"Courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."
It's funny how I
go absent for half a year and finally find something in me to start writing
again. I guess the series of encounters I've had this semester has gotten me
thinking - as it always has with the weird workings of my mind. I had a good
conversation with a friend a while back about what it means to stay true to yourself.
And she surprised me with her take on things. It was then that I realised
how it takes people looking from the outside to tell you what they see. More
often than not, their perspective may surprise you.
Looking at my
journey in retrospect, I guess there is much change in it. I remember my
Biology lecturer once said that the only constant thing in science is change.
And if you were to define science as the study of life, then it would read that
life itself is always changing. See what I just did there? ;)
I guess being raised
in an Asian society entailed a very academic upbringing. An environment I found
many of my peers dreaded. With the ultimate pressure in success being
defined as mere academic excellence, you find kids hating school and anything
or anyone associated with it. Call it luck, fate or what have you, but I
guess in that department, I didn't fall short of the Asian stereotype. My
early years were filled with innocence which soon turned to frowning at my
intellectual ability for it gained me more enemies and jealous friends than
anything. As a doe-eyed 10-year-old, I guess you start wondering what you
did wrong in getting straight A’s in your exams that people invented rumours
about you going to endless tuition classes and being forced to study every night.
I guess when I was 10, jealousy and envy were two words very foreign to
my vocabulary.
Not anymore.
And I really don't
mean it in a cut throat way but really, the whole point of the matter is, that
I change. We change. Why? Because we LEARN. And hopefully, in hopes
of being a better and stronger person. I guess after a turbulent yet in most
parts, enjoyable ride, I changed and started EMBRACING what I now call my gift.
A gift of intellectual ability I felt I fell short of appreciating what I
had to the fullest because I was too preoccupied by how others felt about it.
I guess you could
say that I learnt a lot about courage. I learnt that courage didn't mean
conforming to what the social mentality, in this case Asian, thought was right.
Courage was considering all aspects and discovering what you have within
yourself and not being afraid of showing the world what God has given you; and
if it was the norm in society, great! If it wasn't, still great! Many a
time, my high school friends have found me with my nose in my books assuming my
life to revolve around exams. But I guess I want to tell them my side
of the story in spite of it being hard to believe: I've always enjoyed
learning and I have always possessed an academic drive to excel derived from nowhere else but me. Yes,
I may have been swayed at several instances with the kiasu-ism of the crowd and
my better judgement clouded by the fear of not living up to the expectations of
people around me. But that in itself, is courage. Courage to
realise the flaw in the system and in myself and learning to improve myself from
there. What mattered more than getting that '1st' position on my
report card was what I gained
from all of this at the end of the day.
I learnt that
everyone has different potential to achieve many things. We are all
different. And having to ask all 800 high school students in my school to
conform to a standard of 90-100% being A+ and that being the only definition of
a 'pelajar cemerlang' is in my words, just poop. What about that student
who brings her guitar to school every week composing melodies with the
potential to become a wonderful musician? What about that bespectacled
pupil who never stops sketching manga on the corners of all her notebooks - can
she not be the next best comic book artist? I know academics may have
been my niche (and for that I am blessed and grateful) but it doesn't mean that
all 800 students are academically-inclined. I am glad that I have found
what I love to do even if the world has an ironic take to my weird joy for
studying (or learning, if you wish) but I
just wish I could speak more for those peers whose voices cannot be heard.
The minority being the arts isn't a field I have any less love towards and
I just wish less people were blind to its beauty.
At times, I have learnt
to put my foot down and say "No, this is not what I stand for or who I
am," yet humble myself at other times to listen to people's advice.
Because it shouldn’t matter what gold medal or position you ranked in
class. I’ve grown to believe that what mattered was WHO YOU ARE as a person and how much you used what you had to HELP
others to achieve their greatest potential. There are many thin
lines drawn, some I am still in the process of deciphering, but which comes
only from experience. From life. Nothing else. I am learning
and I am still changing. (Note the present tense)
You'd think that
at the brink of 'adulthood' (it scares me but it's true), change would have
worn down by now but it actually is the opposite. 2012 has been nothing but one
change after another. College has brought me to cross paths with some brilliant
minds and although I was initially apprehensive of how this would play out, I
realised I like how things are and I wouldn't have it any other way. It
had a lot with me defining my principles and why I was actually doing what I
was doing in college. I feel much more confident now than I was before,
that I am genuinely competing with no one else but myself. It has been a humbling experience being a
girl from Sabah to meet some pretty awesome city people who have achieved many
things. It has taught me to have a sincere respect for the talents of others
without trying to compete with their standards but rather, stay true to my own. Nonetheless, I guess you may find me pushing myself a lot, perhaps too hard sometimes (still working on that), I guess we are, after all, figuring ourselves out. I have not mastered how to stop pushing myself overboard, but I am learning.
And as I embark on another swashbuckling
adventure of daunting University Applications, I can never dare to say that I
am prepared. Because life has a way of
catching you off-guard at the most unsuspecting times.
“Courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart”
And this is as much heart as I can put into the story of who I am. It is nowhere near the entirety of it nor is
it an accurate account. But it is MY
account. It is a piece of me I would like to share. Take it or leave it.
