Senior Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science student

St. Scholastica’s College Tacloban

Sunday’s dawn. The lights were dim. Rain pouring. It might sound like a fresh morning was ahead, a clean slate washed by the early shower. But as I lay there, a mind-boggling idea hit me with the force of an existential crisis: “What’s ahead?”

I’m a 22-year-old undergrad, and that question screamed in my brain. I started a degree I simply thought I might be good at, not because of a fiery passion or a clear-cut vision, but a hesitant “maybe.” I’m not the best in my class. In truth, some might even label me as one of the worst. For a while now, this version of me has been quietly, yet profoundly, scared of the future.

My fear isn’t born from a lack of potential, but from the overwhelming sound of certainty around me. A genuinely happy-go-lucky person might float through these years free from such anxieties, but I can’t escape the constant buzz of ambition from my peers. I hear them already planning their next decade. Some are already preparing for the grueling National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) for medical school. Others are eyeing jobs abroad. A dedicated few are mapping out their entry into law. Still others are forging connections to start careers in business. They’re all moving with purpose, with a destination in sight. And then there is me, the person riding the cloud of doubt, hoping the stars were aligned for me to stumble into a good life. I was waiting for destiny to send me an invitation.

It was past four in the morning when the doubt became too heavy to bear indoors. I felt an urgent need to escape the four walls of my room, which seemed to be closing in with the weight of my unfigured-out life. I decided to go for a run. The rain had softened to a drizzle, and as I looked up, I saw the sky had begun its slow, luminous transition to day.

But there, suspended in the fading darkness, were the dazzling stars.

“Dawn is coming, why are they still here?,” I whispered.

Then, it hit me. They shine. Not in spite of the encroaching light, but often most intensely against the deepest darkness. They shine with darkness surrounding them, with uncertainty about the morning, with the simple, unavoidable presence of doubt.

It was a profound and simple truth. Stars do shine amid the chaos of risks and what-ifs. They don’t wait for a perfectly clear, black night to be beautiful—they just burn. They are a constant, radiant presence regardless of the environment.

This realization shifted my entire perspective. I’d been looking up, waiting for a celestial body to grant me permission to succeed, to clear the path, to signal my worth.

Suddenly, the thought formed, clear and undeniable: Maybe the star in me isn’t a faraway light above but a fiery core in me. It’s not something to be waited for—it’s something to be uncovered.

It’s already there, shining.

It shines with doubt, because doubt is a natural component of growth and the unknown path. But it also shines with a glimmer of hope, with passion that burns beneath the surface, and a fierce, undeniable desire and potential. It is a star burning with the same atomic fire as the ones in the sky—a chaotic, beautiful, and self-sustained energy.

The truth is, it was never going to be aligned. Life doesn’t offer a perfect map, and success isn’t a pre-drawn constellation. I had been waiting for the universe to do the work, when the power was mine all along. The fault, as the great writers have suggested, is not on our stars but on ourselves. We are the architects of our light. The challenge isn’t to eliminate the darkness, but to start burning anyway. I’ll walk forward with the doubt, because now I know the star isn’t a promise of a certain future, but the fuel to build it.

It’s time to stop gazing up and start igniting.