OH, THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH!

Last Friday, while waiting for the 6:45 screening time of Transformers 2, I decided to take a quick stop to Shepherd's Staff for any good books to read and I stumbled upon Do Hard Things. Written by Alex and Brett Harris (brothers of Joshua Harris, who wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye), the book aims at challenging the youth of this generation to set the bar of society's expectations to a much higher level. To sum it up, the message that these two boys want to spread all over the world is this: "Step out of your comfort zone and do something radical for God!"

Though I'm currently only halfway through the book, much of what I read in the first chapters reminded me of how I used to dream so much bigger when I was much younger.

Alex and Brett, who pretty much consider themselves "ordinary" teens, were blessed by God to go through extraordinary experiences. By the time they reached the age of nineteen, they had already been interns at the Alabama Supreme Court, they had been campaign organizers, they had created the most popular website for teens, and they had published a book. Now, they're telling others, "If we could do it, then you obviously can too."

I was suddenly reminded of how God had filled my mind with so many ideas and so many goals in life when I was still really young.

When I was seven, I wanted to become a paleontologist with the hope of discovering a dinosaur skeleton. So during recess, I'd go to the school yard and dig for bones.

When I was eight, I decided to create a game book, patterning it from the Nintendo game books that my brother was collecting at the time. It was also that time that my mom started giving me unused planners in which I would put in my drawings and stories. My first ever book was written on an Aramco planner dated 1992. It was a book that had quotes, but no quotation marks. At that time, I had no idea what quotation marks were. Over the next few years, I wrote about five more game books.

Between the ages of eight and nine, I created my own Trump cards using pieces of bond paper. They weren't the genuine cards, but they became very popular among my peers. The very first set of Trump Cards I made were about motorboats.

Between the ages of ten and twelve, I was inspired by Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes to start creating my own comic books. My first comic book, The Junk Shop Gang, consisted of short strips featuring talking inanimate objects. It was a pretty thin comic book: a short bond folded in two. A year later, I created Operation Squirt!, which was an "almost" replica of Calvin and Hobbes. I made around four comic books of Operation Squirt! in the next few months, among them Double Trouble and My Sister Has Lost Her Head. It was also during this time that I began to appreciate and read mystery stories. My sister, who wanted to become a detective during that particular phase in her life, had in her possession a collection of Nancy Drew books, Clue books, and Usborne Puzzle Adventure books which I eventually got hooked on. I began to start my own collection of Encyclopedia Brown mysteries later on. Eventually, I found myself writing my own mini-mysteries and asking people to solve them for validity purposes.

Around the age of thirteen, I finished my first mystery novel which I patterned after Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I was working on a sequel, but my attention was diverted into making The Junk Shop Gang (my first comic book) a novel. Before I turned fifteen, I had finished my second book. Again, I tried to write a sequel for The Junk Shop Gang, but was unable to. Though I had finished my books, I knew that they were far from perfect. As far as I was concerned, my characters were too underdeveloped, my plots had too many holes, and my vocabulary was too simple. Getting myself published as a teenager was a dream that I had wanted; reality told me that it wasn't possible.

At fifteen, I became interested in photography. My mom lent me her old SLR which she had had in high school and I became obsessed with buying film and I was snapping pictures like there was no tomorrow. Later on, when I realized that photography was a pretty expensive hobby, I became more selective about my shots.

At sixteen, I wrote an 8-minute radio drama script, an accomplishment which was no easy feat. It was something I was truly proud of.

Then I got to college. And while I was able to accomplish much and graduated with a high CGPA (I would've graduated Honorable Mention had it not been for my two failures in first year), I felt that I was not able to achieve something as satisfactory as the things that I had done when I was younger.

Hmmm...going down memory lane has suddenly made me realize something. What Alex and Brett have been saying all along in their book is true. The youth of today have untapped potential. They have energy bursting from their fingertips. They have dreams which scream out to be accomplished. Yes, God has indeed designed them to do "hard things."

Unfortunately, much of society's teens and young adults have fallen into the "I'm-fine-where-I-am" trap, giving up their dreams for the easy comforts of life. Because of this, Alex and Brett, at the age of nineteen (I so envy them!), wrote and published Do Hard Things in hope that they could challenge the youth back to their feet, step out of their comfort zones, and do "hard things" for the glory of God.

Easier said than done, right? Yes. That's why they're called "hard things."