In Waseda University they have this weird program which requires a student to take up a sports 'jugyou' in order to complete the syllabus. Well, there is one problem. I am absolutely terrible at sports. Just the thought of stretching makes me want to lie down and sleep. Naturally I was in no condition to make any kind of decision, until some well-meaning senior suggested that I take up the handball class, because
Easy right? Not so. For the life of me, I couldn’t get the ball inside the goal even when we were in a line and practicing our throws at it. I kept hitting the top of the goal post, and I know exactly where the spot was because it was about a foot across. It got to be so ludicrous, the goal-keeper wouldn’t even bother to guard when it was my turn to throw. He just stood with arms akimbo and one knee bent over the other like James Bond without his gun. At one point the lecturer felt so bad for me, he made me throw a yard closer than anyone else, and I still hit the same one-foot spot on the post. So for the rest of the year, he made me stand next to him while everyone else played. I passed.
When I think about it, I realize that if the object of the game had been to hit the top post, then I would have been the best student in class because I was the only one consistently doing so. Does this make me a failure? No it didn’t because I still passed. The experience also did not affect me negatively because I was laughing at myself, and since I was laughing at my own mistakes, that gave everyone else around me an opportunity to laugh without feeling guilty either. I made a lot of friends in that class.
A few years later I went to a buffet dinner in Miri, and being a little klutzy, missed a step and fell. Only one thing went through my mind: Hit that spongy looking red buttock ahead. And I did. Smack in the middle. Must have scared the hell out of the lady in front of me, but at least my head didn’t end up inside the tapioca bowl. When I retold the story to someone else a few weeks later, he was embarrassed for me and said that if it had been him, he would have died from shame on the spot. I couldn’t understand what he meant at first, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. And when I finally understood, that was when I started becoming a failure.
The life that had so far been full of hope, fun and faith suddenly became tragic. Everything I did appeared wrong and all my choices were now bad. I suddenly realized that I made a huge mistake by going to one of the most famous universities in Japan and studying only Accounting Theory. I suddenly thought that it was a huge error to learn how to speak Japanese because I would now end up being a translator with no career prospect for anything more serious. Life became littered with bad choices, and each time something silly happened, I began to criticize myself in some of the worst language possible.
But the thing is, I didn’t make those early choices because I wanted to fail, I made them because I love them. I love culture, history and language. I am also fascinated with bookkeeping (don’t ask me why, I can’t explain it). In fact, the best times I had in Japan was when I was inside some musty secondhand bookstore and getting to choose ten books for the price of one. I had no objective, I had no five-year-plan, and I did not feel that I had to be a high achiever to be happy. In fact I must have done one of the worst jobs possible when the foreign students club picked me as the editor for their 1993(?) magazine issue. I think it was because they thought I was a serious person since I was always seen in the archive of the library, reading huge bound post war newspapers and magazines. What nobody realized was that I was reading old issues of the British PUNCH Magazine.
Life was wonderful. Life was exactly the way I wanted it, which was the exact reason why I studied so hard to get a scholarship in the first place. But the turning point came when I met the man who told me that I should seriously consider my life a failure.
The first thing I did to turn my ‘sub-standard’ life around was to stop writing. I stopped writing for over ten years during which I began building plans and goals that I didn’t believe in, and walked the walk or talked the talk that I was not comfortable with. Tinge of guilt went through me as I watched grown men cry and listened to them beg me to talk to the boss so they could keep their jobs. I learned to kiss ass that most people would not touch with a ten-foot pole, and hide goings-on from spouses that would have made my grandmother turn in her grave. Then finally, after years of backbreaking work and chasing after butterflies I didn’t want, I decided to leave my job.
Was it a smooth transition? No. My family was disappointed in me, I was disappointed in me. I was reaching forty, and still had nothing to show for all the greenhouse gases released to support my existence. Even when I tried to write, I couldn’t. It took me more than two years to finally gain enough confidence to show my work to strangers, and many of them helped me the way I had never been helped before. I think it is because, they could feel that I was serious about chasing my creative butterfly. I was also lucky enough to have a brother and sister who supported me and loved me whatever my choice in life. They may not agree, but they were willing to let me decide for myself.
Life has been a lot more cheerful and meaningful since. I do miss a few perks from my working days now and then but at least I am doing what I want, the way I want it. And the funny thing is, when people learn how serious I am about my passion, and they come to know me and my objective in life, they stopped judging me, except for a handful of people. And here is the other interesting thing I noticed: People’s opinions no longer bother me. The reason is because I feel on track. I feel that I am doing the right thing. Even the end of the journey doesn’t matter. Right now, I only have one purpose, to tell stories and to persuade my readers that life is good, and that everything is better than we all think. Strangers are not out to get you, they might become your best friends. Nobody is criticizing you, they are only vocalizing their own fears. I learned that it is a positive outlook, not strength that makes a person courageous. A Red Cross volunteer who believes that his work matters will do great deeds, a teacher who believes that she teaches future great men and women will set high standards for her class, and a president who believes that every single individual has a right to education, healthcare and opportunities will not falter even if his popularity rating drops. In other words, people who have a positive view, will act in ways that will help them manifest their positive outlook, while those who are negative will seek to oppress, exploit or destroy others whom they believe will manifest their fears.
So if you feel like a failure, ask yourself when did you first start thinking like that, then fix your life from there. Why must you do this? Because I believe that everyone was born into the world with a purpose in life. That is the reason why the one thing that enthralls one person may leave another bored to tears. We are all wired to be a certain way from the day we were born, so that when we find our source of happiness the world will become a better place. Your friends and love ones may consider your passion frivolous, but you shouldn't because it is your ticket to happiness.
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