A Different Kind of Courage

"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.