To the Youngest Person in the Room….

To all the youngest people in the room, I hope you know that it is always better to be in that room than to convince yourself you do not belong there. There will be rooms where everyone seems to know more than you do. Rooms where people speak with far more confidence you have yet to find, where their names are more familiar and yours is not. Where you wonder if someone will eventually notice that you are younger, less experienced, and perhaps not supposed to be there. When these thoughts find their way into your mind, stay. Stay even when you are doubting whether to speak up, do it. Stay even if you’re not certain on what comes after. Stay no matter what. Because being young has never meant that you have nothing to say. To be young is to live in the strange gap in between being told that you are the future of our nation and being reminded that you are not quite ready yet. We are told to dream big, but sometimes told that we are too young to understand how the world works. We are encouraged to speak up, yet questioned when our opinions challenge those who came before us. Sounds familiar? And yet, here we are. Yet, here YOU are. The Filipino youth have always found ways to make themselves heard. You cannot deny that you at least tried to volunteer, create, write, protest, teach, vote, and show up. We make things out of what we cannot explain and communities out of what we cannot change alone. We find one another online and offline, in classrooms, streets, workplaces and spaces where you people are simply trying to make sense of the world. But I hope despite all these, you remember that you do not have to change the world every day. Sometimes, simply surviving a difficult academic year or career is enough. Sometimes choosing to try again after failing is enough. These things count, way more than you think. There is so much pressure placed on young people to become extraordinary. We are constantly asked what we want to be, where we see ourselves in five years. Even asked what we want to be when we grow up as early as the age of five. Somewhere along the way, we can forget that we are allowed to simply become. You do not need to have your life figured out at twenty. You do not need to know exactly where you are going at eighteen, twenty-two, or even twenty-five. You are allowed to take the longer road. Allowed to outgrow dreams that once felt like they were supposed to define you. And when you find yourself in a room where you feel like the youngest there, remember this, you are there for a reason. Seize every opportunity. Ask questions. Make mistakes. Let yourself be humbled by what you do not know yet. But do not make yourself feel smaller simply because someone else in the room has been there longer. Every person in any room was once the youngest too. So to every young Filipino who is still figuring things out, keep showing up. Show up to the classrooms even when you feel behind, in communities even when you are unsure of what you can contribute, and most importantly, show up in conversations that matter. Take up space, but make space for others, too. You are more than the country’s future. And if you are ever standing outside a room, wondering whether you are too young and inexperienced, I hope you choose to walk through the door. Because it is better to be the youngest person in the room than to spend your life outside it, waiting until you feel ready. You may never feel ready, but walk in anyway. From a fellow youth, Happy International Youth Day!