Each of us live in a different reality. A reality conjured by our families, friends, surroundings and mainly, ourselves. What we take in or believe in, from what’s happening around us, shapes our reality and expectations. Our own conjured reality and expectation can be both a boon or a bane.
Every now and then, we are faced with decisions that would shape the rest of our lives. And those decisions are normally bound by the reality and expectations that we live in. Our decisions would be aligned to what we have been taught to be the ‘right’ decision. The ‘right’ decision, most of the time, gravitates towards what our reality requires from us. Intelligence is measured by how many A(s) you get. Working in a bank or being a doctor/lawyer/engineer means you have a better career than others. Getting married means your life is complete and stable. Is your reality the same as mine? We always assume that most people live in the same reality as us, being taught the same thing, believe in the same facts. Little did we realise sometimes, we are actually the minority.
The ‘right’ decisions could easily be the ‘wrong’ decisions for those who live in a different reality and vice versa. Have we ever really challenged the reality and expectations that we live in? Have you ever forced someone to believe your reality or be forced to believe theirs? What makes our reality better than others? Have you ever pondered on those questions? I surely did and it wasn’t exactly easy to answer.
I had the opportunity to come across those life changing decisions. I made a huge decision after failing (at least in my reality) my final high school exam. I made another one after finishing ACCA at the age of 22. The latest one might probably be when I decided to resign after 4 years in EY and just a few months away from becoming a manager. Did I ever regret those decisions? There were moments where I did, but as of now I’ve learned to live with it. Have I wondered if I had a different reality and expectations, would I have made different decisions and be better off? All the damn time. (I’ll write in more detail about those decisions in a bit)
Most of us long for comfort. The comfort of making an easy decision. The decision that simply can’t go wrong. But it WILL go wrong. One way or another. There WILL be hardship whether you like it or not. There WILL be obstacles that you need to go through. There will ALWAYS be people questioning your decisions. I promise you all of that. But truth of the matter is that no one would know which decision is the best for you. Not even you. Not without any hindsight. That is just how life is.
So what do you do with that in mind? You challenge the reality that you live in. Challenge the expectation people have on you and the expectation you have on yourself. Explore all the possible decisions and never be bound by any sort of reality. And when you finally explored all possibilities and come up with a decision, no matter how crazy it seems or how unsure you are with the decision, take that leap of faith. Or even better, try out all the possibilities and see where you land. You don’t know where it will take you. So does any decision that you thought was safe. Nothing is certain. Might as well surprise yourself.
My first big decision was when I decided to pursue the accounting professional exam, ACCA. I was horrible at accounting in my high-school days. Last in class with potentially no future in it. My close friends were flying abroad to continue their studies, while I stayed behind. None of them took accounting too despite being better than me at it. My mum had no idea what ACCA was and wanted me to take engineering to follow my dad’s footsteps. My dad insisted on how hard ACCA was and asked me to talk to others about it to gauge how tough it will be. Fast forward a few years, I was one of the first few to graduate from my batch and even faster than those who had way better prospects than me.
My second big decision was to join EY. The so called Big 4 Accounting firm as an auditor. It was a straightforward decision at the time. Most who graduate from accounting would go into auditing because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do. And most who graduate from a professional qualification would aim to work in a Big 4 Firm. The decision led me to hell. I constantly thought of how stupid my decision was. Jaded, regret and lifeless. Those words describe perfectly the life I was in. Look how happy I was on my last day!
So how do we avoid decisions that will make us regret? WE CAN’T. Or to make it less negative, we can’t always avoid regret. We are bound by regret. But we learn from them. We learn and we grow. The best thing about exploring decisions unbounded by reality and expectations and taking the leap of faith is that it can be anything you want it to be. Most importantly, success in life is not exactly measured by what we have achieved. It is measured of how much we have progressed. Learning from pain and suffering is progress. Learning from regret is progress. Making mistakes and learning from them is progress. We are not the same person we were before we went through all of life's different possibilities. And that is progress. My two big decisions turned out to be the exact opposite of what my reality thought it would be. ACCA went way better than what people thought it would be. Big 4 was suppose to be a straight forward decision but it turns out to be one hell of a ride.
