Written by Sean C. Harrison Jan.31, 2019
The Need For Reinforcement
Growing up as the last child in my family, there was never much reinforcement that was positive. It is for this reason why it is important to try something for yourself. It seemed my parents didn’t see it as important to pour anything but the bare essentials into our nurturing. So I grew having one exceptional ability and it was the gift of song. Since the age of 3 I’ve sung at practically every kind of program or function one could think of. Singing was my life in my little parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica. On or off-stage I was always belting out some song or other.
Stay Consistent
As a matter of fact, I sang so frequently, that my tonsils are to date permanently diseased. Now, growing up I would often hear people say they wished they could sing like me. I will continue to say to them try something for yourself. It always made me uncomfortable to hear this. And though I was specially gifted in this area, I constantly tried to stretch myself by listening and singing along with lots of singers. But as I entered early adulthood having been diagnosed with mental illness, I realized that my singing ability depreciated.
Giving Up Is Not An Option
This decline happened over many years until finally I had to give up singing. Realizing this, I dived more deeply into writing songs. This continued until I was so compromised vocally that I had to give up songwriting too. After this, I experimented with poetry and realized as I practiced I was getting better. I became so versed that after writing and entering a couple of years I won a national creative writing contest with the JCDC ( Jamaica Cultural Development Commission ) twice back to back.
You may ask “What does the topic ‘Try it for Yourself’ have to do with this discourse?” Simply this, rather than wasting time daydreaming of another person’s life or ability and doing nothing to develop yours the greatest step you can take is to try it for yourself as I stated. You never know how much you can accomplish by practicing becoming better at something you never tried before.
I spent sleepless nights and spare time honing my writing skills just by attempting to write. And the result was that I became more proficient at these things which were once foreign to me. My advice to anyone is this: can’t find your calling? Not good at anything in particular? What is in your hand? The third question is what God asked Moses and God used that rod to His glory. You may not start out being The best at what you do. But try it for yourself and if you even don’t like the taste of it, go a little further, walk a baby step at a time in someone else’s shoes and you’ll be surprised what you come up with. Try, try, try it for yourself today and you just may over time blow yourself away!