Taken at Pier 39, San Francisco in 2010
When she was little, her mind was clouded with dreams and ambitions. Her aspirations mounted over her little frame, but that didn’t stop her from believing that one day, she would have a dream that would make a big impact in her life and her surroundings. She was only seven when she told her mother, “Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be a doctor.”
Her mother smiled, registering the innocence in the child’s face and gently asked, “Why do you want to be a doctor?”
“I want to save people,” the little girl replied. “I want to wear the white coat and operate on people who are sick.”
“What else would you like to be?” her mother smiled.
“Maybe one day I’ll become a missionary just like the missionaries at our church,” the girl said as her thoughts were captivated by the group of friendly missionaries who preached about God and did a lot of evangelistic work. “They love to help others. I want to be like them.”
The mother reached to her side and embraced her daughter in a warm hug with a rush of affection for the young girl. Such big dreams at a tender age.
As the girl grew up, she was exposed to many new things. When she was nine years of age, she learned how to play the piano. It started almost magically as she laid her fingers on the delicate white keys. She picked it up quickly and her teacher told her mother that this young girl had a fine talent for music. The girl enjoyed playing the piano, and pretty soon, decided that she wanted to be a piano teacher when she grew up. Several years later, she became a huge fan of a TV show and suddenly aimed to become an actress. She suppressed the crazy dream within her, afraid to let others know about it. Pretty soon, she forgot about that and moved on to other aspirations. As she advanced into a teenager, she became more fickle-minded. She realized that she wanted a dream that would lead to a bright future, but she couldn’t think of anything that suited her options aside from writing. Ever since she had started off at school, she had developed a passion for writing. She never seemed tired of it. At school, she especially liked English the most and excelled in it above all the other subjects. She used it to her advantage and started writing short stories in her free time. Her friends complimented her work and many of them said the same thing: “You should become an author!”
She continued to write in her free time and writing eventually became a parchment of her thoughts. She would compose songs, poems and stories based on her feelings. Writing was a way she could express herself. It was the mirror to her soul. Then, she decided that she would become an author. But what kind of author? At the end of her high school years, she possessed a new interest for photography. Pictures didn’t look like pictures anymore. Every picture contained a special meaning behind it. Every picture had caused the photographer time, effort and creativity. When she grasped the beauty of photography, she combined it with writing and suddenly an idea struck her: photojournalist! Why hadn’t she thought of that before? It was the art of photography that pleased her and the joy of writing that made her realize her passion.
Passion is the essence of everything in life. Think about it. You can’t have a mutual relationship with no passion. You can’t excel in your studies if you never had the passion to study. Passion opens up doors to other elements like determination, strength, courage, faith, patience and loads more. You can’t have a dream if you’re not passionate over something. Everything requires passion. You’re not giving your best if you’re not passionate about it.
She didn’t just want to write for the sake of writing; she wanted to inspire others through her writing. She hoped that people could relate and connect with her articles. She didn’t want to be remembered as “just another writer”; she wanted them to remember her for being the one who struck a chord within their hearts with her sincerity in the articles. Most importantly, she wanted her readers to feel the connection between the articles from a first-person’s point of view, not from a third-person’s angle. Photojournalism was a good way to express her thoughts and through inspiring others, she knew that she’d achieved the very first dream she had as a child: to help and encourage others from a first-person’s perspective.
So the girl finally came to understand why her dreams had wavered from time to time; from a doctor to a missionary, then from a pianist to a journalist. One day, reality struck her saying, “There are millions of people out there who can write. Out of the millions, probably only ten thousand decide to go on to become a journalist. The others don’t want to face the competition, so they move on to other jobs that assure a guaranteed income. Now, out of the ten thousand, probably only one thousand actually make it big in the world. The others probably end up jobless because the competition in the field of journalism is just too immense. You have to be REALLY good to excel.”
That scared her. The more she thought about it, she began to see the truth between the lines. She knew that she wasn’t the best writer. There were loads of other people out there who could write way better than she could. Who was she, compared to those who had a powerful command of English, an endless vocabulary and flawless grammar? Placing herself beside all those people, she suddenly felt so small. Her dream quivered again and soon, she had left it behind and was looking for a different type of dream – one that would at least land her a job somewhere with a good sum of money.
It never occurred to her until much later that she was turning down her one and only passion, which was writing. If she just walked away from it like that, she would never know what would become of her authenticity. She had to give it a try; take a big risk if she had to, but at least she knew that she was striving for something worth it; her passion. This was her dream and she was never going to let anyone come close to shattering it anymore. Even if she didn’t end up as a renowned photojournalist, or even if she were to end up as something else totally unrelated to journalism, she would have no regrets because at least she’d worked hard to fulfill her aspirations. So what if it didn’t work out? That wouldn’t mark the end of her dreams – she would still continue writing and dreaming that one day, all of it would be totally worth it.
That girl goes by the name Carissa Gan, who was inspired to write this when she woke up one morning and two words just popped into her head: “talent” and “gift”. Can you distinguish between the two and say that they are not the same?
They are NOT the same. All this while, I’d been using them interchangeably. “Gift” is a natural ability that enables you to excel in that certain criteria. Let’s take Drawing for instance. Everyone can draw. But there are some who can draw exceptionally well and they don’t even need to try too hard. It just comes naturally. They’re unable to explain why they’re better at drawing than other people, all they know is that they are passionate about drawing and that simple passion that they have is able to carry them to greater levels and because of that, they’re able to produce a better work of art. A “talent” is when you put your gift into good use. For those people with the flair for drawing, their talent is drawing! Their “gift” would probably be creativity. Without creativity, they wouldn’t have found their talent in drawing.
I believe that there’s a gift or two planted in every soul out there. Some of us might have discovered what our gifts are, and some of us probably haven’t. But gifts can come in a variety of different forms; it doesn’t necessarily have to be musically or artistically inclined. It could be something as simple as being a good listener, or being able to make people double over with laughter at every thing you say. I learned that a gift is something natural and cannot be forced. When probed deeper, a gift is not meant to be used for one’s entertainment or pleasure, but to be shared with others. A gift is a calling. What is yours?
Composed on June 2009
Composed on June 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment