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Be sure you put your foot in the right place, then stand firm

--Abraham Lincoln

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We live in a day and age where we just want to reap where we sowed a little or where we didn't sow at all. You can go on and deny it but at the end you know deep down that it's true.

Many of us just want the pay day to come and be big without actually working for it, least I did. We want to sit down and let the profit flow in, this is possible but you have to have worked for it sometime or else it's going to be tagged as something you do not like.

I was recently in a problem that ended badly, but life goes on.

Today I'm going to address the issue of being the person your heart wants you to, not the person the world wants you to be.
Being a medical student, I have many friends that are in med school but didn't really want to become medical doctors, most of them wanted to be musicians, artists, writers, but were forced by their parents to study medcine.

This should not be so.

Let me tell you a short story.
There were three friends, they were all aspiring engineering students. They all wanted to study engineering at one of the prestigious college in their country. One was a genius, one, an average student and the other one was not so bright.
Ok, let's name the genius Boy A, the average student Boy B and the not so bright one Boy C.

Boy A was a from a wealthy home but did not show it, Boy B was from an average home with average income parents, mostly comfortable with life, he loved photography a lot, but his father wouldn't hear of it, so he had to suck it up, but Boy C was from a poor home with a crippled mother, a forever nagging mother that works as a cleaner to feed the home, with a sister that's way past her biological clock.

So, the need to suceed was somehow very important for Boy C, dictating his every decision, being a big weight on his shoulders.

They were all accepted into the school to study their course of choice, and when they were leaving home there was the usual "Remember the son of whom you are" "Don't join bad gangs" lectures from their parents. But Boy C's lecture as expected was harsh than normal, he was from a poor home that had to gather all they had for him to be able to go to school. So if he did anything wrong, all was over for his family, in a sense.

So this had him tense, extra careful, scared, which was no help to him at all.

Well, they resumed college, and as life would have it, they were all sharing the same room, the wealthy genius, the average average and the poor not so bright, all in the same room.
They became close friends and were literally brothers. They got into trouble many at times, leaving Boy C in emotional mess. To make matters worse, their headmaster was a pain in the a_s. Throwing words anyhow with no care for who it affected, whether the person took it hard or not. And these boys were forever getting into trouble with him.

He tried seperating the three of them, using threats, to even their parents resulting to more pressure on Boy C. At the end of their first year exam Boy A came out with flying colours leaving Boy B and C as the tail bearers.
This caused some confusion in their friendship because Boy A never reads, he is the one that's always leading the trio to trouble, always telling them not to take life too hard, this lead to Boy C changing rooms and cramming books for exams.

This is where I'm going.
When Boy A saw all that was happening, he knew he had to do something, so instead of urging his friends to have fun, he starting urging them to be themselves, to search for that greatness that boiled on the inside and shine it forth to the world.

This was no easy task, as the mind of man is no easy thing to change because once it has an orientation, it follows it no matter what.
But he didn't give up on his friends, he gave it all he had and at the end it paid up.

At the end of their final exams, where they were to have job interviews with the companies they were to work with, Boy B that liked photography left engineering and pursued his dreams, his father later accepted that fact.
Boy C that was not so bright and relied on cramming finally accepted his friends advice to belive in himself and not allow the weight of his family problems to weigh him down. He passed his final exams and was employed by one of the biggest companies in the country.

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So What Am I Really Trying To say

Don't let anyone decide for you what you want to do with your life, "your life" it's yours. There's always that voice inside of us that directs us, that tells us what we truly are, embrace that person and see how better a person you can be.

In many homes today, children are being forced to go into the medical line, be a medical doctor, become a nurse, a lawyer against their will. What of those that want to become musicians, artists, photographers, comedians. Are they not human beings?

We really need to look deep down to know who we are, so that we can be the person we are supposed to be.

Sometimes we ask ourselves, "what if we fall when we strike out and follow our dreams" why not let's ask ourselves "what if we fly". I think that's a better question to ask.

Public opinion, though often formed upon a wrong basis, yet generally has a strong sense of justice

--Abraham Lincoln

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