Physical Education was always fun for me because it involves less writing and lectures rather it involves activities and movement. Nevertheless, I was never active in PE because of my own shyness or insecurities.
The fact that I will have to do something and not just among two or three people but among a crowd usually gives me fear. I have all of these ideas filled in my head this idea that if I flutter and make mistakes how will people see me? These insecurities didn’t allow me to participate in many activities but of course there is always a story.
Back then, while I was in primary school, I never really had many insecurities, although I was quite shy to be in the spotlight. I started my primary school in a private school then I finished the rest of it in a public school.
In my primary school (public school), of course, we had nothing like Physical Education but we engaged in sports activities, we had different kinds of clubs, but we call them house, we had about 7 of them. I was in a purple house.
Firstly, I joined the marching team and I didn’t participate when the time came, and the second time I did join the marching team and I participated, I can’t forget that I luckily got a free jersey, hehe.
It was necessary for everyone to participate in an activity, most people think I would join the running team because I have long legs but I couldn’t, like I said I hated being in the spotlight, I would see people laughing at them (runners) because they fell while running. Marching was indeed a better option for me because we were matching in groups and no one would mostly notice anyone.
In secondary school ( junior school), we offered PE as a subject, it was fun a lot, we had a lot of activities we never had while I was in primary school, like high jump, long jump, javelin throw, gymnastics, shot put.. e.t.c
It was quite new to me, as everyone displayed their skills. Some people were so relentless, regardless of many times they failed trying, especially for the high jump, I love high jump a lot but I never did it. Again, my insecurities of being seen as a laughing stock when I fail
Instead, I join gymnastics which was not really much fun to me but at least it was a subtle activity in my school. So most times, we don’t really have much to do.
After years of lack of confidence, I finally had to do something that put me in the spotlight. This was not in my junior school but it was in my senior school, although we don’t offer PE as a subject but we do have inter-house sports every year.
I decided to run on a particular year. I decided to give it a try, although, I didn’t get to be the first but came out as the fourth person but I never had the opportunity to do anything like that again.
I have learned a lesson from this, if you want to do something, then go for it, people's judgment doesn’t matter. I learned that making mistakes in the spotlight is normal because no one is perfect.
As I said, some people are never tired of trying, and even when people laugh at them when they failed again, there are still going to participate in the next challenge, it always baffles me how they were able to continue despite their failures. I learned a great lesson from this.
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However, I didn’t get my full confidence from this experience, because after that I still can’t stand in front of a crowd because I’ll be so scared of making mistakes and this has affected me in a lot of ways that I now regret.
But as time goes I became to build my confidence little by little, I might not be at my fullest ‘confidence level’ but I will say that I’m gradually growing and with time I will become better.
