Sorry, Can I Start Over?

November 30th, 2022

Show Me The Ropes

Today, on the 30th of November, I am determined. I am refreshed. I am powerful. In less than a week now I will be giving my first academic presentation; a sentence I never thought I would see or hear from myself. Going into these past couple weeks I’ve had a lot of doubts about it. What if I freeze? What if no one really gets it? What if someone sees through this mirage of academia and boils my presentation down to a portfolio piece? Am I even doing any of this right? Then figured out the following: Yes, I am doing the presentation right. Sometimes what you’re researching isn’t for everyone, but it’s the pride and passion in your work that defines it at its’ core. I may be an outlier because of my discipline, but I’m not allowing it to be something that I become afraid of.

From The Window

For my whole life, I’ve been observing all the successful people in my life and thinking about whether or not I could get to where they are too. More importantly, how I would. I questioned it often, but I was determined to in the most unique way possible.

I’ve never really felt that I’ve accomplished much conventionally. Most of my professional career was supported by the fact that other people really like talking about their actual jobs, otherwise I’m not sure I’d know how to do what I do. Throughout my college experience I’ve been a business owner, a creative director, a friend, a good student, and a teacher. All things that I never really saw myself developing into, especially considering the circumstances of where I came from. But if movies taught me anything, it isn’t all in how you start it, its how you end things that stick with people.

Curtain Call

I’m going to embrace being different. I’m not going to feel inferior just because my presentation may not be some groundbreaking new discovery, but it’s me. I am the underrepresented groups I’m talking about. I am paving my own way to my future. I am my own hero. There weren’t any heroes left or made for me when I was growing up. I was just the little Mexican boy to everyone who didn’t do great in school, but was good at art.

There was never room for any other defining characteristics because no one ever gave the chance to find them. Instead, I’m going to claim my own. It’s all in how you end things, and I’m determined to make myself proud. I don’t need to do it for anyone else. I just need to do it for me.