You hear the pitter patter rain makes when the drops meet a glass surface.  It’s a chilly night.  You look outside; however, all you see due to the absence of light outside, and abundance of light inside, is a reflection of you and almost the entire cafe that’s sheltering you.  You see your warm-hot beverage on a small, square table in front of you.  You also notice that you are still wrapped in your winter attire and begin to feel a little hot.  You take off a layer of clothing to make yourself comfortable.

The sound of a ding followed by your name grabs your attention.  You get out of your seat to approach the cafe counter and find two small plates waiting for you.  On each plate is a large chocolate chip cookie.  After taking a moment to inhale the pleasant aroma, you pick up the two plates, one in each hand, and take them to the table where you had been sitting.  

Both plates make that familiar sound as you set them down at the same time.  You take your seat and gander at the irresistible treats in front of you.  You ordered two chocolate chip cookies.  One is hard with large chocolate chunks and the other is soft and gooey.  

Your eyes rapidly switch focus between the two cookies before they finally settle on the soft cookie.  You lift it with your thumb, pointer and middle finger just over the plate.  The cookie doesn’t tear.  With a light wave, the cookie tears in half, landing back onto the plate.  It passes your inspection of being just the right level of gooeyness.

You set the half cookie down and proceed to snap half the hard cookie off the plate. You dunk the half in your warm drink and stir it for a few seconds and then emerge it out.  The half-cookie remains intact as you let it drip.  You then lean forward and take a massive bite of the soaked bit.  You lean back in your chair, chew, swallow, inhale, and exhale.  You turn towards the window and see your face looking at you with a smile of pure bliss

“You miss 100% of shots you don’t take” – Wayne Gretzky

I don’t like this quote.  I realize that it is trying to teach us there are lost opportunities from not taking shots.  It is just that I don’t see missing a shot and abstaining as the same thing.  I find individuals often won’t take a shot because they want to avoid the possibility of witnessing their incapability.  Rather, people might be content abstaining and thereby leaving the outcome in the dark.  That way, they can at least tell themselves they might have succeeded if they took a shot.  In other words, I don’t like this quote because people feel a lesser pang from abstaining than from shooting and missing.  

I would be more satisfied if the quote was slightly altered to:  “you can’t make any shots if you don’t take them.”  I feel it is more agreeable on all accounts and is in a greater tie with people’s perceptions of reality; just as you won’t see yourself miss, you won’t get to see yourself succeed either.  The question now becomes how do we prevent people from losing out on opportunities?

What if I try and fail?  One answer I think that often comes up is the feeling of embarrassment.  I think the significance of embarrassment is underestimated.  “There are two things [most] people are afraid of:  death and embarrassment.  Only fools try to overcome death.  But it takes real guts to conquer embarrassment” (Gintama).  I think what can encourage people to take a shot is helping them realize that there might be things more frightening than embarrassment.  The fear of being alone.  The fear of being unable to help people dear to you.  The fear of having zero control over the events that transpire throughout your life.  By putting things into perspective, people might become motivated to reach for their aspirations and to start taking shots.  

 

The stressful challenges I faced during my undergrad were more manageable when I worked alongside my friends.  I remember one Saturday morning when we were studying in the library.  We were preparing for an organic chemistry (o-chem) exam on Monday and a general biology exam on Tuesday.  Due to a physics exam we had the day before, we had pretty much just begun preparing for these two upcoming exams.    

I was listing all the topics our tests would cover and when I finished the list for o-chem, I closed my eyes and began massaging my temples.  I fully realized the immense volume of work that lied ahead.  I opened my eyes to check what my friends were doing.  One was sitting in front of me, across the library table;  he was reviewing one of our old quizzes.  Within a few seconds, he looked up at me.  His eyes were wide-open and his mouth shut tight.  We recognized in the other’s face how overwhelmed we likely looked.  We both started chuckling and gave the other a singular nod of encouragement.  He returned to his quiz, and I to the first topic on my list.  

The seventy-two hours that followed felt like a marathon.  Each day we staggered from the library at 3 am and dragged ourselves back at 8 to resume studying.  We had coffee runs and food runs.  We kept each other off Facebook and YouTube.  We assisted each other if one of us got stuck on a question.  For the questions that none of us knew, we took turns emailing our professor for help.  We were nearing the end of our rope, but before we knew it, it was Tuesday and we were handing in our biology test; we made it!

A week later, our tests were graded, and we each received A’s on our exams.  I felt overwhelmed that Saturday morning; however, having my friends working alongside me helped me focus and gave me the determination to give our undertaking everything I had.