I have officially completed and graduated from my Bachelor of Arts in Communication. Those who are close to me know that I have felt every need to voice my unenthusiasm about this milestone, so I will start with that first. The days approaching June 12, the date of my convocation, was dreadful. I was not sure what the point of this was until someone told me it was a celebration of a milestone. Then it got even worse for me. What did I have to celebrate? Upon finishing my last class in December, I was determined to find a full-time, entry-level job at a NGO. I sent out numbers of resumes and cover letters on the daily in the beginning of the year. The lack of feedback robbed me of my confidence. I went from asking myself questions such as, “am I not good enough?”, to answering them with, “yes, you are not good enough”. The fine line between living and existing was more and more visible to me and I was slowly toppling over to the latter.
One of my closest friend told me that we need to celebrate ourselves for all the big and small milestones, such as finally making it out to the gym (without making a U-turn to get some sushi take-out and binge watch Orange Is The New Black instead, that may have happened before). She said that such positive reinforcement will eventually cause your brain to crave more of that good-good feelings of accomplishment.
The day came and I couldn’t help it but allow myself to be excited. There was something about being in a room with hundreds of other fresh graduates who were probably just as scared as I was. We all chose a degree that gave us immense freedom in the road of becoming. Sometimes I think to myself, I wish I went for a specified trade instead. As the road to becoming became blurry, I almost forgot why I chose this very major. I love to write. I love to explore about how the news communicates to us. I love incorporating critical thinking into my daily life. I love to research about minority issues relating race and gender and then bringing them to light through words. This major allowed me to discover my true passion and calling in life – to help those less fortunate in society. I can be whoever I want to be, and that’s scary as hell. But it should be scary, and it should be unpredictable, that is how you become interesting.
More often than not, the person who is hardest on myself is me. While tough love works at times, it has been causing more harm than good to my self-esteem. I need to remember that confidence is developed from within and not given by others. Be kind to yourselves.
Monday's Bloodstains 