The story starts at a public preparatory school in the middle of Sydney. Every student was on pins and needles, waiting for his exam's result and envisioning parental pride and the sweet taste of reward. As the teacher entered carrying the papers, a hush fell over the classroom. The teacher started declaring the results: Ramy Ali, FULL MARK!! Haitham Omar, 97 out of 100!! and so on. A ripple of applause followed every name as the grades were distributed, until he said, “And John Jackson, 15 out of 100! Always the least mark.”. After the school day, while John was walking back home in solitude as usual, he ran into Ramy, the smart and big-headed kid notorious for taunting him after exams. A maelstrom of confusion and fear propelled John faster homeward. John reached home thinking how to tell his parents the bad news: It's not the first time he gets this low mark. Once again, hours of study yielded little fruit. Hardly he could summon the courage to reveal the unwelcome reality, his voice trembling slightly. At that moment, his parents' hopeful gazes turned into depressed eyes, a weight that bore down heavily on his 13-year-old shoulders and hardly saying, “You can do better next time." However, John has never lost hope. He knew he was capable, but his skills are still undiscovered. John entered his room and started writing down everything that happened in his diary, where his thoughts and feelings found form. It was a silent confidant, a sanctuary from the harsh realities of life. But it was not enough to give out all negative feelings. The past failures still came to his mind with memories of his dad's disappointment through other proud parents. John's dream was to achieve success only once to see these proud eyes. Lost in contemplation, John got a phone notification that was a flicker of inspiration, as he thought he found his chance to make the difference. It was about the writing contest that would be held next week. He knew that the contest would be fierce because of the $10,000 cash prize for the first place; however, his belief in his abilities made him more decisive to participate. Unfortunately, the ten-dollar entry fee cast a long shadow over his aspirations since his family's hard economic conditions rendered the cost an obstacle. He didn't know what he would do to get the money, but hopefully slept dreaming of a bright future. The following morning, on his way to school, he noticed a currency fluttering in front of his eyes and going away. With a jolt of adrenaline, he pounced, his heart pounding in his chest as his fingers closed around it. 10 dollars!! What a windfall! Memories of childhood deprivation surfaced—the unattainable toys, the yearned-for sweets that had always been beyond his grasp. However, his desire for his parent's esteem outshone all other yearnings. He resolved to invest his newfound treasure in the writing contest. The ensuing days were a whirlwind of creativity as he spent hours of hard work crafting an opus that was as much a product of his heart as his mind. When the day of the awards ceremony arrived, John's family gathered in the field, interestingly waiting for the winners' announcement. Memories of each failure and the comments following it came to John's mind; eventually, he heard a familiar voice. “John, I didn't expect to see you. Be tuned to clap for me.” Sneered Ramy, the conceited student. John, who was about to cry, was jolted back to reality by his father's fast reply. “You're that kid from John's school, aren't you? Let me enlighten you: success isn't merely a matter of academic prowess. With no morals, you'll always be nothing. So, I'm very proud of my high-moral, passionate, and diligent son, as I've always been.” John felt a kind of warmth he's never felt before. Silence prevailed for a minute, then ”The Champion of this year's writing contest is John Jackson!” the announcer declared in a charged air of esteem and applause. John's dad lifted him in the air, shouting, “It's my son!” John couldn't capture his happiness in words. After all his effort and failures, he did it. His family is finally proud of him. As Roy Bennett once said, “There are five important things for living a successful and fulfilling life: never stop dreaming, never stop believing, never give up, never stop trying, and never stop learning.”. Difficulties and obstacles are found on every step of the way to success. Sometimes we can't get over them, sometimes we think we took the wrong path, and sometimes we get confused. This doesn't mean to give up. Try again; try everything. There're opportunities of progression fluttering in front of your eyes every day. There's a happy life waiting for you to find it. You deserve it. Go for it. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself; my name is John Jackson, the narrator of this tale. I built my ladder to succumb to failures. If I could do it, so can you. Just, believe.

