9:01 PM
i checked my results.i didn't do well. just as i was lamenting over the fact i didn't do well, Hugh Prather's words into my mind. In case you're wondering who/what Hugh Prather is, he is the author of the book "Notes to Myself - My Struggle to Become a Better Person". (thanks Miao for the loan of such a fantastic book!)
An excerpt from his book:
"The thought, 'you're lucky, it could have been worse' is the kind of gratitude i can do without. It also could have been better, or, actually, it couldn't have been any other way other than the way it was."
I read that sentence six times to let its full meaning wash over and sink into me.
I have been taking exams ever since i entered kindergarden at the age of five, and have experienced the ups and downs of receiving results for the past 16 years. In the past, whenever i looked at not-so-well results, i would frown and mutter "I should have done better"/"I should have worked harder"/"I should have the potential to achieve more".
I realized, however, that all the "i should"s i have blabbered for the past n times didn't really come from me. They were the expectations of the people around me. All my life, i've been scolded and lectured and nagged to achieve "better results". Who can determine what exactly is "better results"? For a disabled child, the achievement of setting his foot on solid ground when he's been bed-ridden all his life might well be the same for the astronaut who became the first Chinese man to set foot in space. Just because the astrounaut had millions of people congratulating him on his success doesn't make the poor disabled child's achievement any less. (I'm not sure if you can get what i'm trying to drive home here; but if you can't, just let it go.)
Thus, when i received this semester's results, i wasn't exactly happy, but i wasn't overly upset either. I'd seen this coming, and frankly, in Hugh Prather's words, "[my results] also could have been better, or, actually, it couldn't have been any other way other than the way it was." And when i accepted the fact that "it couldn't have been any other way other than the way it was". i felt... free. I did what i could, and there isn't any point in lecturing myself and asking myself to work harder, because that's going to be like asking a lion to start eating grass. I never did quite like memorizing, and Chinese isn't quite my forte (but i'm working on it, honest!), but i know i gave it my best shot at the exams, and it came out the way it was supposed to be. My work reflects who i am, reflects my take on things, reflects how i feel. To quote another paragraph from Hugh Prather:
"All i want to do, need to do, is stay in rhythm with myself. All i want is to do what i do and not try to do what i don't do. Just do what i do. Just keep pace with myself. Just be what i will be.
I will be what i will be - and I am now what I am... ... I will work in rhythm with myself, not with what i "should" be."