“When I was younger, let say about fifteen years ago, people around me complimented my kindness, my friendliness, my being in first honors, my gold medals in declamation contests, my being a school band majorette, my being well-known in town, and so on. I believed that I am on top and I am an achiever, myself.

                However, about six years ago, I went outside my comfort zones, and explore its outside world. It had been miserable. Everything that was said to me back in my elementary and secondary years were all in their opposites.

                I was considered to be one of the most polite student by my teachers way back then but in 2004, I was told by a nun that I was very impolite. My mentors, classmates, and friends said that I was the most reliable person they could have but in after a year, I was told by a teacher that I was a big disappointment. In my younger years, whatever it was that I was going to say was what I was going to do. But in the following year I was confronted to had had no palabra de honor (word of honor), you could have imagined how low my self-esteem was. I was often elected to be the class president which showed my being responsible to duties and obligations given, however, to my big dismay, in 2004 somebody said I was irresponsible.”

                How can someone be able to believe in herself when these have tainted her self-esteem? The girl who was once an active church member, public servant, school officer; a person who once was an approachable friend, sister, daughter, relative had now tried to close her doors from this kind of world. It is like she had tried to keep herself in a box and never wished to open it again.

                One day, there was light!

She was talking to somebody. He was a passer-by that was not related to her at all, he said,” The most important thing in this world is to BELIEVE. It is a short word but it is meaningful; it sounds easy but it is challenging. Do not listen to what other people might say about you. It is important that you believe in yourself, it is important that you know what you can do, and you know the skills that you have had, and the attitude that you can express to others and to yourself. No matter what you do always believe.”