“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.”
– Wendy Wasserstein
Eric Armstrong, a speaker that visited ETSU about a year ago, told a crowd of aspiring young digital media artists that we became artists because our moms once hung our drawings on the fridge.
While sometimes a little honesty can be a good thing so that we are not slapped in the face once we go out into the real world and then told that our latest masterpiece resembles something the cat puked up, everyone needs a little encouragement at some point in his or her life.
Every time I visit home my father reminds me of how he wishes that I had gone into the medical field. There is no real logical basis for this desire – I was lucky enough to get through Biology I.
I am a senior now and I love what I am doing. But I dread bringing the subject up with him – to this day he maintains that I should have gone into something in the medical field. It makes me feel like I have made some sort of huge mistake. Does he not think I can make something of myself without going into medicine?
Lack of encouragement, no matter what form it is in or whom it comes from, can spread like a cancer through our minds. It remains that nagging voice in the back of our heads that tells us that we are not good enough to do the thing that we truly desire. It tells us to give up on childish dreams and join the real world in which we do what we are told.
Tragically this is how people find themselves stuck in a job, or in a relationship, or in a situation that they never wanted to be in, just because they didn’t think they were good enough, followed someone else’s dreams or gave up on their own personal desires all together.
Even though our parents think they are helping us out by telling us all about the high job security and wonderful pay of nursing they must be careful to not discourage us in other ways! The slightest word of encouragement from those we love makes all the difference in the world.
My 16-year-old sister reminded me of something very important before I came back to Johnson City after my winter break. In one of her unusually deep and profound moments, she told me that as a junior in high school, she has no clue as to what she wants to do in life and with complete earnestness in her voice said to me that I was truly lucky to know what I wanted, something that it takes many others years to discover for themselves, and I should let nothing stop me from pursuing it.
I honestly believe everyone has a path they are supposed to follow all their own in life. And though it may take a lot of hard work and practice to get where I need to be, I have every confidence that I will make it in the end.
I also look forward to the day my future children find this old column and use it to blackmail me into letting them major in underwater basketweaving.

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