Time....

Just met up with an old friend from primary school to catch up with each other. We talked about how our aspirations, beliefs and dreams have changed with each passing time.

When we were still in kindergarten, we would think about how great some occupations can be, and would always change our aspirations every time.
"When I grow up, I want to be a policeman so I can be a hero and catch thieves."
"I want to be a doctor so I can save people."
"I want to be a teacher, so I can teach people."
"When I grow up, I want to be a hero, like Superman. Then I can fly in the air and fight the bad guys."
We were still naive when we were young, and each time we felt that a particular occupation is cool, we wanted to be in that occupation. And we would use to think that super heroes exist in the world.

As we reached primary school, we knew that super heroes did not exist, hence, we knew that the aspiration of becoming a super hero was impossible. We would then think of better and more realistic (at that point of time) like policeman and teacher. However, as kids, we would still concentrate more and spend more time on playing than studying. All we could care about studies is not to fail our subjects, and we had done our task by becoming a student. As PSLE approached, we began to get more serious because our parents told us to do so. They told us we had to get into good secondary schools, so next time we could go JC/Poly then go into university. Left with no choice, we had to get good grades, and it would determine whether we get into neighbourhood schools, independent schools or autonomous schools. The best (according to adults) would be independent or autonomous schools. We had no idea why but followed accordingly.

When we reached secondary schools, we then realised why our parents wanted us to get into independent or autonomous schools. Coming from a neighbourhood school, the experience as a neighbourhood secondary student would tell you, you would be looked down upon by students from 'good' schools. This is because all neighbourhood students would be looked upon as Ah Bengs and Ah Lians, and would always be involved in gang fights. Although my school did have gang fights but not all students are bad. However, all the 'good' schools students would not feel that. If you happened to go to town in school uniform, you would experience the 'ostracize' feeling. I've never hold a grudge that I went into neighbourhood school coz I would experience more stuff that a student from independent or autonomous school student would experience. But from the 'ostracize' feeling, we would feel that we should worked harder as not to be looked down upon. Thus, the aspiration we had would be to get good grades and get into good JCs or polytechnic.

In JC/Poly, it's a time to decide our future, where we had to make important decisions. We had become more mature and had to decide our path and settle our aspirations soon. It's a time to decide if we wanted to go to university or go out to the work society. Even if going into university, we had to decide which school to enter in, which field we were interested in. In a blink of an eye, it was soon to make the decision.

University comes along and our interest had been settled. However, this is also the stage we had to struggle to continue believing in our aspiration, striving in our belief. There are more hurdles than expected. Here comes the dilemma: if we graduated, are we guaranteed that we are able to find the job which is related to what we had studied? In the beginning, we believed we could however, as the employment market fluctuates, our beliefs waver, and with the extra and tough hurdles and barriers to overcome, our beliefs waver more. Could we stick with our beliefs? Are we strong enough? We would only know when the time comes.