The Power OF A Gift

When I was 19 years old, living in Romania, a friend I met at the local English Club gave me a gift that changed the course of my life. She gifted me a ticket to a conference in South Korea, all inclusive for two weeks - airfare, hotel stay, food, everything.

When I said ‘yes’ I didn’t know this gift would give me so much more than I could have imagined. I’d never flown on an airplane before, I’d never been to Asia before, I’d never seen or tasted Korean food before, I’d never been to a conference before, and the list goes on.

Yet, what I also received was the gift of discovering how skillful, resilient and resourceful I was, as a young adult, at navigating new situations.

But most of all, I have discovered who I was, what my values were, and what I was standing for in life.

When you are away from home and from the people you love, you are forced to face difficulties and find your identity to stand on. This identity in return allows you to move beyond the perceived differences and connect with others at a deeper level – at heart level. Thus, on that trip I discovered and experienced things I had never known about myself, about the people in this world, and about the world itself - and how to connect with all of them.

That gift has shaped who I was, who I wanted to become, and what decisions I would make next in my life.

It might sound cliché, yet it opened my eyes (and my heart) to see which way I wanted to go in my life. It offered me the clarity to know and recognize my direction in life, my passion, and my motivation to succeed.

It also gave me the validation, through the actual experience, that I was truly capable of succeeding on my own, using my own strengths and skills.

It was the beginning of believing in myself.