Hey everyone. What's going on? Hope you all are doing great even in these difficult times and I hope your families are doing great too. It's been a while since I last came over here. Actually, this was the first community I joined. I was (and still am) passionate about helping people improve themselves in one way or the other, emotionally and mentally. I also love reading other people's own experiences so they'll all add up and be a light, helping me navigate this dark road we call life.
Okay, so today I felt like I had to let this out, alright? Not totally because I wanted to give some of you a little insight that could help you (as most people here have already passed the stage of which I would be talking about) but majorly because I needed to get your opinions on what you did and what you would have done differently if you were back in the kind of shoes I've found myself in right now.
So, I remember as a kid when I was still in kindergarten. I was the top in my class and it gained me a lot of traction from teachers and students alike. Literally everyone in my class wanted to be my friend, lol. I can clearly remember those times after class activities where our exercise books would be handed back to us after we've been graded by our class teacher. Boy, was I excited during those times. I would barely be able to wait to see what my grade was and of course in the end, I'd be having very good grades as opposed to some of my classmates who found some of those stuff difficult, especially math (which was my best subject at that time). It was then that my class teacher gave me the nickname "Professor" or "Prof" which kinda latched onto me really quickly that even my mom, dad and other relatives started to call me that at times.
Fast-forwarding to elementary school, it was still the same. If there were times I wasn't coming out as the best student after exams (which were actually pretty rare), then I'd be coming out as the second person. I liked it. I actually knew that I was good in math and science which made everyone expect that in the future, my life endeavor would revolve around math and science. Important to point out too, it was about this time I began to play piano. I actually began to play piano during my kindergarten days and so in elementary school, I was still on that (even up till now) although I didn't have a piano or music teacher. I was just making random sounds on my own, but I was interested in that so much, and I still am.
Over here, junior high and high school are actually joined together and is actually called secondary school. So I remember in my first year of secondary school. It was then that I really took deliberate steps to begin to learn music, majorly focusing on the piano and the guitar. Of course it was more of a hobby but it was a major part of my life. I clicked with music.
You know how high school is. That's where most people actually figure out what they're going to do with their lives and that's like what they really want to do, as in, they're really passionate about it. It could be law, computer science, medicine, engineering and so on and so forth. As for me? Well I was more of the "go-with-the-flow" kinda guy. I thought, "well since I'm good in math and science, and everyone surely expects me to do something in line with those two, then I'm just gonna have to do it." Yeah, sure I was (and am) very good in science and math but there was no passion. It was a God-given talent but it wasn't me, or should I say, it definitely wasn't the version of me that I wanted to be.
It was at my last year of high school that I really began to reminisce on what exactly I wanted to do with my life. I mean here I was surrounded by my friends and classmates and they're all talking about how they're gonna go to this university and go do this and that and afterwards feel fufiled and so on and so forth. Surrounded by such energy brought me to a state of pondering over the future. I realized that what I really want to do with my life wasn't science and I've been fooling myself all along. I didn't like it. All I really wanted to do was music! But now it was too late to go study music in a university. I was already in the science class and I had already applied for a university to go do engineering.
This brought a lot of depression to me even up till after my high school days. This is almost a year since I left. In between that time till now has been countless seasons of depression and fear.
So much fear of what's to come.
I began to think, "you mean I could actually live life and not be happy? Why is this happening to me?" This fear really affected me a lot in so many ways I won't even like to talk about. I was in my own world where hope of the later things to come didn't exist. I had ruined my life, so I thought.
But, no. I wouldn't let that affect me. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonades, right? I figured that I decide whether or not I get to be happy and I choose the former. Yeah sure I hadn't gotten what I wanted but it's never too late. I mean, there's still so much time. It's actually never over until I decide it's over.
Well, this is a year since high school and I'm not yet in college. But right now, I'm studying. I am studying what I'm going there to do which is software engineering. Maybe I can make out something good from where I've found myself today. Maybe, just maybe, I could turn these lemons into lemonades. If I've found myself where I am today, then so be it. I'm gonna do it perfectly. And music? I haven't left that one behind. I also study music here at home. I take it very seriously too and I enjoy it so much.
Sometimes I'd feel like I'm stressing myself to much. The days move by faster because at times I don't feel like I have enough time in the day. Sometimes I just wanna quit. But then, that same fear comes along, this time not as an adversary, but as my best friend. It tells me, "hey, you better go on or it's gonna get worse." I'm so grateful for it. There is no giving up. No, not now, not ever.
Has any of you ever felt like you wasted a large part of your life and you sit always in regret about it? It may have happened in high school, in college or after college. I wanna hear it! Let me know how you dealt with it.
edited on Canva
