Seriously Comical

“We can only connecting the dots by looking backwards“

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech

It was a words that Steve Jobs said in his commencement speech few years ago and it also becomes the words that I really believe in. Why? Maybe because I had a concrete experience related to that words in these past few days. Let me tell you my story:

My first dot is about my ability in English, especially writing. About two years ago I got a scholarship for one semester at Macquarie University, Sydney, as an exchange student for one semester. I could choose any subjects that I wanted during the study. As a psychology major student, it was an innate desire that I want to take psychology subjects at that time. However, I asked myself , “What could I get in one semester?”. I mean, studying psychology isn’t like taking a computer short-course. I felt that I could not really understand deeply if I only study there for one semester. So, under that consideration, finally I took three different subjects: Print Media Journalism, Linguistic, and Creative Writing. I chose those subjects because I wanted to improve my english (in writing).

The other dot is about presentation. I could say that I had a really bad public speaking ability until a year ago. I always nervous whenever I needed to speak in front of many people. My heart was pounding, my hands shook, and I spoke uncontrollably. In short, I was a clown. And it had become my greatest fear ever to talk in front of people. Fortunately, I have been trying hard to overcome my fear since a year ago. The first time was when I needed to give a powerpoint presentation in a business plan competition. I have two partners that encourage me to do the speech, at least for 5 minutes. And after I went through that 5 minutes of hell, I could manage my fear better. I kept practicing by giving a lecture at Universitas Indonesia  (faculty of Communication studies), became a trainer, and surfed many websites that give me many good examples of powerpoint design.

Finally these dots were connected in these past few weeks. I had some kind of occasion that needed myself to be examined. I had three test in a row for three weeks: interview test, Presentation test (in english), and essay writing test. I could not imagine if I did not have those dots before. It would’ve been a disaster for me. I could get nervous while doing the interview test and presentation test, and I could write a trash essay on the essay writing test.  I have my dots helping me eventhough I did not think that the previous dots was going to be helpful to me. It’s just like Steve Jobs said, “We can only connecting the dots by looking backwards”.

Make the dots as many as you can.