I Not Stupid

I shared a brief chapter of my life during the Public Speaking course that I conducted just now.

I wasn't shy to say that I had a poor academic beginning. I was not a star student. Lying on the grass looking at the sky, I couldn't even make it to be among the trees.

I barely passed by PSLE. Never had a blue ink marked next to Mathematics, Science and many other subjects throughout the entire 10 years of primary and secondary education.

And as the story goes, I passed one subject for my GCE O-Level. Malay at either C5 or C6 I can't really remember. I was in the eyes of many, a lost hope. Stupid and slow.

Everything changes upon the death of my father. It was an awakening...that simply came too late. But better than never. I took my O-Level again and thereafter my A-Level both as a private candidate. After National Service, I joined the Institute of Education and obtained my Certificate-in-Education.

Like a brain possessed, I continued my further studies at night. Three years later, I graduated from the University of London with a Law degree (Second Class Lower Honours). Went on to UK to do my Bar with Lincoln's Inn.

Another three years gone by before I took a short career break in broadcasting and went to Gold Coast Australia to do a Master in Mass Communication in which I came up top of my cohort.

I was invited to do PhD by the university in the Ethnographic Study of the Practice of Public Relations in Singapore. After 1 year, I left the doctorate programme because I pursued management opportunities in several global PR agencies. It was a tactical error that now denies me of being called Dr Fahmi Rais. To make up for the loss, I applied and was admitted to Leicester University, UK to do a Master of Science programme in Forensic Psychology. I didn't manage to complete that either due to career advancement.

The point is, I was someone nobody believed in. I would want to think that my parents have never given up hope on me. But they didn't live long enough to see me going up the stage taking the scroll in a convocation.

The same boy who barely scraped through every year end throughout the first 10 years of formal education and gotten just 1 pass in the first O-Level examination could have counted on the possibility of 1 PhD, 2 Masters and 1 Honours Degree, all within another 10 years of timeframe.

That possibility now just turned out to be 1 Master, 1 Honours Degree and double the Pride. I am not stupid nor is your son, daughter, cousin, niece, nephew or whoever he or she might be that are now scoring below your expectations. Do not lose hope on anyone in the same manner you dare not lose hope on yourself.

A hard knock do come handy to wake up a sleeping mind. Add some faith to it too.

I turned out ok. More ok than most of my classmates that did better than me in school.

Why most networkers remain to be workers of the net.

Want and can are poles apart. The want may not be can. And the can may not want.

In my network business, the want will find the can and the can will get the want. So those who could not make it are the ones who dont want to can and those who can but do not know what they want.

1437 new chances I will be taking.

There is always a chance things will go wrong.

A chance happiness will be there waiting.

A chance that death comes first.

A chance is all I need.

Family and good friends are not chances. They are real and worth the fight and to keep. But there is always that chance of broken ties, of lost loves and of distancing bonds to over run the real.

And in all of my current imperfections, the one that glares the most in the sight of conscience is my excessive doubts that the next chance I take may not put me on the right course, much less the best.

I've had my share of losing, of falling and of endings. And the irony of them all, those dark history made me thirsty for more chances. One more losing won't kill. One more falling won't hurt. And one more ending won't stop. But one good chance that I may inadvertently lose due to fading courage could rob my life potentially of its main destiny. And that chance I cannot miss.

So in the new spiritual calendar year, I am going after that chance and all the chances before me. Bruised, battered and trouble-hardened, I will take that chance by first reducing all my doubts to rubbles.

No matter how remote or fleeting.

For my family and for all those who believes in me.

And in me that I believe, stands a Man who will not kneel unless to his Maker.

For a start...

I have filled my facebook pages with what my mind says. I have written a book of wisdom with what my experience has taught me.

Now I will be pouring this blog with what my heart whispers. In conjunction with Maal Hijrah, I create this blog to bring myself one with the life I lived so that the words will echo throughout and after my timeline.

May you find some values in reading.