自由。

I'm not sure if it's an old saying or it's simply a common thing that happens to most people, but I've experienced it a lot, which is "things you're not good at will always come back to you."

Now I think back to those things I couldn't do well, they almost always come back to me at certain points, and I wished I had put more effort to learn it thoroughly. However, time is not going to roll back for anyone. Did you ever feel that you have the same situation like me?

When I encounter something I don't feel comfortable to work with, or when I feel like giving up acquiring new skills, I have to remind myself if I don't learn it now, I will regret in the future, and even worse, I still need to face the same problem later on.


There are a lot of things I'm not good at. Here are just several of them.


I wasn't good at math when I was in Taiwan, and I was afraid of calculus. However, I had to take calculus in order to major in economics/business, so I took four calculus classes, which took me two years to finish all of them. Fortunately, I had very nice calculus professors, and the way they taught enlightened me and brought my logistic thinking to next level.

My math is definitely considered bad in Taiwan even now, but I don't feel bad just because I can't memorize a formula. I know I can do more than memorizing a formula. Seriously, who is going to remember all the formulae after they graduate from school? Chances are people will never use those formulae again.


I'm not good at talking to people on the phone. It's not a problem if I talk in Mandarin on the phone, but if talking in English on the phone, I feel nervous especially when people can't understand me well. With a face to face conversation, you have facial expression and body gesture to help you express yourself; on the other hand, you only have your own words to express yourself on the phone, so you need to be very clear about what you're saying, which requires better pronunciation to let others understand you.

It is also my psychological barrier that I always think my English is not good enough to communicate with others. It is not true, but this barrier sets an invisible limit for myself. However, I had to do telemarketing for my previous job. It was a big challenging for me. I felt very awkward that I had to do marketing on the phone, and most people were impatient and rude to telemarketers (I have to admit I was one of them), so I had to deliver my messages clearly and be polite at all times.

The most difficult part was that, after so many refused calls, I still had to keep on calling with positive attitude. It was harder than I thought. We are all human beings, and it's hard not to be affected by others. One rude person could ruin my mood that I've set up, but one nice person could make my day, and I only remembered those nice people, which gave me motivation to keep calling.

I'm still not good at talking to people on the phone, but I appreciate the telemarketers and customer servers more now. I always thank them for calling or helping with my problems, and I sometimes compliment them if they provide excellent assistance or they're extremely nice and helpful because they make my day, and my compliment possibly makes their day as well.


I'm not good at socializing with people. As most of my friends know, I have quiet and shy personality (I'm not like that when I'm with my family though). Socializing with others has been my biggest fear, especially English is not my primary language. I find it difficult not only the language barrier, but also the lack of practice. I only focus on myself or small group of my friends most of time, so I don't know how to interact with strangers or a larger amount of people.

However, my job requires better communication and socializing skills in order to build relationships with people. I guess building relationships is crucial for almost all kinds of businesses. There's no way I can escape from the fear of socializing as long as I want to do any business related job. So the best solution to this is to face the fear, practice, and overcome it. Some people are gifted with charming personality so that they can socialize with others smoothly, but many people acquire this skill through practices. I believe this is the test that life gives me, for I have ignored the world and focused on myself too long.


It's time to break through these obstacles and face the problems. Of course most importantly, it's to learn as much as I can and not regret later on.