HARNUSAISME

I am supposed to do a presentation today at Presenticcon. An event held by I3M (inkubator ide dan inovasi mahasiswa). I have prepared and even gave out my slide. About 20 minutes before the event was about to be started. I went to HME (himpunan mahasiswa elektroteknik) to meet some friends. One of them asked me to do the presentation for them. I okayed him. Could be good to practice my speech too I thought. Since I hadn’t done it before. When I presented my presentation. There were some flaws in the slide and I couldn’t presented it smoothly. Then fear kicked in. “I couldn’t present the presentation smoothly here. So neither would I present it smoothly at the Presenticcon,” “hey there’s a flaw of logic here,” “the flow is not good,” etc. I decided to ask my other friend which is one the event commitee to put my name off the presenter list and promised him that next time I would be present. I ran away. I’m not proud of this decision.

I’m not proud not because I made some mistake in my slide or presentation. I’m not proud because I let my worst enemy, Amygdala, won.

Amygdala is a part of limbic system of the brain. It is the center of emotions. Responsible for fear, anxiety, reproductive drive, and the flight or flee reaction when we confronted with fear or stress. Amygdala is the most primitive brain. Seth Godin calls it the lizard brain.

It’s the one that tells you not to raise your hand and ask question in class, the one who tells you to stay low and not standing up in the crowd.

This is my worst enemy because it throws out fear and keeps me from trying new things, prevents me from going out of the comfort zone, and eventually could keeps me out of achievement and success.

The lizard brain protects us from what could be an embarrastment. But it also can keeps us from doing what matters to get what we want. I don’t want the latter to happen. And I’m sure you don’t want that too.

Today I promised not to let the lizard brain win again.

We would stumble upon this problem sooner or later. You probably had this problem too.

You want to be a psychologist but your parent insist you to take engineering degree.

You want a relationship but you refuse to get hurt.

You have a crush on someone but she is your best friend’s girlfriend.

You want to build your business but you want to have more free time.

You want better salary but you don’t want to quit your currently unsatisfying job.

The list goes on and on…

They’re not good, you see. These kind of things block you from doing what really matters. They pull you out from progress. They prevent you from achievement. And you’ll ended up doing nothing.

So what can you do?

Simple…

Choose.

I suggest you to choose what you, your heart, really want. Not what other people or even culture and status quo expect you to do.

You only live once. Make sure it is yours.

Did you know that James Cameron made Titanic movie because he wanted to see the real Titanic wreck deep down the sea?

And did you know that the owners of Blitzmegaplex decided to make those movie theater because they wanted to watch movies for free?

Sometimes you have those similar voices that speak inside of you. They speak about small wishes, about things that you want to do or get.

They may sound absurd and insignificant for you to make it happen, but history shows that many people achieve something big because they follow those little unsignificant voices.

So, when you have a little wish speaking to you, follow through. It may leads you to an achievement.