became a parasite in our classroom. I was not getting good grades and I never became part of the crème of the crop. I must say, that this irresponsible, lazy young girl was far different from the kid who always gets a perfect score and makes it to the first spot in their class. |