risks

human life is such that it is always beset by risks. freedom risks its own abuse, thought risks error, whilst speech risks misunderstanding. faith risks failure and hope risks despair. the risk of life is death. we can;t avoid risk and never can. as such, i would rather choose risk doing something i;ve always wanted to do rather than to surrender to what the society wants me to do. no matter what happens we should not surrender to any adversity that we face. we must constantly encourage each other and encourage yourself. in this way, even if we have lost the battle, we would have gained victory within ourselves.

we have to take risks in life. that way, we would find what we are really looking for or find something that can replace what was lost. yet, there is no guarantee that you;ll ever find it. but you have to try anyway. maybe this is what life;s all about. would you want to look back and say ' i wish i had' or 'i;m glad i did'?

what do you think?

journey to the promised land

trying to look back into the last 14 years of my life. starting from pri sch. at that young age, there was nothing but play. there was school, but work was not very stressful. just do as you are told and nothing will go wrong. the emphasis was waking up early in the morning, greet teachers you meet and make sure you hand up your homework. probably the hardest thing was spelling and the chinese spelling. because you;re expected to know how to spell all your words. its basically a training to perfection. there is no room for spelling errors.

streaming was a curious process. kids were given different streams according to their level which they are comfortable with. or rather, streamed according to their abilities. kids with less capabilities goes to a lower class, kids with higher capabilities goes to a higher class. there was a segregation of kids. but it never mattered to the kid because there was only play on the mind. then came the final year whereby a major exam was to be taken. at first it was thought to be a summery of what was learnt in the primary level. but it was actually an indicator of intelligence. whereby again, kids get segregated into a more well known institution and into a less well known institution and according to the streams they are supposedly more comfortable with. but probably the highlight on the kids mind was the new uniforms, friends and environment. and the huge amount of books to be bought. jumping from 4 subjects to 9 or 10 subjects was probably a shock to the kid. but fortunately, it was still manageable because subjects were taught at the elementary level.

again came the streaming. this time, to determined which subjects you are comfortable to take during the british exams. initially, it was thought that you could take subjects you are interested in. thats what sch is for isn;t it? but streaming was actually another indicator of which subjects you could apparently score in. but it was still manageable because it was at an ordinary level. but it was 8 subjects that was supposedly ordinary. then came the british exams. funny thing was that it seemed we have done the same questions from some books that can be purchased from the bookstores. after that exams, came another phase of life where the decision to continue wearing uniforms or not. it is always an eternal battle between the 2 decisions. if one decided to continue wearing uniforms, then every subject became advance. if you decide not to continue wearing uniforms, then subjects became very technical.

taking advance subjects means more precision in answers and more practice exam questions that can be obtained from still the ordinary bookstores. but it wasn;t easy because of the pressure and tension. it was in fact difficult. because the contents are far much more detailed compared to the ordinary level. and it was squeezed into a period of slightly more than a year. its an illusion if anyone said it was 2 years. it was a battle of survival. its the survival of the fittest. it was torrid times, yet there were times that was memorable. and, after all these, the journey is still not done. the saga continues....

just for fun..

what do you think?

ambitions

i heard someone ask this question, "when you were young, what did you want to be?" so whats the answer to that question? was there any answer in the first place. well, i also heard this somewhere else, "Don't feel guilty if you don;t know what you want to do with your life, the most interesting people I know didn;t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don;t." but you;ll eventually need to find out. one can;t be living a life not knowing what to do. surely at some point of time in your life, there has something you always wanted to do. its just factors that have been inhibiting you from doing it. especially money. if not, the freedom.

then someone mentioned, that people have given up their dreams to do what they don;t like to do for the sake of money. but is anyone prepared to do what they don;t like to earn money so as to achieved their dreams?

so what are ones dreams? is it still a dream? or is it forgotten? or is it on the road to reality? or has it already become a reality?

imagine someone asked you this question, "at anyone point of time in your life have you experienced failure?" how would you answer? if no, "then how would you have handled failure if it happens to you?"

if yes, "why did it even happened in the first place?"

what do you think?

systems

went back to sch today. makes one think back of the good old education days. where one would just study the whole day and get good results for examinations and tests. in this country, results basically reflect how one is successful in school. one will noticed that it does not take into account efforts expanded in the process of obtaining the results. the result slip also doens;t explain whether or not it was a fluke result or otherwise. but i think people aren;t probably interested in the explaination. because the main focus is on the results.

people basically believe results explains everything. no one will ever believe that if despite putting in effort, the results won;t show. no one will ever believe it. but the truth is, things like this will happen and is still happening. but being humans, and demanding humans, if results show, means you have done well and you have put in effort in your daily work. if results don;t show, means you are lazy, and you have not put in effort. perhaps i might be generalizing. but i never felt encouraged to do better when i was putting in effort and my results don;t show.

thank God there were educators who have faith in what i was doing, which was the motivation i needed to go through the entire school term. i was never suited for a system meant for elitist. but i did tell myself that whatever the results in the end, i know that througout the painful process, it has moulded a character out of me. i have learnt how to fail, and more importantly, pick myself and carry on walking. not many schools in this country teaches their students how to fail and then carry on walking afterwards.

its really unfortunate, all these can;t be reflected in the results slip. no one will ever know what sort of person one is, till you get to know one. people like to look at pieces of paper made from pulp of trees. people are often interested in what results you got, and where you got the results from. no one seems interested in how you go about with daily chores, attitude and work ethics. they only become interested in that after seeing some pieces of paper. perhaps, by then, it might be a bit too late.

brand and household names are usually favoured over the not-so-well known names. but thats the only way how people can tell difference at one glance. its a pity people are usually judged before they can really show what they are really capable of. but thats life isn;t it. its a doggy dog world. fighting with elitist is always a losing battle. but if one is well trained, one will eventually catch up. thats called being a farmer. they work twice as hard to get the same result as a zhuang yuan putting in half the effort. hardly seems fair, but one will get used to it.

what do you think?