Tag: experience

Follow The Leader

~ Olivia Hill ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Are you a leader or a follower?
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I don’t believe there are any times when I’m only a leader or a follower. I’ve led leadership training sessions, guided less-senior classmates and coworkers, and set examples for friends and family in situations they were less familiar with. In the same way, those people have all led, guided, and set examples for me in situations I’m less familiar with, or in ways I didn’t have as strong of a perspective on.

Leadership, to me, is not about control or ordering others to do things; it’s about helping to guide people with a shared vision in reaching their goals, and setting an example that others may choose to follow, if they like the perceived outcome. Leadership is about providing a possible road for others to travel down, and showing them what walking down it looks like. Sometimes, I am the one leading the journey, and sometimes I step back to allow others to show me a better way.

FOMO

~ Olivia Hill ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What makes you nervous?
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As a Spoonie, chronic illness isn’t who I am, but it affects every aspect of my life. My friends and family, career, pets, hobbies, thoughts, wants, and day-to-day are all changed because of the chronic illness I have. This means I miss out on some things that I wish I could do. More than that, I end up looking back on choices I made as a kid and as a healthy individual and think, “I could’ve done so much more, but I thought I had more time”.

I faced the possibility of dying young, at the age of 4, so I’ve always tried to take advantage of life, that’s not new. As a kid, I thought I’d have more time with my body working normally, so I rested more and said no to more things than I would choose to now. When I got sick in 2015, my first thought was how many times I should’ve said yes to an opportunity or invitation. In some ways, I was granted a second chance to experience more of life; I still have a lot of my functionality left, and I’m extremely lucky.

What makes me nervous, is waking up and looking back on my life and realizing I missed a chance to experience something. I try hard each day to make sure I’ve done everything I had the energy to do, but also while resting properly so I don’t lose more of my health. Finding that balance between rest and experience is stressful, and a lot of people with chronic illness deal with it. When I’m resting my body, though, I try to think “I’m resting now, so I can fully enjoy the next moment I have energy for”. Treating recuperation this way helps quiet the nervous ticking of the clock in my head, telling me I could be running out of time. The rest is learning to accept that there are just some things I can no longer do, but there’s still so much out there for me to experience. I’m not really missing out, just taking a different kind of tour of life. I’m always going to be nervous, but if I do my best to experience the present as much as possible I’m sure I’ll have fewer regrets.

Learning to Try

~ Olivia Hill ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
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As an adult, I’ve learned to follow through with things; as a kid I struggled to stick to one thing and finish it. I took dance classes as a child and quit for other things. I re-started dance classes as a 16 year old – which is a bit older than most students. I decided to audition for our high school’s flag/dance team. Anyone who knew me would have been shocked to find out I’d done that; it was out of character for me.

We’d be doing a boot camp to get us all in shape and learn the skills we needed to audition, so I went for it. A week in, a few girls dropped out, and I’d started to realize I most likely wasn’t skilled or in-shape enough to keep up with the better dancers. I decided to stay and follow through with the process, realizing that either way I was gaining some great dance training and exercise. You can imagine how things turned out: I didn’t make it. Other girls told me that I’d done really well for my experience level, and I was extremely proud of the muscle and flexibility I’d gained during the camp.

More than those things, I’d gained a new perspective on failure and learning. I started to realize that just because I wasn’t going to make the team, that didn’t mean the process wasn’t valuable. I stepped out of my comfort zone and took part in something I’d never done before, and even though I “failed” at the end goal, I gained so many things from the experience that I still use today. Now, deciding whether or not do something, I ask myself: If the only thing I have to lose is time, and experience can be gained, why not do the thing?