It is said that taking charge of an aspect of your life significantly improves the quality of it. One comes to understand and perceive life in a different way, a better way. I am fortunate enough to say that the following leadership experience has taught me a lot about myself and my own abilities.
In the 9th grade my interest in drama got stirred up and thus, I joined a drama club. After a little while, it was the time for our Christmas play. I remember putting all my effort into this endeavor, practicing every day after school. It was exhausting, but at the same time, incredibly rewarding. On the day of the play, I got cold feet and felt extremely anxious about my performance. I was not certain I would be able to do a good job. In this I was not alone, because I also noticed other cast members feeling very jittery and panicky. I tried to calm myself down, remembered all the days I spent rehearsing my lines and managed to convince myself that being nervous would get me nowhere. What I had to do now, was take a deep breath, go out on the stage, imagine the whole auditorium empty and simply do my best. The moment I was on the stage, I felt myself magically transformed into a very confident and excited person. I even helped other cast members by making reassuring eye to eye contact. Surprisingly, this worked like a charm, and everyone started getting more relaxed, focusing all their energy on the play. Once the play had finished, my mother and several other people came up to me, saying how obvious it was that it was I who was steering the play, keeping it from becoming a total fiasco. I simply replied that it came naturally for me to handle the crisis the way I did, and that I was lead by feelings of wanting to help my fellow cast members in their time of anxiety. This experience helped me immensely in understanding and going after my career goal of becoming a medical geneticist, because I wish to comprehend my own identity through researching my genetic inheritance and its effects on physical and psychological characteristics and disorders of life. So, the answer to the question of why I became a leader and rose above the initially felt anxiety in a crisis so urgently, thus helping my fellow cast members is simple. If we wish to know ourselves, we must understand our DNA.
