A Difficult Task and Lessons from It

Life is full of activities and opportunities that require people’s commitment. However, time, like any other resource is limited. This calls for proper planning and commitment to specific activities and opportunities. Setting goals and sticking to the path of achieving them is a difficult venture. However, to achieve anything in life, one must be willing to set goals and overcome the challenges that accompany the process of achieving the goals. I ventured into a difficult task as an international volunteer in Costa Rica and endured difficulties and challenges I never thought I would overcome.

One time I decided to travel to Costa Rica as an international volunteer to help a local school. Previously, I had travelled out of my country as a volunteer, but this trip was more challenging than the rest I had attended. First, the task I had planned to achieve required specific skills and expertise that I lacked. The task involved construction, which was totally a new venture for me. Without some knowledge about the construction process, I would be less helpful to the local people than I had intended. Secondly, the local people talked Spanish while I could not communicate in Spanish. Communication was a very essential tool for me to achieve the goals I had set out to achieve. Communicating in Spanish would have been a hard task even for casual chatting. Using this foreign language in a conversation involving vocabulary used in the construction field was even harder, bearing in mind that I had no prior knowledge in the construction industry. To make matters worse, I had only one month in Costa Rica, which made it impossible to set aside some time to learn Spanish language. The other task that lay ahead of me was socializing with school children. Conversing with children in a foreign language is difficult because there are certain language styles that are applicable to adults, but difficult in communicating to small children. Despite these difficulties, I set out to achieve my challenging, but achievable goal.

When I arrived at my destination, the anticipated challenges proved to be true. I realized that there was no way I could achieve my goals without at least some background knowledge in Spanish. Learning Spanish demanded a lot of time, which was limited. I decided to divide my time into two. One part would be used for the construction of the children’s amusement park while the other would be utilized in learning Spanish. I used my day time hours to help in the construction work and then learnt Spanish language during the night. Even when I made a working schedule for my task, things did not become easy for various reasons. One, I had little time to rest and replenish my lost energy. This made my days very dull and I lost motivation. Secondly, learning at night after a hectic day proved to be rather difficult since my concentration span reduced to a few minutes. I realized that lack of concentration could prolong the span of time required to gain the language skills. After the first few days, I created a good rapport with other volunteers who shared the same frustration as me. From then on, life seemed easy as we motivated each other through the challenges.

While working as a volunteer in Costa Rica, I learnt several lessons that are still very useful to me today. First, remaining motivated throughout is a challenging task. Motivation requires will power and determination. To overcome the problem of low motivation, working together as a team is essential. Teamwork provides each member of the team with self drive. Realizing that other people are experiencing similar challenges makes the difficult tasks appear easy. Moreover, people working together provide support to each other when wok overwhelms a particular person. Through such cooperation, people are able to accomplish difficult and challenging ventures. Secondly, I learnt that by following a specific program, many activities can be achieved and the ultimate goal is easily attained. Following a program ensures that the available time is accounted for appropriately. A work program ensures that every activity being carried out is part of the ultimate goal. Therefore, effort is properly harnessed towards the final goal.

In conclusion, travelling to Costa Rica as a volunteer challenged and provided me with an opportunity to learn. I was able to set goals that were difficult to achieve, but through perseverance and determination, I was able to achieve my objectives.