love. faith. hope. forgiveness.

I have two separate friends - 3000 miles apart - who are experiencing the same thing: their days in AIESEC are numbered.  How ironic that of all things, their exit from this organization proves the universality of the AIESEC experience.

I found common themes that weaved through their stories:

1) Personal feelings still matter, no matter how professional you want your relationship with your peers to be.  We are human beings after all.

2) The time that you spend on a certain activity is inversely proportional to the amount of attention (might as well add respect, recognition, etc. to the list) that you get from others.  Not that I am complaining, but just pointing to the irony of this fact: People who actually get their stuff done are being taken for granted, while others who do not do anything productive get all the coddling and kind words.

3) Being a visionary will also not gain you a lot of respect, especially when talking to higher authority.  I attribute this to the male ego.

4) Once a person assumes you hold a certain opinion of them, it's hard for them to let it go.  Even if you honestly only want to do things for the organization's greater good, they will still think that it's an attack on their character or leadership skills.


Life lessons.  How one deals with these facts is another question.

Something that I have been contemplating over this Fall Break is, "Why am I doing the things that I do?"  A simple answer to this is because I simply care about how my activities will impact others - whether I am contributing something to my community.

But one may ask whether I get too emotionally invested in the activities that I have devoted all my living hours to.

I would definitely not dispute this.  I admit that I do get upset when individuals dismiss (quite cruelly put at times) the plausibility of a certain endeavor of mine.  I have gotten quite "emotional" (crying, raising my voice, whatever is supposed to demonstrate that you're emotional and not rational; I still think it's quite silly to think that there's a direct correlation between the two) when individuals claim that some things are impossible or that I'm wasting my time, when in reality, they have not even attempted it themselves.

But is there something wrong with not being super happy when people put me down for the things that I have invested my effort and time in?  Or that I am too emotional (read: irrational) for following my "feelings" in my way of going about my endeavors?

If there's one thing that I realized over this Fall Break, it would be to truly do what you love and succeed in it.  If you let others tell you otherwise, you are simply giving in to others' definition of happiness and success for you.

You should always do what you love - what you feel really passionate about.  Don't let others tell you any differently.

Perfect video to summarize my thoughts.


p.s. I got a research grant to do research in Israel this Winter Break.  Super psyched to go back to the Middle East :) Maybe I'll do some networking with AIESECers over there for the Salaam Program too.