Don't give up

 You miss all the shots you don't take.

Despite how frustrating it gets to miss, to fail, to get it wrong, it is only a matter of time before you will get the hang of it and will be successful.

Of the things that are needed to be successful, I find that there are three.

There are two of these elements that you control: your method and your willingness to give it another try.
The third one is time.
Try different methods, time and again. Fail, make mistakes, Turn back after and reflect on what you can improve on.

Just don't give up.

Make it a mission to reach your objective. You may not know how you will do it, you may not know when, you may not believe that you're even capable of doing it. Despite this, you must give it a shot and let life demonstrate that you can't do it. 

You can't go into a battle thinking about what you'll say when you lose; you're destined to lose if you do so.

The same way that Mr Miyagi taught us to wax on and wax off, you may not know what you're going to learn from the experience, but you could be molding yourself into a karate kid with each attempt you have.

Seeing the Person other People See

My life was completely transformed in what seemed like an instant for me.

I went from being a healthy young man with his whole future ahead of him, a proven track record of academic excellence and strong relationships into a being that was fighting day by day, hour by hour, instant by instant, for their lives. I was blessed with health, with the drive to overcome whatever situation I was confronting while keeping a positive attitude the whole time. There were moments where things felt like too much, but deep down, I knew that I would be able to succeed. 

It was a deep sense of self-confidence; in anything that depended purely on me, I would, without a doubt,  be capable of succeeding, and, not only succeed, but be great at it.

One example is this: 

I started to play basketball in high school as a way to make friends. I used to praise the 2011 Celtics with their all stars Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnet, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo. I modeled my shot off of Ray Allen's stellar form. Each day that I could, I would go out to play after school. When I moved to DR, I got my first opportunity to get on the basketball team. 

We were not good, at all.

I remember how we'd go to other schools, play our hearts out and get pummeled by 20 points. That was not fun, to say the least, but it helped develop something deep within me, a desire to become better.

I knew that we, as a team, were not good, that we needed to grow, we needed to improve. 

That led me to take steps and start training during my free time, doing things alone, getting in extra laps, putting in the effort to become better and stronger when nobody was looking. 

In my senior year, after all the practice and effort, I was selected as the captain of the basketball team. I didn't realize it at the time, as I was not boastful about the way that I trained and practiced while alone, but others had seen my improvement. The first day of practice of the 2013-2014 season I was named captain of the team. I couldn't believe that I had been trusted with such a responsibility. I hadn't trained for this, to be in this role, yet here I was. There was no instructions manual that explained how to be made the captain, but, despite this, I was chosen among my peers to lead.

That same year, something similar, but in a different context, happened. 

I was selected to be one of the Senior Class leaders, along with another girl that was in the class. 

She was a seasoned vet in the school, having been there since she was in Pre-K, outstanding test scores, academic leader, musician, great singer and on top of all of that gorgeous.

I was a "newbie", only having been attending SCS for 2 years. Despite what I believed to be a lack of qualifications, the principals and administrative staff selected me for the role. They saw me as someone who was at the same, if not at a higher, level than my counterpart María.

Here I was, with two great honors, placed in leadership roles by people above me. Despite that, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a young man with so much flaws and self-doubt that it was almost as if those recognitions were given to me by mistake, as though I was selected as the least bad among many.

College was a similar story; while in the student chapter for Civil Engineering, CIC, the year was 2017. It was the one chance that my colleagues and I would have to be part of the leadership board. I was presented with an opportunity to go to Canada for a semester abroad, and jumped at the chance. I would be there for the first semester of 2018. During that year, we'd be tasked with organizing the Civil Engineering seminar.

 
In the weeks leading to 2018, elections were held to select the leadership team for the group. Although I wasn't so passionate about it, I felt I had try to become president. Despite knowing I would be absent for the first four months of my term, I put my name on the ballot and trusted that things would go as they would. It was irrational for me to think that I'd win, especially given my intentions to be out of the country for the next 4 months, yet, despite this clear and obvious shortcoming, there were people who still voted for me to be president. I remember the former president telling me that she would have loved to have seen me lead; had it not been for those months I'd be away, she believes I would have become president.

I didn't think much about that much, I tried to enjoy my time in Canada and make the best of what was happening, but, there was a bit of a bitter taste that lingered on my tongue ever since. I had made the choice to go to Canada and I was happy about it, but was it the correct choice? Did I make that choice because I didn't see myself as the person who would do a good job leading the group? Was I simply unable to see, more than my potential, the God given talents that everybody around me saw?

It has taken me going through this accident to find an answer to these questions, to actually understand how blessed I am and how much potential I have. I finally began to see what others have seen in my since I was a young man. It took me starting over, literally from the very bottom, to see the form that I had, to realize how good my roots are, that, despite being on the very line between life and death, I have been able to grow day by day to get to the place that I'm at.

Look in the mirror and notice the good within you, focus on those positive traits that you're able to see so easily in other and realize that you too may have them.

Getting Started

If you're anything like me, some things just seem so hard to get started on. 

You go around in circles, around and around, looking for the right moment, the right location, the exact instant in your life when everything is exactly the way you envision it should be for the outcomes you seek to come about and when you will finally have the courage to go and chase the dreams that you have.

As you take each step, you unknowingly are digging yourself deeper into a hole; the trail you've been treading on for so long turns into a cavern. Days pass; days turn into weeks; weeks turn into months; months turn into years. Before you know it, you've dug a hole so deep that you have no clue how you'll be able to get out. 

When you finally wake up, you feel like you're stuck, the hole that you have inadvertently dug yourself is so deep that you can't seem to find a way out.

We fear the unknown, the place full of doubts and uncertainty. We look at others who seem to have it right, and try to study their formula, but look at everything except for the principle cause of their success. You wonder how it is that they are not stuck in the hole that you find yourself in, but then you realize, you are the one that is stuck. They just didn't stop moving forward. That is the difference. No matter what went on, they treaded forwards, without holding back and turning in circles and circles, willing to fail, willing to be wrong, willing to make mistakes, the very things that you were trying to avoid. 

The fear of going through all of those "negative" situations is the thing that directly prevents you from ever getting to the positive outcome that you desire.

Instead of looking at HOW people because successful, look at WHY they became successful. The most successful people were not held back by the fear of making mistakes. They made mistakes, learned from them and kept on moving.

Be willing to take that first step. The dream that you're chasing will stay in your head until you make it a real. Make it into something tangible and, after it's made, take the steps to refine it and mold it into what your abilities and determination will allow you to build.

Where normal people saw a stone, ordinary and worthless, Michelangelo saw his sculptures and began picking away at them, chisel by chisel until they formed the works of art he envisioned.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to not meet anyone's expectations. Don't let the feeling of self doubt block your path and drive you around in circles.

Take that first step.