Success

Many people have different definitions of what success is to them.

To some, success is the strings of As or the CGPA figure printed on certificates.

To me, success is doing what you love and doing it with excellence.

Now I know that some of you reading this are laughing to yourself as you may think "What does this 19 year old have to say about success when she has barely experienced the real world yet?"

Well, you're right :) I know that I have not fully experienced the real world compared to the older generations who have way more experience than me.

But I do also know that everyone has the right to share what's on their mind.


Hence, this post.

I was a student in a secondary school which was labelled as one of the elite schools in Penang. Not bragging about anything, the only reason why my parents, especially mom made me go to this school is because it was really near from home. (No need to wake up super early in the morning. Yay!)

Was never the top student in school, but rather an average student. So when we received our PMR results, it was then time for us to decide which stream we wanted to take for form 4 & 5.

Science or Arts stream?

I knew that science wouldn't be my interest but then again, I wasn't too sure about it. But what made me think twice about it was how the art stream class was placed.

There are 6 classes in total, and arts stream class would be the last.

For some reason, it wouldn't look cool if a straight As PMR student went for the last class in form 4 & 5. Like, wouldn't that be like a downgrade? Because the art stream class was the last class and that.

Did that affect my decision? Yes it did.

Everyone is created differently and uniquely. Everyone. 

A doctor cannot cook like how a Char Koay Teow chef can.
Neither can an engineer paint like an artist.

We live in a society that tells you to be of something that the world can accept and approve as a "successful" job.

I find it very rare when a young person shares his/her dreams of becoming a painter or a dancer and the crowd responds in a positive way.
Why? Because becoming any of that is not successful?


But at the same time, many people miss the mark.


Like how people would say things of Bill Gates & Mark Zuckerberg who were uni dropouts. Yes, they were uni dropouts (HARVARD dropouts in fact), but there was something which they were good at, something of which they were excellent in.


So what am I saying?
Don't give your best in studies and do whatever you want?
Absolutely not.


Giving your best in everything is important.
Education is important.
Everyone needs to be educated to grow in life.
But education is not the only way of measuring success. It isn't.


If someone is not the top student in his/her school but cooks good food at home.
Don't give up on that person. Don't ever give up on that person.
Use education as a pathway for him/her to grow and nurture that passion of culinary.


Writing this post was rather a challenge for me personally because it is definitely a big & heavy reminder for myself.


A reminder to stop viewing the cleaners cleaning the street or those who drive buses & vans to pick kids up from school as "less successful" people because hey, if they love what they're doing and they are doing it well, what's not successful about that?


Wouldn't the world be a boring place if everyone were engineers? There'd be no good chefs to cook good food!

I'm not implying that being an engineer is a bad thing, but not everyone is meant to be an engineer.




Alright, back to studying. Till next time :)



P.S// Yes, there will be another blog post coming soon. You might want to come back on Friday ;) Thanks for being patient, peeps!