Write about a vivid childhood memory of an event that helped to influence the person you are today.
I want to adapt this post as a LA-ACE blog post:
Vivid childhood memories, yes I have many of them. Few are filled with joy and happiness, most are unpleasant. I would basically say my childhood sucked.
Much of my suffering actually came from my parents. They say that parents love their children unconditionally, I can say for truth that there is no such thing as unconditional love. Everybody loves someone with a reason, with conditions. Yes, the love of parents for their children is amazing and stronger than any other love, but it is never unconditional. What if the child hates his parents, curses them, beats them, does not acknowledge them, basically causing suffering to them, and yet they still have to love him? The love is never unconditional, the condition always being that would be that they would want him to love back.
From the day I was born, I was a naive, innocent, and stupid boy. Yes stupid, I was never intelligent. I did many stupid things, spill my milk, spoil computers and television, throw away unfinished food. Even then, I always listened to my parents, always hearing them say, "What we do is for your own good, listen to us!" and I believed them. Of course, all this changed when I was in primary 3.
During that year, I failed my first examination paper. I think I dare say that I am the only child in Singapore that actually attended a proper education and failed a subject in Primary 3. All this because? I heeded my parent's advice, more specifically my mother's. I do not want to dwell on the details of what she said, but throughout my whole year in Primary 3, I listened to her on how to study, how to answer questions, how to manage my time in the examination paper itself. Sadly, much of what she said was wrong. At that point of time, I was wrought with sadness, caught up in the fifth circle of Hell(Anger), hating my parents to the core. Since then, I decided that hating them wasn't going to solve anything, I decided to do things MY own way, to study the way I felt best for myself, to solve issues in my life without their help.
Since then, I got into the best class in Primary 5, after much hard work in Primary 4. I went further on to the best class in my primary school in Primary 6, and after PSLE, I barely managed to get into Hwa Chong Institution. "You will never survive it pass PSLE, never pass O levels, never pass A levels, and never pass National Service," was what my father told me when I was in Primary 4. Looks like I proved him wrong. Maybe some would say that my father did it on purpose to allow me to be motivated by myself, to be independent, and do well in life.
So basically, that failure in primary school, made me who I am today. I still do things myself, and I once told my parents, "Other students have parents, I don't. I have sponsors." As much as I would really like that things can still go on this way, with me settling my own issues, and having them backing me up financially, whilst still continue to improve our relationship.
In chinese there is a saying that failure is the mother of success(direct translation), this is so, so true for me.
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