Dragonfly

Thanh Pham / It's a myth in Vietnam that if you let a dragonfly bite your belly button, you will be able to swim

The dragonfly bit the shit out of me, I screamed and really scared but tried to keep calm enough to let it continue its job. "Just one more time and I can swim" - I thought.

Just one minute earlier, my brother told me "Let the dragonfly bite your belly button, you will be able to swim". I was really scared but my belief about the power of the dragonfly remained very strong. I believed I could swim, I believed I could explore the big river out there. I felt like a superman, and started swimming for the first time of my life.

Although I drank a lot of water that day, it's amazing how those simple words can give a young boy such courage to try something he had not known yet. And I wonder if there is still something simple and powerful like that for the "adult" me now, so that I have enough courage to explore the unknown out there. The things that are both scary and interesting - just like the river that day.

And I wonder if there is still someone like my brother that day, who cared for me enough to say "Just do it, boy!" when he saw me hesitated to do something? I think one must be very lucky to have this kind of sweet memory and having a person care for him/her that much in life. So, I started thinking I'm a lucky one.

We're all lucky at some points in our life, but sometimes we're so busy to realize. The younger of me was too busy chasing so many "vanity" things that I called "dreams". So maybe aging is one of my luck, to slow me down so that I have time to review what happened in my life, what I did good, what I did wrong...

Having a chance to review what happened in my life makes me feel I'm very lucky. I met a lot of good people who taught and helped me a lot of things about work and life. I will not be who I am today without meeting those people, and I'm very thankful for that. And I think one of the greatest luck I've ever had is meeting my wife - a beautiful woman who loves and cares enough to say to me "I love you and I believe you can do it!" every time I need someone beside me.

I think I don't need the power of the dragonfly anymore...