This I Believe

What is BELIEF and what's my core belief? It seems to be a quite broad question. By reading numerous stories in THIS I BELIEVE, I begin thinking this question seriously. We can believe in everything: believe in Peace Can Happen, believe in Becoming a Parent Is a Gift, believe in Never Give Up, and believe in I Am Not My Body! The core belief we have is what we say to ourselves when we are alone and it supports us when we things do not go well.   

I believe

For me, I believe all difficulties are not as difficult as we think and we can conquer them by taking the first step bravely! 


One good example is the about the Algebraic Topology class I take this semester. This is a graduate level class and before taking it, I was told it is very very very hard! Yes, it is hard! There are hundreds of abstract terms: homotopy, homology, cohomology, homomomorphosm, etc. And there are are thousands of obscure theorems: Van Kampen's Theorem, Lifting properties, Mayer-Vietoris and so on. I was totally confused at first and told myself: oh, that's too difficult and I was a little afraid of taking this course. The more I told myself it is difficult the harder it seems to be.

11-holed torus

Change comes recently. I tried to persuade myself to get down to concentrate on this "sore point", and after a while I find Algebraic is not that much boring. Nor is it as hard as I thought! In fact, many methods in it originate from great practical ideas. Why I didn't have this feeling before? Because I was told and I believed it is very very very hard! I'm afraid to take the first step!

Take the first step

Such examples are extensive. When I stand up, I find speak in public is not as frightening as I thought and when I volunteer, I find I can do better than I expected. So I believe  It's our timidity and fear that change the "lovely cat" into a "giant monster". 

In psychology, there is a relevant term: Pygmalion Effect. If we believe we cannot do something, then we can't! However if we believe in ourselves and build up confidence, chances are high that we will settle the problems perfectly.

Pygmalion Effect

So this I believe, power of mind is incredible and all difficulties are not as hard as we think.  Just take the first step and don't let our fear and timidity limit our potential! 

My dear friends, do you believe as I believe? What's your belief?