Being Noah Tesfaye #19: Pursue What You Want

Well today has been a long day to say the least. I just wrapped up the SAT for the first time and I’ve been thinking about college stuff all month. Through it all, I’ve been hearing a lot of discouraging BS. There were moments this week that the amount of pessimism that has been being thrown around reminded me to believe in the power of self. The only person that matters most in life is me, or you.

I got the idea to write this week after my good friend, with no past school leadership experience, was voted senior class president after running a “Trump-esque” campaign (the blindside aspect, not the policy). He told himself to just run and have fun and see what would happen. He made a campaign video, amazing poster, got a lot of campaign supporters, and won. Against all of the possible naysayers and people who may have found it ridiculous that he could have lost against all experienced candidates, he worked hard and campaigned to win the election for senior class president.

My good friend’s story this week just speaks to the bigger message out here I want to speak out about. You are the one that can control your accomplishments. Like I wrote a few months ago, I realized that I have the power to change my life if I just work as hard as I can. What is as equally important is to take all advice with a grain of salt. What I really mean is the idea that we should have our goals all in sight and have laser vision about what we want to pursue. This week, I got told no about something that was a dream of mine from someone who supposedly had experience in telling me whether I could do this or not. Had I not had the self-confidence and persistent believe that I could truly pursue this goal, I don’t know how I could have handled what occurred. I may have gone into another serious depressed state that could have thrown off my SAT this week and the rest of the goals I want to pursue this month. I don’t know what could have happened…

What I did know was that I believe in my dreams. I believe in the fact that I can pursue my dreams of truly changing the world on a global scale. It is imperative that you surround yourself with people who can believe your passion, but keep you in check. They need to support you, and even when they know the challenge may be extremely difficult, they will help you every single step of the way because they want you to succeed. Against all expectations, there will be people that will tell you that you cannot do it. You can’t make it. You aren’t qualified enough. Stop trying. Give up. I cannot tell you how much my life would be different if I took any of the advice that I took from these people. They don’t have your best interests and they do not want you to succeed.

So succeed. Kick ass. Be the best person you can be because it is what you want. I don’t want anyone reading this to ever be discouraged from ever giving something their best shot. Why live your life regretting to not take that shot, not giving that opportunity a chance? I am thankful I get to live in a place every single day that gives me the opportunity to succeed and guide me onto my path to a future that will be one in a trillion. So to my fellow classmates, friends, students across the globe, and anyone who may be reading, just know that it only takes one person to make your dream a reality: you. You can do it, against all that may say otherwise. You can change the world too.