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With an empty paper and a pen in hand
I sit down to draw things out.
The film of my life plays before my eyes
As I sit and wonder why oh why.

From an early age I was taught to fear,
Fear of what others would think if I acted a certain way;
My actions would lead to consequences;
The infinite amount of possible consequences taught me:
Fear of not being loved,
Fear of losing someone close,
Fear of being embarrassed,
Fear of not getting an approving glance I loved so much.

My teenage years taught me something new,
that my actions matter less than my status and looks,
I could do whatever I liked
as long as I had some connections backing me up,
and a beauty that compensated for the lack of humanly qualities.

For the next ten years I spent my time
trying to look like a model out of a magazine cover.
I learned how to cover my real self with the art of makeup.
Somewhere along the process of hiding my face and turning it into something better,
I happened to have lost myself and became someone even I, myself, did not recognize anymore.
During these years my one fear overpowered all other;
Fear of being ugly.

I finished high school and stumbled upon higher education,
It was a complete change of scene and environment.
Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Pynchon, Hemingway
painted pictures that my eyes had never seen nor my mind ever dreamt
I learned a world outside of my world
History taught me to look at the world from a macro-level
Geography taught me how small the world and how inter-connected we all are
The occurring Tsunamis, earthquakes, genocides, revolutions, wars, and famines,
All these opened my eyes to larger world I did not know existed.
The size of our universe, the population of our earth,
The human rights issues and life threatening disasters surrounding me
Put into perspective of how pathetic my worries and how small my mind.
So I learned. I learned to learn.

I read many books, learned many things and became what I called a “well rounded person,”
Until the day a professor posed a question on me which I could not answer,
She asked, “in 30 seconds, explain to me who you are,
where you came from and where  you are going.”
That day I realized I must’ve read a thousand books,
But I never read myself.
I knew what America’s foreign policy was towards Taiwan,
I knew why china was a threat to many western nations,
I knew how the middle east was tactically destabilized,
But I did not know who I was, where I came from and where I was going.

They say the quest to find one’s self is the hardest.
Buddha left everything and went away to answer this very question.
Who I was, where I came from, and where I was going,
The answer to these questions was nowhere to be found in any book.
I explored my soul to find something, anything I was passionate about,
Something I wanted to do, something that defined me.
After much thought I came to a humbling conclusion:
All my life I had been feeding my mind,
It was time to feed my soul.

How could one feed his soul?
It’s pretty simple, although it really isn’t.
Turn to the one that is closer to you than your veins,
The one who created you, took care of your every need,
Was always there for you,
The one who you should’ve depended on and trusted,
Instead of people you called “friends”
who betrayed you soon after their purpose with you was filled
and your services no longer needed.

Turn to the one who knows you more than you know yourself.
Fear of only what He would think of your actions
Think of only how He would feel towards how you look or dress;
It will brake you from the handcuffs put on you by society
and free you to act in a just manner with a level head
Pray and depend on only him, who would never betray you
Be aware of what goes on in this world and use your knowledge to serve the people,
Turn to him to give you strength and help you,
plan your future so that it becomes a source of light to all those around you.