Even If Only Five People Are Watching, Don’t Stop Showing Your Talent” : A lesson my late grandfather taught me, and why it matters now more than ever
Some sentences stay with you long after the person who said them is gone. Some words sink so deep into your heart that they quietly guide you through every stage of your life. One of those sentences came from my late grandfather. When I was a teenager, I had this quiet, precious dream of writing my own poetry book, a little collection of my emotions and observations, shaped into lines and metaphors. I would fill pages with words, and then suddenly stop. Every time I got close to believing I could be a poet, a voice inside me whispered: “Who will read it? Are my poems even good enough?” That self-doubt would take over before the ink dried. I would close my notebook and walk away, convincing myself that maybe there was no point in creating something if there weren’t enough people waiting to admire it. My grandfather must have sensed that hesitation in me, even though I never said it aloud. And he carried that concern with him through the years. When I went to medical school, a phas...