Never Doubt Yourself!

   A day after my birthday on 25th July, my mom informed me that night about a story-writing competition for teenagers, from age 14 - 17. She allowed me to use her phone so I could see more info about the competition. The competition was hosted by Voice Now Indonesia, and the announcement was posted in their Instagram account. The theme of the writing should was about tips for self-improvement at online schooling / daring and how to be more productive in this pandemic. The total of grand prize were about a few million rupiahs (hundreds of dollars). I told myself and my mom that I would participate in that competition. But as I read further, the deadline for submitting the script / writing was tomorrow.

    I decided that I wasn't going to give this opportunity up just like that. Anyhow, I'll finish my script and submit it to their site. So, I started to work on my story around 10 PM that night. One hour went by, and I decided that I would get a good night's sleep and continue my work tomorrow. But the next day after that, I had to online-school my way through the morning first, before I do anything about my script. So, after 1 o'clock, I continued writing about my story for the competition. I had to write it on my damn phone using MS word, as my laptop was being borrowed by my father. A few hours passed by, and now it was 4 Past 30 minutes. I had almost finished my script; all I need to do now was edit it. I contacted a primary school alumni and good friend, who's name was Hakim. I thought he was good at writing stories, so I asked him to criticize my script. After half an hour of getting lectured by him, my script was finally ready. I re-read my writing and without any second thoughts, I submitted it to Voice Now's Google forms site.

    A few days passed by, and I started to forget about my submitted script. But another announcement appeared on the Voice Now Indonesia Instagram account. A webinar was to be held on 4th of August. At the end of the webinar, the winners of the story writing competition will be announced. So, I joined their webinar using the link that they gave me through their email. The platform they were using was zoom. I attended the webinar until it was over (2 PM - 4 PM). And finally, the MC is starting to announce the winners of the competition

    For a minute I doubted myself that I was not going to win this competition. But I was wrong. I did win, in fact I won second place. As the MC announced my name, I simply couldn't believe it. I squealed with joy and instantly ran to the living room to tell my parents all about it. The prize that I got was a "learning bundle", worth 1 million rupiahs (around 70 - 80 dollars, a big amount of money here in Indonesia). " I actually won!" I kept telling myself. I posted my e-certificate on my WhatsApp status and got lots of feedback from my friends and teachers, praising me for my accomplishment. Two days after the announcement, when I was online - schooling, every school lesson would start with the teacher announcing a big congratulations for my Achievement. This may sound naive, but it was my first time winning a huge competition anyways.

    The moral point that I got from my own experience is to never doubt myself for anything ever again. Do the best that you could ever do. If you don't win, it's just a sign that something needs to change inside yourself, and quickly fix it before it becomes another problem in the future. Life is about trying to keep moving forward, or else you'll be left behind.