How a single event significantly changed my life forever

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sometimes, before I sleep, I always think back at the things that made up my life: all the events that led to me being in my current condition. And I must say that one of the most significant event that changed my life forever was the worst failure I have ever felt in my life up till now: my inability to continue my undergraduate studies in the UK.

Before experiencing that, I have always achieved success in almost every academic environment. I said almost, since nobody's perfect. I never got straight A's in every single exam I took, but at least almost every single target that I made was achieved. You name it, I did it: straight A's in UPSR, straight A's in PMR, 8A1, 1A2 in SPM, never failed any of my exams in my secondary school subjects, acquired sponsorship for overseas studies, studying in KMYS (which was a target I set out since Form 4); I achieved them all. Everything was going well for me. And that is why, the failure I suffered during my A-levels was very, very painful to me. When I first learned of the news, I felt lost, didn't know what to do at all... I felt like being branded a failure the rest of my life... I was truly, truly humbled, and I regret doing everything that led to that failure, coz I know deep down in my heart, the blame rest squarely on me...

At first I thought everything was going downhill from then on, but then I said to myself, "A person who has tasted defeat and moves on while learning from it is much, much better than a person who has never tasted defeat: he knows his weakness and how to avoid the same or other failures from happening again." I smiled.

Allah Maha Pemurah lagi Maha Bijaksana, everything that He does ada hikmahnya. Instead of forever suffering from total failure, I instead has been blessed with many positive occurances since then. I enrolled in Uniten and has been getting excellent exam results till now, met the love of my life, met new and memorable friends whom I might never ever met if I were to go to UK, became a better basketball player, and so on. In short, I am ever so grateful to Allah for everything that has happened ever since my A-levels fallout. :) And if I were to marry the love of my life one day, and have children, I would definitely think back to what happened in June 2001 and recognise it as the most siginifant turning point in my life ever...

And what a turning point it was...

Posted by Nikman Shah at 1:07 am
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