Our destination/aim in life is important. But the journey is even more important as it would shape who we would be once we reach our destination. And the kind of journey we take would determine how much we have progressed in our life. How much have you progressed?I asked myself, why is progress so important. In the same breath, I asked what do I actually want in life. Do you know what you actually want in life? I have come to the realisation that I don’t actually know what I want in life or even what kind of person do I want to be. That is where the first question actually comes into the picture. Progress, or exploring life and learning about all the different realities and possibilities help you to answer the question of who you are and what do you want in life. Progress in life, is a journey of discovering oneself.Life is a constant revelation of who you are as a person. The more you progress in life, the more you know yourself. The more you explore, the more you know what you like and dislike. The more struggles and challenges you face, the stronger you become. Life is a constant journey of character building. The more a character faces in life, the more the character knows what needs to be done next and eventually, how to end it. You are a character in your own book, you decide how interesting the book is. The ending is just the finale, what makes readers continue reading till the end is equally if not more important than the ending itself. Will anyone read a book about you?In hindsight I should give credit to my audit life to where I am today. In hindsight it contributed to the person I am today. The hardship did build my character. The challenges prepared me on how hard life could be. It’s a steep learning curve as the bosses would say. Years of character building compressed in a short space of time. It puts your character ahead of the others. In all honesty, it’s not the audit experience that made me resign, it’s the thought that, that reality is no longer the reality I want to live in or fight for. The knowledge that there are other realities out there prompted me to resign. Without a job. That was another big decision of mine.
Exploring all the possibilities and realities was key. The decision of what’s next would be mine. Not bounded what my parents or those around me expect out of me. I took a leap of faith. Went on a journey no one expected me to take. People questioned my decision, even those who are close to me. It’s totally out of my comfort zone. It’s not stable let alone certain. But life is not certain and stable. If I didn’t take that leap, I would have not known what would I become. Regret of the unknown is worse than regret of the known. I could still take the positives from my experience in audit. Living a life of "what if", is something that might just haunt me for the rest of my life.
It’s called a leap of faith for a reason. There are just things in life, god/religion, as the origin of the idiom, that simply can’t be understood through science or logic. Life, and what the future holds goes beyond the understanding of humankind. One could only understand god through faith alone. But that faith or belief in something could bring you far. In the first Invictus I spoke of how the power of believing in your aim can bring you far in life. This one I’m writing on how we should challenge and explore your aim / reality so that we go beyond the reality that was given to us as that is the way for us to grow and learn that life can be full of meaning, different meanings.The history of faith is that it has always changed over time to adapt to the realities of the human world. Realities have change and will change. So could yours. All the teachings of any faith asks you to do good and be good to the best of your abilities. Most if not all teachings ask you to seek knowledge and strive to be better than you were. So explore all the knowledge of this world within the different realities they are kept. Take that leap of faith, go all the way and do the best of your abilities to learn as much as possible and at the same time leaning about yourself. Learn things about yourself that you never knew.
Learning is a responsibility. It's a responsibility to better yourself, for your parents, your families, your country and everyone around you. It's a Fardhu Kifayah. And if you don't care about any of those, you definitely have to do it for yourself. Why? Because you deserve better. You have gone through so much in life and thus you should get more from life. If you don't think you deserve better, it could also mean you haven't done enough in life. Its one to be grateful, its another to actually strive for a better life and not get stuck in a single reality and be limited of the knowledge that life has to offer.
To those who are afraid, know this, even when you feel that you have failed, you have gained invaluable knowledge about yourself and life. And if that is still not enough, if i may quote my previous post, "know that god will reward you with what is due of your effort as god too ask that you seek knowledge to better yourself".
Once exploring different realities and taking that leap of faith to go on that journey becomes a second nature to you, you actually learned the best knowledge in life, which is to BELIEVE IN YOURSELF in anything that you do. You set what the next chapter holds, and how it will end one day. You Are the Master of Your Fate, You Are the Captain of Your Soul.
“The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find.”
– Auliq Ice
“People live their lives bound by what they see as ‘right’ and ‘true’. That’s what they call ‘reality’. However, ‘right’ and ‘true’ are nothing but vague terms. Their reality could turn out to be an illusion. Everyone is living by their own assumptions.”
- Uchiha Itachi
“This is space. It does not cooperate. At some point, everything is going to go south. And you are going to say, ‘this is it, this is how I end’. Now you can either accept that or you can get to work. That is all. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem then you solve the next one. And then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.”
– Mark Watney, The Martian
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) -
I am currently now exploring different things in life. The main journey now is that I’m currently in the line of doing business and exploring different callings of this life. I have no idea where it will take me or if it’s even a good decision at the end of the day. All I know is that this is something that the old me could only have think of and not do. Lets see where it takes me and do pray that this is all for the best.
Times are hard as I post this. Challenges and obstacles are coming hard and fast. Coronavirus hit everyone's lives, me included, and at the time I was just starting my new journey. Hopefully, the future me who reads this back could laugh and be proud that he manages to get past through this. And hopefully whoever else that reads this in the future would be proud of him/herself too. Godspeed.
- Invictus Maneo -