Monday, January 12, 2009

life works in mysterious ways

I had a friend in JC - he worked real hard for 2 years, but still flunk his A's. Instead, he went on to polytechnic to do Aeronautical Engineering and consistently top his cohort. When I last met up with him in December, it hasn't change. His GPA was near 4.0, which is the max.

Had another friend in JC - she nearly got herself retained in JC1 despite working really hard. When it came to A's, she failed, despite studying like crazy. Instead, she went on to Nanyang Poly to do Biomedical Engineering, and achieve higher than 3.7 GPA. She's now in NTU.

---------------------------
What's the point of telling you all these?

I too had a few times in life, where I didn't get what I wanted despite trying real hard. But it turns out to be better. Just like my 2 friends.

In the past, all computer text looked like this:


Yup. Ugly isn't it? All the alphabets are of the same width, when "i" and "l" are clearly smaller width than "T" and "W".

The person who manage to put the correct width to all the text in computers today studied calligraphy. He did it not because he liked it, he did it because he was forced to. Turns out it became something really useful to him in the future. It was because of his lessons in calligraphy was he able to know how to put the characters in computers to be in the right proportion.


The very same person went on to establish a computer company. It became very successful. Yet, eventually, he was kicked out of his own computer company! He went on to establish another one, which failed badly.

In 1997, the first company he established was going to close down. It was then they decided to invite him back to be their CEO. He manage to bring this company from closing down to one of the most successful computer company today. And he couldn't do it - if he wasn't kick out of his first company, to start another one where he met many talented people that helped him revive this company.

This person is Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer. If it had closed in 1997, the world wouldn't see the iPod.

------------------------------------------
He said "you can't connect the dots when you look forward, only when you look back".

Some of you gotten grades that you wanted, or better you've expected. I'm really happy for you :).
Some of you didn't, despite all the hardwork - yes I also think that you deserve better.

But it happened to me many times too. Work real hard, but I didn't get what I wanted. Turns out when I look back, it all connects and turns out better for me. It can be for you. What matters is what's next, not what could have happened. I had friends who had L1R5 of 7, but because they didn't make full use of "what's next", they screwed up their A's and couldn't go anywhere.

It may not be a choice you want, but it CAN be a choice that turns out better than what you wanted. It's up to you how you make it.

If you want to hear my story, tell me on MSN and I'll tell you. Hear Steve Jobs' Story:

No comments: