Be Yourself, And I’m Being Myself

Hallo this is me, Harry. A man with a simple appearance and my Humble nature make me get lots of friends. When I’m in high school I live as ordinary person and don't like to pay attention to others. but since I started my life as a student in college, I feel something has changed in me. Right now I am an Accounting student at Liberty University. I am not a very smart person but also not too stupid in completing assignments.

On the other hand, I am also actively participating in student organization activities and was selected as staff of Brand Management division, I really like designing & drawing anything, moreover drawing is one of my ways to express my feelings and it makes me feel quiet.

In the first week of college, I began to be interested in someone. She looks very quiet & I see that she’s different from the other girls, my eyes always look at what she does. And what made me even more interested in her, she is also smart student who made me become enthusiastic in the classroom. If you guys want to know that everyday I always drew her silently. I fell I’m in love with her.

My Classmate, George is one of the most popular students on my campus. He every day coming to campus with fashionable men's clothes makes this stylist man easily famous and be loved by every girls. George is humble person with anyone and when I make friends with him I feel insecure about my appearance. if I walking with him, everyone just greets George because only he is the best known even what makes me jealous is that Irene also greets George. One day I thought that I had to change my style of dress when hang out with George, if I usually only use T-Shirt & Chino Pants to go to campus every day then I decided to replace it with different types of clothing like Denim and sweatshirt with a variance motif, Jersey top, pile hooded top, and the first time I tried using Knitted Hat. But it didn’t long because I felt uncomfortable with what I used to feel like something was strange.

After I started to return to normal as usual, I decided not to play too often with George because constantly thinking about my appearance made me nervous and did not focus on my work. Time was running fast, at that time our campus chose Lucas & Irene to be the two best students to take part in the Taxation competition. Lucas was very clever in lessons and even arguably Genius, I was also good friends with him but this time Honestly I felt jealous or maybe jealous and somehow it felt like I wanted to be in Lucas's position. After the incident I had a mindset that if I was smart in academics then I had the opportunity to take part in the competition with Irene. I continued to study hard and forced myself to do things beyond my ability, such as studying until late at night and participating in many mini competition activities without rest but I realized and had to accept the fact that Lucas's ability was still above me so he was chosen again with Irene for representing campus in the National Competition event. I really felt that I was tired of struggling because it was all in vain, I could not be as great as others, I felt something strange in me and I kept thinking about it all that made me almost depressed and this was really difficult for me.

At that time I tried to express my feelings with drawing and in the library was a very supportive place because it was quite calm. After that I tried to find a book and I found the book "Ego is The Enemy" by Ryan Holiday. Holiday warns, early success is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. After reading the book, I realized that all this time I just followed my ego and made myself like someone else to be successful. "With success comes the temptation to tell oneself a story," he writes, ignoring the lucky breaks and creating self-mythology. Holiday draws on varied sources - history, literature, philosophy - to suggest strategies to keep the ego in its proper place and proportion.

I threw glance toward the board and I see the quotes from Yogi Berra "learning a life experience, only if you learn” and wait… beside the quotes there is information about the International Art Competition and some arts of the winner will be displayed at Cambridge Open Studios. I was really excited and interested and immediately signed up, for days I tried to pour strong ideas and finally I chose the theme "The Shine of Eye Girl" by Harry Thompson. By drawing a woman who has beautiful eyes and makes everyone drifted into her eyes. I’m glad and proud that my art passed the selection in the International Competition. I only pray in the next 5 days for Final Announcement: The Winner of Best Arts.

When the winner's announcement day arrives the participants can see the results of the announcement in their respective e-mails. That day I was very nervous, honestly even though I only passed the campus selection I was very proud of myself and that made me feel it was okay if I was not elected. But this time God answered. Yes!!…. I passed, it's like a dream I feel really happy that the world sees my arts. The campus highly appreciates by announcing to the entire Liberty University family and giving me awards. Since then my name has become famous on campus and many people are giving congrats to me and that makes me very happy and speechless that Irene talked to me that she was truly amazed and she asked me to keep drawing because she really likes my arts and she want some of my arts.

Through various experiences and failures I thought that I had found out who I was, I found what was inside me and I found what made me happy. I don’t need to be George to become famous, if everyone is amazed & looking for who owns the arts displayed at Cambridge Open Studios. I don't need to be a very smart guy like Lucas to be close to Irene, if he loves my picture. That's enough to make me so happy. I remembered what Yogi Berra says is true "life is a learning experience, only if you learn". I think it is just live, love it, and learn from it and now I promise to be myself, loving myself like I'm loving my Arts and learn from experience.