"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist."
| Author Unknown |
Picking up from my previous blog article in this series, ‘The Unique You’, I can say with certainty that none of you are here on earth by accident. To summarize what was discussed, I laid the claim that you are unique, you have something special to contribute to this world and you are an amazing individual. A quote that caught my attention, ‘the loneliest people in the world are those who have exhausted pleasure and come away empty’. Most of us view education as a way towards the pursuit of happiness which, if attended to correctly, will indeed bring great fulfilment in our lives but if pursued merely for selfish reasons, might end up leaving us chasing shadows.
If you look closely, every step of your educational journey reveals countless examples of how unique you are as an individual.
Boring School Subjects
All of us can relate to those periods on our time-table we wished we could just fast-forward or remove completely. Regardless of how interesting the teacher tried to make it, sometimes it just took a lot of energy to understand and apply the principles we were learning, something inside us just wouldn’t resonate with the subject matter. On the other hand, there were subjects that we were naturally drawn to, we were good at it, we learnt fast and our subject teachers probably loved us. Then there were some subjects that we were fairly good at, not excellent but doable. We probably never got an ’A’ for it but we never failed it either.
Exciting Extra-curricular Activities
For me, the best two ‘periods’ in my time table was recess and physical education, both of which were used for the same thing…football. I think some of you may be able to understand what im saying here. We know that not all of us like being forced into track and field events or on the other hand some of us cannot stand dance and drama. In themselves, there is nothing wrong with those clubs or societies, in fact a well-rounded education must include an equal measure of the arts and sciences along with physical education. The ‘magnet’ that attracted you to certain extracurricular activities but pushed you away from others was a result of your own unique personality.
College life
Why don’t we all sign up for the same courses? I remember leaving high school, having been with some of my friends for at least 5 years, if not more, even having taken the same subject for SPM, we were now faced with a much bigger decision. What do I want to be? What am I actually good at? This was an introspective time for me, I was not going to choose my future based on what my friends were doing but rather really look inwards and find my unique purpose. Interestingly everyone else was also taking personal time to decide on their future. Even though some of us may have chosen similar courses, yet even then we find that we may enjoy different sections of that course. We drag ourselves to some lectures but for others we are one of the first at the lecture hall. Some enjoy college as a whole whereas others barely get through it. Whats the cause of this? Is it because we lack focus or determination, perhaps it was due to a lack of interest or maybe it just wasn’t the best choice of study – What do you really want to do?
It is clear that your uniqueness permeates even the fabric of the education realm. Every step taken in your educational journey from day one almost seems to ‘shout out’ the fact that you are unique and you have something special and positive to contribute to make this world a better place. Could all these be sign posts pointing us to our future career paths?
Our team at Missing Link Consultancy is ready to support you through this journey of self-understanding and to help you access the information you need in order to make the decisions you need to make. To get in touch with us, drop us an e-mail at info@missinglinkconsultancy.com or check out our services to find out more.
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