I once told a therapist that I was the black sheep of the family.
“You?!” she said her voice full of surprise. “But you’re so NORMAL!”
Yes, I am the black sheep of my family. I am unapologetically me. It takes time, however to see the blessing in your individuality especially when you grow up in a collectivist culture.
When you decide you’re tired of doing what those before you have done, you will initially be sorry you made that decision.
Everyone in your life will make sure of that.
When I decided to go to grad school, become a writer, or have kids late or cloth diaper my son (this was a real battle by the way, which I wrote about here), there were looks, eye rolls and a lot of unsupportive comments.
I’m so GRATEFUL that I listened to myself.
This doesn’t mean I always make the right decision or that I don’t sometimes make the wrong one to prove that I’m right. Guilty as charged. But that for the most part, when something feels strong to me, I listen.
I have only my inner rebel to thank for majoring in English instead of journalism because I always thought of English as art and journalism as science. And I secretly knew I was more fond of words than facts.
Of course, I am a freelance writer who writes articles for a living, and even my picture books have nonfiction in them. Yet, it takes a lot of focus for me to pair down and research. Whereas writing and reading beautiful words feels like all things whimsical and magical for me.
If I hadn’t listened to my intuition, I would have majored in Business because that’s the practical thing to do or Environmental Science because that’s the thing you should do when trying to save the planet.
Twenty years later, I see the wisdom in majoring in English and also minoring in Ethnic Studies. Never in a million years would I ever think that I’d end up writing children’s books about my culture and growing up on Oahu. I didn’t think my boring ordinary life was special enough.
It just took time and the world to catch up to us diverse writers.
I write this because I felt a call to write this today to you. If you are right now doubting yourself and your choices, you can easily check-in.
Even if you’ve abandoned yourself for too long or have been trying to figure out your purpose, or are scared or there are too many roadblocks or there’s a pandemic…
It’s not too late.
Life is waiting for you to take that step and years from now when you look back, you will be so grateful you did.