I had been reviewing concerts and theater for five years before the pandemic and it had become a pattern of my life. The pace was frenetic – with three or four performances to cover each week and turning in reviews as fast as possible, usually the next morning after a very late evening. In late February 2020 there was a concert I had been asked to review. It was modern music and some of the composers were young musicians from my town whose work I had never heard. I started to find out as much about them and their previous work as I could. The concert was disorganized. The organizer had neglected to copy programs and when I finally received one hot off the photocopier, I saw that the program had changed somewhat. It had billed a performance of Pauline Oliveros' Rock Piece as a Philadelphia premiere. That was blatantly incorrect. First of all, I had already heard this piece twice in Philadelphia. Secondly, I think the piece is totally absurd and dreaded having to endure it. It may have been brilliant when Pauline Oliveros had her original idea and wrote the piece in 1979, but the newness fades after you have heard it once. She instructed performers to hand out two rocks to each member of the audience and ask them to choose a rhythmic pattern and stick to it while their neighbors pick other patterns and do the same. When you experience it the first time, it is fun and slightly challenging to resist copying your neighbor's rhythm. The second time, it feels silly. This was my third time, so I was recalcitrant, but determined not to spoil it for anyone who had not experienced it. The organizer wanted us to fade out our rock beating and allow the following piece to fill in the void. We crashed at the end, several people unsure of how to stop: slow down, fade out, or what? Tap, silence, crash…giggle. Finally, the expert musicians playing the subsequent piece entered the void left by our awkward fishtailing. How could I review that shambles? I wrote: If you have never heard Rock Piece, you might enjoy your first opportunity to beat rocks together, but by the time you are handed rocks again for the next performance, you may sigh like a kindergartner asked to repeat an easy task. I did not challenge his claim that his concert was the Philadelphia premiere as I thought that would have been a bit mean. I did say we did not do a good job of setting up the atmosphere for the commissioned piece that followed: “What happened was a bit of a train wreck as the audience refused to stop clicking their rocks when the commissioned premiere began.” The rest of the concert was great and I reviewed it in positive terms and high praise, but the organizer was furious. He commented: “I suspect Ms. (Reviewer) was the kindergartner who can't take direction in this equation.” He went on to berate my lack of knowledge and competence and added that this is the twenty-first century (ignoring the fact that the piece in question was written in the previous one). His irate words really stung me and felt like an attack of my person rather than of my review. He added biting phrases like “one can only lament the halcyon days when a credible, respectable, reviewer would put in even the smallest effort to inform themselves of the music they were about to hear.” The attack felt so threatening and diminished my self-confidence so severely that I simply stopped writing reviews. It mattered little as there were so few performances after Philadelphia and so many other cities went dark on March 16, 2020. I began to explore other options for writing – delving into other areas relating to music, but in light of historical events rather than live performance. Two years later, I was asked to review a concert with a premiere by another composer commissioned by my aggressive detractor. I accepted, thinking I needed to face the monster once and for all. I looked up everything I could to prepare myself – and that is saying a lot as I spend an excessive amount of time on research before I review a concert. Soon after it was published, I received a forwarded email from my editor. The composer whose piece I had reviewed was delighted with my positive review and asked if I would review a compact disc of his compositions. A feeling of calm fell over me. Anyone might object to how I perceive their music, but that does not mean I should hide from them. It would be more productive for me to embrace their remarks and learn from them. I have taken time to reread my detractor's comments several times recently and I now see that if I want to continue reviewing, I should be prepared for reactions – not outwardly, but inwardly. Now that we are having more performances and I have started to review them again, I feel much stronger than before. I am accepting fewer assignments and spending more time trying to polish the reviews I accept.

Everything in life is about us. Theres nothing, not even the smallest action, decision or thought, that we do not take selfishly. Aware of it or not, direct or indirectly, everything is always about me, me, me and me. It's constantly me. But what happens when we are not self-confidence? When we don't believe in ourselfs and I don't love me enough? Then we search for someone, someone who will give us the love and acceptance we don't give ouselfs. Someone who will make us feel good, alive for two seconds so that after he can make us drown, more and more deeply. We will ask ouselfs; what did I do wrong? why me? We are going to try to swim, get out, but the tide will be way to strong, there will be to much pain and we are gonna drown even more. It will hurt, there will be days where we just want to die and stop fighting becaouse it is easier. There will be a moment, where we will give up, we won't want to fight anymore, we will be tired. We will let all the water fill our lungs, carry us wherever it wants. Days will pass by, weeks, months..but one day, we will finally understand how it works and step by step, little by little we will start to swim. We will figure out that we first need to let all the pain in so that then we can get to know how it feels and works, so that we can fight it. Only that way we will be able to learn from it, grow strong and love ourselfs a little more every day. There will be a day, when we won't need anyone to feel loved, valued and to smile. We will be the one deciding what to do and how to do it. If there is a day, when a special someone arrives, someone who we feel like is worthy of our love, we are gonne let him in. But it is not gonna be becouse we need to feel loved, but becouse we want to share the life we have built up with that one person. It will be becouse WE want to.