I’ve always been the type of girl who reflects a lot on life and overthinks. Since I was 6 years old, I’ve always wondered about what would I want to become in the future. I told myself that I want to become a teacher because I was so influenced by my professors back then, later on, when I became 15, I decided to become a doctor because it was something so big and approved in my country and all Arab countries. Then, I found myself going into something completely different after graduating from high school as I chose accounting. I was not that satisfied at first. In fact, I had mixed emotions as I felt proud of myself for making my parents happy but at the same time, I was not sure about what I’m going to do in the future since I had no plans and I was confused.
The first two years in the university went by so fast and I was just going with the flow. Then by the third year, miracles started happening and I started reflecting on my life again and taking things seriously. I decided to go ahead and try new things, I was so motivated to make a change so I started by joining several organizations and university clubs and I found out that I actually enjoy social work and doing things for the good of society, and right at that moment I found out about the World Youth Alliance. I was so interested in the concept of Human Dignity and I loved how WYA stands for it, so I decided to join and start the Certified Training Program because I was so motivated to learn more. The training really met my expectations, it opened my eyes on a lot of things, it made me see the world from another perspective and I related to a lot of things we learned along the way.
What actually changed my perspective on life is the Charles Malik’s idea of the ”Man in struggle”; he was talking about how man is free but is forced to choose and the reason of this struggle is finding peace. According to Malik, struggle is necessary especially when we want to accomplish something good and I totally agree with that. I was so impressed by his thoughts and it was an eye-opener for me. What also was engraved in my mind is the idea of setting objective values for our decisions and following what is called ”objective truth”. According to Gandhi, it is only one but each person has his own path in finding it; these words really spoke to me and I thought to myself at that moment that it’s okay to struggle and to keep searching for myself, because as long as I’m following the truth and the common good I will find my way and so will you.
Published: December 22, 2021
Written by: Ameni Mannai, WYA Middle East and North Africa intern
