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At the beginning, I never thought it would be that challenging. I was in an impression or in an imagination of how things would be and how people would react to the humanitarian projects like this. I didn’t see why it would be difficult to make it happen because we all talked with each other about the system that we don’t like and how it should be. I decided to move away from the culture that we have saved for long time and put my thoughts into actions. I gave time to research a bit, talked with friends and senior people and drafted a proposal. I knew the real understanding of a problem can be made only by being a part of it (designed my experimental setup in my notebook with some research and went to lab to actually implement it, it took me months to exactly make it work J). I wanted to experience the same in humanitarian engineering project which was more related with people than machine.
I knew that world is not ideal and people won’t think the way I do. They have different opinions and behaviors. And to change my thoughts into action, I had to understand them. We started this project that we believed in and we knew that we need others helps, that is when the real challenge begun. And when things didn’t come along on our side then that’s where we learnt about problems and these were not something that we expected. I love to talk with people but had never tried to pursue them in humanitarian projects. Being a graduate student and doing the side project is indeed challenging but the lessons that I learnt has somehow contributed to prepare me for real world.
When we brought this thought into action it had greater impact on me because I was deeply connected with it. I had given enough effort and now it really does matter to me. It has touched my heart and soul. I knew that it’s easy to understand machine than people and now I experienced it. I realized people often change based upon the circumstances that we often don’t see. I find some people in real world often have two images, one is displayed as they talk and the other is displayed by their action. And to understand a person you have to see the combined image.
I talked with several people about my project concept and everyone appreciated and gave me courage and motivation. When I collected enough courage and stepped into an action and asked for a little help then I don’t see all those courage and motivation being transposed into an action. I can’t ignore the support that I have received from the few people. Usually, it has always been easy for me to deal with peoples of my age or slightly older than me, or the one who are close to me , but when I interact with others not so close to me, the older people, professionals, those who have seen enough in their life and has the potential to bring a real change to the society, I have failed to understand them so far.
There might be many but two reasons that I want to mention for my failures and they are:
1. I have not understood the people living in real world
I haven’t learnt to understand about when to stop requesting them for their support especially when they make me feel that they are always on my side, and in reality they are not. Or are these people testing me, and how committed I am, on my goals? I have found that there are lot of people who haven’t learnt to say no with reasonable reasons and most of the time they are these people that I consider older and wiser. I just haven’t learnt enough to deal with the people in the real world.
2. I have not exposed myself out there and understood the limit
The most difficult thing that I have not understood and probably will not is the limit that we should take any things to. People say we often give up easily. But there is no limit that you can draw and when especially we have to deal with person so wise, and those who have seen the world and have never learnt to say no, things get complicated.
What I realized is that we should stop only when we find a real answer that convinces us that the work that we are doing is not worth it. For a boy like me who hasn’t been exposed to the outside world and is only limited in the school education and few close one around the society, I encourage you to follow your dreams and ask you to step outside the small boundary that you have created. That is the only way to learn about yourself and your society, and the cultures that is out there. This will prepare you to survive and to succeed.
It is difficult to see a person’s real image and the worst thing happens when we judge them too quickly. When we start judging people, it gives us negative thoughts and sometime it will guide us away from our dreams. Just learn from them and try to ignore the fact that you failed to convince them and move on because there are lot of people out there who are like you and could support you. Just don’t judge them. Rather, give them suggestions to improve even if that sounds bitter because you have nothing to be afraid of.
We will never fail until we give up because there is lesson in every step that we take which will make us wiser and stronger. We have nothing to lose unless we never started the things that we have loved. Life without dream for me is not so interesting and I believe it is for you too. So everyone go out there and follow your dreams. You can’t really grasp the in-depth knowledge from other experiences because it will just be a short story for you and you will forget in few days.
At the moment beside my studies, I believe in this genuine cause and I am working and sharing my experiences. So we can at least contribute something to our society that we love and care. If you want to read about the projects or donate for “Engineering for Humanity” you can follow the link below:
http://inside.mines.edu/~ykoirala/
Thanks,
