And So It Is Ending

.4 years have thus gone by. I still remembered my dilemma back when I finished my SPM. I have always loved Biology and languages over Physics. In fact, I hated Physics. I sucked at Physics. I simply couldn’t understand the concept at all. I still remember I couldn’t understand F = ma, why a net force exists and why it couldn’t run out. I remembered I was amazed by my Form 4 Physics teacher’s formula derivation in one go and I was looking at the white board with my mouth agape. I loved Maths a lot, was obsessed with it, but I hated Physics. A rarity because both are usually mutually exclusive. And I continued to hate Physics, Form 5 syllabus didn’t help. It was simply too dull, too mundane, its soporific effect never failed to come in between Physics and me. But when I got my SPM result, everything changed. I realised that despite my efforts in Biology, I couldn’t ace it, but I aced Physics, a subject I despised. That disappointment prompted me to give up on Biology, and because I wasn’t sure what career I wanted yet, I went for STPM, majoring Physics. One and a half year of Form 6 life remains the best period in my life so far, and remains the most enjoyable phase I believe I cannot ever forget. That was the best decision I have made so far. I slowly loved Physics, especially the first term’s. Second term’s is not my area, I hated it. Third term was also boring. First was awesome. And so STPM began the phase of my life where everything centres on Physics. But there was a dilemma. I have always, and still am, a person who is better at language than science. There’s a limit to where the passion in science within me would go, but there is no such limit when it comes to language. When I have free time, I sought to read, write, watch, learn languages but it never crossed my mind to skim through physics-related topics. I am someone who can be more amazed by a columnist’s linguistic manoeuvre than the content he attempts to deliver. The 9 months after STPM presented me a situation where the crossroad I found myself in had no clear directional paths and I had to guesstimate where and which I want to go, realising that there is no turning back whichever one I picked. I had interests, though with different intensity, in different fields that do not overlap. My passion always lies in writing. When time was scarce and a decision had to be made fast, I told myself I can learn language when I am free of my own volition, without guidance, independently online, but I couldn’t possibly, or maybe it would just be incredibly difficult, to learn physics independently online. So I opted for what was then clearly my second choice: civil engineering. Being an engineer was one of the dreams, but not my passion. And so I opted for Civil Engineering, and after countless of struggles, disappointments, frustrations, episodes of no-life and helplessness, 4 years have gone by and I am graduating. I won’t say I do not like Civil Engineering. It is a very fun course and the career is very good. But deep down in my heart I know something has always been missing: a burning passion that would push me to challenge myself more than I can deal with. Without such burning passion, it wouldn’t last. I cannot do something for long, simply because there was no target. There was no motivation. There was no reason to do more than I should. And I personally do not think that should be the case. Whatever you do, I believe a passion has to be there. If there is no passion in your life, then why are you willing to wake up to another day of destitute? No. Whenever you wake up early in the morning, you wake up for a reason. There’s always something you look forward to in the day. It might be shopping, it might be cooking, it might be working for all you know. But there’s always something there. Something that gives you a sense of living. I don’t lack that, but I do find myself in a situation where I don’t get to do what I actually like. I have always questioned the decision I made. I always love to write and read, and I always push myself more than I believe I could, but the same does not extend to what I am studying. The same does not apply to what I will be doing. 4 years on, I still wonder whether it was right to forego my first choice and stick to the second. I don’t hate what I currently am doing, but there is no passion. My loyalty lies somewhere else. It I were given a second chance, to be honest, I cannot tell for sure I would make the same decision.