As far as I remembered, I have wanted it for the longest time. Almost a year now. Now that I got my one shot at it. I screwed it up. I screwed up once, I screwed up twice, I screwed up three times. And it got me thinking...
"what is freaking wrong with me???"
It's really scary to find out that what you really wished for isn't what you really wanted or probably isn't meant for you in the first place. But you pushed for it anyway because you were in denial and blinded by what you think you want.
So what exactly do you want???
I wanted to read news. Badly. I remember I wanted it so badly for so long. Ever since I stepped into the radio station, I knew what I wanted. Went through ups and downs. Went through self-motivation and self-demotivation. Annoyed my boss all the time. He knew what his annoying-ignorant-naive staff wanted but he said "NO, it's not your time yet". He said Charles Mohan took 4-5 years to get to where he is right now. "So your time will come too..." he said.
Until recently, beginning of this month, I was given a chance. I get to read the news, by assisting the producer in news for the weekend. I was excited and the same time freakishly nervous. I was scared shit. If I blew up this time, no more next time, I thought.. And so will my chance of reading news.
Much to my dismay, it wasn't as easy as I thought news reading would be. It's much harder than my regular live reporting and feature story packages. This was different. The pressure was tremendous and I get the chills whenever I enter the studio. I practically froze, became unnatural and ever-so-conscious about my every single pronunciation. I kept making mistakes, never once I read without making a blooper. Mentioned wrong names on air, wrong pronunciation, you name it, I've done it. The worst part was trying to correct my mistakes on air instead making it sound worse.
It has been 3 Sundays I read the news. Though boss said, "You are only as good as your last read," I did feel that I did slightly better at the third but still it was quite sucky. I STILL made reading mistakes. I do envy my colleagues sometimes. I wonder how can they seem to do it so effortlessly? Could it be they are naturally born talented and I'm not? I have to struggle on my own. I have to put double effort and god, not to mention the pressure I had to go through! It's BAD.
People said probably because BM is not your mother tongue therefore you are not as natural or smooth as others. But to me, that is NOT the reason. I know I can. I believe I can. But at this point of time, I just TERRIBLY SUCK at it. Which brings me to my dilemma. Can something you want so much turn out to be so wrong?
Why doesn't it feel good?
Why can't I seem to get it right all the time?
Why can't I be good?
Why can't I be perfect?
Sometimes I think my boss finally allowed me to read the news just to make me realize that maybe reading news is probably not what I really wanted. So he let me tried it out. He was quite merciful for not telling me off after all the blunders I did on air. He was quite encouraging in fact. Surprisingly. After awhile it gets quite. They say no news is good news? Or maybe they sympathized me. They knew how sucky I must have felt, therefore didn't want to add more to my misery.
Boss said most importantly you gotta love what you do. You gotta have fun. But how can I love what I am doing when it is so flawed? I think I will never be satisfied until I get it right. Nevertheless, I still enjoy what I do very much. Right here, right now. Just that sometimes I want to do MORE. There's so much inside me that wants to come out. I need a channel to express myself; my talents, my thoughts, my desire. My problem now would be enterprising myself. I still haven't figured it out. Maybe because I'm shy? I don't know.
Anyway looking at my performance at news reading, I really don't know what will the future bring. Maybe I'm in, maybe I'm out. This month is supposedly the trial month. Boss said, "you screw up, you are out". Fair enough. But I will not give up. Even if I don't get it. I will try harder next time. I know I'm not born with it, so I have to work harder to achieve my goals. That's just life I suppose. And if you still suck at it. Then probably it's time to reconsider what you really want and move on with the other things that you love to do. But most importantly, it has to boil down to passion. I'm driven by passion.
Passion brings meaning to life. Without passion, it's worthless.
