This I Believe Statement
This is my essay for the "This I Believe" project. I wrote it using my story with my Dad, who is my role model of how a man should be.
- “Believe me. I can do it.
- But it’s dangerous out there.
- Dad, just believe me and I will show you I can do it.”
…
I love my father with all my heart. However, I sometimes get vexed with him because he always wants to protect me from anything, despite the fact that I am not a baby boy anymore. I remember the time when I wanted to go on my own to my junior high school by bike. The school was not very far and I did not want him to get up early just to get me to school so that he could sleep for an hour more. However, he did not agree with my plan easily and told me that I could get hurt from riding my bicycle. Fortunately, after three days of promising and letting him see how carefully I rode, my father agreed to let me go by myself.
When I reached the age of 18, it was also the year that all senior students like me had to prepare to take the national exam in order to graduate from high school. Because we had only one year to prepare for it, students usually had to go to extra classes after school every day. I could not use my bike to go to school anymore because it would take me an hour just to get from school to my extra class. At the same time, I did not want to ask my father to give me a ride because he would have to leave his work early to pick me up from school. I therefore decided to ask my father for using the motorbike. However, with the kind of traffic in Vietnam, which requires not only good skills but also some guts to drive out there, it was like a mission impossible for me to get his permission. My father definitely knew about this and refused my idea right away at the first time I told him. However, he agreed to teach me how to ride a motorcycle around my neighborhood.
In the first two days, nothing was easy. Thanks to the “extremely” sensitive accelerator and brake, I found myself riding on not a motorbike but a wild horse actually. For every farther meter I went, I had to jam the break one more time since I could not control the speed and shift gear correctly, and the motorbike caught the chance to bound like a wild horse in order to pull me down on the ground. However, knowing that my father kept watching me, the only thing I just wanted to do was to show him I could do what I said. Therefore, I continued practicing every day. After a week, I could finally control my “horse” to do what I wanted and rode it skillfully around my neighborhood.
- “Dad, please let me go to the street outside. I can drive well now.
- It is not the same out there. You will need to be very careful. I think you should practice more.
- Believe me. I can do it.
- But it’s dangerous out there.
- Dad, just believe me and I will show you I can do it.”
After a week of practicing, he agreed to let me ride on the main street. Finally, I showed him that I was mature enough to do what I wanted. With him sitting behind, I rode my motorcycle to the high way. At first, everything was the same as practicing. However, after turning to a small road, I soon became nervous. Other people riding near me got close to my motorbike and I had to shift the gear continuously to keep distance from others. My motorbike became a wild horse again and it kept jerking. In that moment, my brain seemed to stop working, leaving me behind without knowing what to do.
From behind, my father spoke to me:
- “Just calm down and remember how I have taught you to shift the gear at the right moment. I believe in you and know you can do it.”
I do not know what happened to me at that time, but seemingly because of the word “believe” he said to me, I regained my self-confidence. I adjusted the throttle calmly and found myself finally able to control the speed again.
We ran on the road for 30 minutes more. Through the rear-view mirror, I saw my father smiling, and his smile was worth a thousand words to me. Now, I know that actually, my father always believes in me, and what I have to do is to believe in myself and prove what I can do.