Living life to the fullest, living in gratitude

The following is an excerpt from an address by the columnist delivered at the Graduation Banquet organised by the Malaysian Students Association at The Ohio State University.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, proud parents, friends and family members, and of course, the graduates of this great university. It’s an honour to be chosen to speak to you here today. Generally, some speakers talk about the past, the good times we all had at the university, from the moment we first entered through the university gates, about the friends and memories made, the places we have been, the experiences we have been through. That’s all good, but I figure we might want to look ahead into the future.

How many of you have seen “The Matrix”? It’s a great movie. One of my favourite movie lines of all time was delivered during one of the scenes in “The Matrix”, in which Agent Smith says to Neo: “Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.”

What’s past is past and is prologue to something new. Our graduation marks the end of something, but it also signals the beginning of something new. We are about to start our journey –  new opportunities, new friends, new love, new life.

There is a life that awaits us. In preparing for the new life ahead, I have given some thought about what I want to do and what I will not want to do. I want to share three items from my promise list. This is a list that I keep to remind myself of the kind of life I want to live and the kind of life I would not want to settle for. If some of you find any of these vaguely helpful, then this sharing would be worth it.

The first promise I make to myself is, do not die twice. We all are going to die. You are going to die, I’m going to die. It’s just a matter of when, which we fortunately or unfortunately do not know yet. But some people die twice. Here’s what I mean. Some people are just existing, like breathing and walking corpses. Their life has been sucked out of them. This can happen for many reasons. Some people hate their jobs, some people can’t accept tragedies that happened, and some people are just plain lazy.

Instead of confronting the emptiness in their life and fill it up with something meaningful, they choose to escape from their barren reality and resort to work or/and computer games.

We cannot let that happen to us. After all this education, time, and money, it would be such a waste to let our life slip by. Do we want to wake up 30 years from now and regret not taking chances? Not travelling the world? Not confessing the love you have for that special someone? Not quitting a job you hated?

Indeed some people die twice because they think it is the safest option. By not changing anything, they think they are living a secure life. Nothing could be further than the truth. The biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk. This is especially true for people in their 20s like us. Know this: there are things we have to do now, or it would be much harder to do it when we have our own families, a tonne of responsibilities, and a painful back.

If you want to travel to Europe and Africa, go do it. If you love someone, tell her or him. If you hate what you are doing, stop doing it and find something better.

You have to make a commitment to yourself. Worse than he who tried and failed to achieve his dreams is he who did not dare to dream at all.

The second thing I am going to share about is, promise yourself that you are going to find something you are good at and keep doing it. No one said it better than Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple Inc. He said, “You got to find what you love, that is as true for work and for lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle for less. As with all matters of the heart, you will know when you find it.”

Like I said, we are all going to die. Our life is limited and we can’t go back into the past. Do you know what’s the furthest thing from our reach? It’s not some supernova or stars that are millions of light years away from us. It is time. It is impossible for us to chase the second that just passed. You have a very limited time on Earth, do not waste it living someone else’s life. Ask yourselves, “Is this the kind of life I want to live?” If we keep on asking that question and the answer is no for several weeks, it’s time to change something. Deep inside, you somehow already know what you truly want to become and what kind of life you want to live. You will find that you will get good at what you love to do, purely because you are much more willing and able to learn and do what you do best.

The third thing I want to share is, promise that you will give back and pay it forward to someone else and/or society. Giving back means you repay those who helped you on your way up. But sometimes it is not always possible to give back to the persons who helped you, so you can give back by paying it forward. Meaning, you give to B what you once received from A.

When I was in secondary school, there were a number of teachers who helped me become who I was, which was necessary to become who I am today. Same thing when I was in Taylor’s College. They believed in me when I was unsure of myself and my abilities. That faith that others placed in us can be so powerful, and the only way we should repay and show our gratitude is to place that faith in someone else and inspire them to greater heights. You should be aware that as graduates from a rather prestigious university, you are looked up by many others especially those from the less privileged backgrounds. They have not seen the world like you have or enjoy the opportunities that you have. You can help broaden these people’s perspective of the world and who knows, you can be the light to the darkness that is present in their everyday ordinary life; just like how someone used to lift you up when you were down and out.

And of course, throughout my 23 years of existence, there are two persons who have always been there for me. My dad and mum. I could never repay their support and love. My dad once worked two jobs to support the family and as a kid, I wanted him to stay whenever he left for night shifts. Years of hard labour had taken a toll on him and when I went back to my hometown last summer, his movement is noticeably slower. My mum worked in a kopitiam. She is either standing or walking around for at least 10 hours a day.

Though my parents can’t attend my graduation, I know they always keep me and my sister in their thoughts and in everything they do. They are always with me in here. Thank you daddy and mummy!

I’m pretty sure that this narrative holds true for most of you here today. Your parents have been working long hours and hard jobs to get you through college and they have always been supporting you in one way or another. When you begin your new life, understand that your new journey also signals the beginning of role reversal. I first experienced this when I was in Form 5, but even more when I returned last summer. Instead of your parents taking care of you, now it’s your turn to take care of them.

I would like to borrow a quote from a video I saw yesterday: “In this lifetime, there are two persons we are eternally indebted to. Our parents. They gave us life. No matter what we have been through, how far we go, we should never forget their love and sacrifice.”

And then, there’s our country. Patriotism is cheesy and you can’t tell a person to love someone or something. All I’m going to say is that a country is a community. We are part of this community and this is our country, no matter what. As the saying goes, you can take a Malaysian out of Malaysia, but you can’t take Malaysia out of a Malaysian.

Sometimes when I think about questions of identity, I feel that without me, Malaysia would go on like normal. But without my country, I’m nothing. I hope that someday this generation, our generation, will do something so great as to make people believe in a common dream again and erase the mistakes of the past and present. There have been some very good and noble statesmen in our society, but they are few and far between. We need more good people to serve our society in whichever way you could.

Finally, though some people may think it is inappropriate for me to mention about death many times on this momentous occasion, I really believe that we begin to know how to live when we know how to die. It is when we choose what we really want out of life, what we want to be remembered for, and live each day as if we were given a second chance to live, only then we will realise the tremendous opportunity and life that lies ahead of us.

So to the Class of 2015 graduates, I say to thee: promise yourself that you will not settle for less, promise yourself that you will live your life the way you want it, promise yourself that you will find something or someone you love, promise yourself that you will do something greater than yourself and give back to the community in which you belong. Promise yourself that you will live, live, and live to the fullest! – May 9, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.