Which One Are You?

Zahra Hassan
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

“So have you brought your submissions?”

I paced forward and handed over the submission to my class teacher. He looked at it and obviously knew it wasn’t my own writing, but his feedback was unexpected:

“I think you all should start writing poems, so we can have a collection to publish from our class. Zahra, this is so good!”

“But…” I was trying to say it wasn’t my own piece of writing, but he carefully made sure not to let my acknowledgment come out, so he kept talking about other things.

This happened when I was in middle school. Writing was like another part of the world. I thought it was meant for some but not me. So without making any attempts to write, I started to rely on other people, to help me write things.

And when my teacher gave me that unexpected compliment in front of my whole classroom, I had no idea what to say but felt awkward as it was someone’s work. I wasn’t at all impressed, but I was certain he knew something more about me, something I could do but I wasn’t allowing to happen.

I wasn’t able to sleep that night. I felt quite ashamed of myself and wanted to do some justice to what I had done (LOL!), so I decided I should write something to make up for it, right now!

I picked up a pen and paper, started to write a poem about friendship. Whoa! the poem was ready in a matter of minutes and I couldn’t believe my eyes! Wow, I seemed to be a good writer. :D I never thought I could write this far.

It’s just my silly thoughts that made up my mind not to write.

You don’t need to be a perfect writer. You just need to be able to write and you become a writer. Everyone is different and have their own way of telling stories. As long as you stand on your own, there’s no need to feel awkward at all to do something you are truly capable of because you are doing it for you, not for someone else.

The beautiful fact about a hidden skill is, you never know until you discover and explore it. For some, it never happened because they never had that ‘moment’ to discover what they are interested or capable of, so it went lost forever. For some, it happened by chance — they stumbled upon it and they found it. For some, they discovered it after a long hunt.

So, which one are you? :)

P.S. I am dedicating this post to my wonderful teacher Mr. Imam who was a true example of humility and trust. He has a beautiful heart and soul to share with his students. Bless him forever!

Zahra Hassan

Written by

Just a living artist, crafting her own story.

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