People come into your life for a reason.
They might not know it themselves, why.
You might not know it. But there's a reason.
Just like my Instagram profile says: I am constantly "intrigued" by the world around me, mainly by the people. I am the epitome of being a people person. I genuinely love meeting and interacting people, well people who fascinate me. Which, for a person that moves around as many times as I've had, would easily shun myself to the world. But I've found a way to use these experiences to my advantage and make the most of any situation.
It could be as subtle as our common interest in a particular movie. Or the way we both inadvertently do the same things or think similarly. I particularly do not go out and seek people to interact with, it just happens one comes along my way and I say to myself "Oh, hey there fellow human, you are interesting, I will keep talking to you..." That is kind of the way I think of it. But once in awhile I will come across another human being and say to myself, "I want to be just like him/her..." I literally look at him/her and just feel overwhelmed with the vast intelligence, an aura of passion that seems to fuel this person, and radiates out of his/her very existence. Sounds pretty intense, huh? I've only met a few handful of people who live a life with passion, more importantly doing what they absolutely love. And it's these very people that make me turn my head twice and makes my heart smile.
From the moment I stepped into my professor's class, I knew... that everything that had to happen for me to be in this very classroom, was for a reason. I like to believe that people come into your life for a reason... Looking back, I see things happen for a reason.
On the last day of my favorite class, I waited to talk to my professor. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe some "yoda type advice" where I would leave that class with all his wisdom and his magical creative powers embedded in a sword or in my case in my external hard drive.
As he called me, I walked towards him with my head held somewhat high, but with an almost bow-like posture wanting to pay some sort of homage for being graced by his wisdom twice a week for the past 16 weeks. That's what he was to me, someone I looked up to, someone I wanted to be around all day just so I wouldn't miss anything. I wanted so much to ask him to be my mentor, to be my personal guide in this journey of mine.
As I sat next to him, he looked over my last project. He paused and smiled. I never know what to expect whenever he does that, it keeps me on edge and eager at the same time. Throughout the years, I've learned to develop a thick skin for this field, I've learned that any critique is never a personal jab at you, and most importantly I've learned to listen, to not react to quickly with the urge to be defensive and to argue my reason for doing what I did. He taught me that, to just listen.
His pause felt like hours, as I tried to decipher what his pause meant. Finally he said, as he turned my project around looking at every crease, every word, and every corner. "There are two kinds of people in this field, there are people that work hard to become a graphic artist, they read every book, they create, fail, create again, fail again, but they never give up. Then there are people who possess an innate ability for this craft, being creative is almost effortless, their craft is flawless because they knew this is what they were meant to do, so they do it well, every single time. They are almost obsessed about it, but these people call it their passion. You are the latter. You possess a gift that makes it so clear to me that this is what you were born to do...."
I was speechless. The only response I could give him was "Thank You, hearing this meant a lot to me.."
Little did he know that this meant EVERYTHING to me. If he only what it took for me to get here. If he only knew how badly I wanted this. If he only knew what he just told me will forever stick with me and fuel my passion even more and when that day comes where I'm finally where I aim to be, I will pick up that phone, call him and say "Thank you professor for believing me."
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