CAUTION : Everything Is To Be Taken With A Pinch Of Salt

One of my bosses and I may not be sharing the same view in most things, but his words to me recently caught me;

"Linda, you have to name your price,"

He just said it as a one-off thing, and it has got nothing to do with me personally or professionally, it was just one random sentence, but it lingers in my head until now, maybe due to the circumstances I'm facing.

I'm a believer in turning things into learning experiences - good exam results, failed relationship, talks with strangers, reading books, cheating death; I just want, or at least try to, walk away from things wiser and stronger once they are over. For the past years, I found these to be among the most prominent lessons:-

(1) you have to put efforts to succeed;
(those As and Cs I received back in school were self-evident)

(2) you have to ask to get something particularly when you know you're deserving of it; and
(that one time when I was in the Dean's office, pleading for my change of course application to be approved)

(3) you have to know what you want and work your way there.
(this one is the theory I often heard from the wise men and it sounds very legit, no?)

The foregoing will determine your value.

And you, you set your own value.

You can come to this world as anak Menteri, anak Mat Salleh, anak Cikgu, anak Tan Sri, anak GRO (sorry if this sounds harsh but I meant to give a positive example here) or whoever, but at the end of the day, you decide the person you're going to be when you grow up.

You can be raised in the middle of the paddy field, in a bungalow. in a huge mansion with a guardhouse, or in a terrace house next to some kebun getah (whoops that's me :D) or wherever, but at the end of the day, you will decide the place you will be at.

You can go to the boarding school abroad, religious school, the country's most prestigious school, private school, or you can even be home-schooled. But at the end of the day, you will have to be responsible in shaping the person that you yourself will be.

In your office, in your home, in your relationship, you will have to decide what role you will be playing.

Of course, there are things beyond our control (but I am always against playing-the-victim mindset - that is a story for another day). I too, like many others, went through some rough patches at some point. We all have had those moments when we felt like life was so cruel, shoving us with things we couldn't seem to handle. But in all honesty, who would we want to be mad at, really? God? Absurd isn't it? As a human being, all we can do is to try our best to work things out (isn't that better than leaving things to chances?) and I believe that God is Kind, and insyaAllah, with the correct intention, no effort will go unnoticed as He is always watching.

I'm not in the position to give advice to people. Not even close, not at all. I am so green I am still learning. This is me reminding myself, and just to maybe, share. I do not know what the future holds, but I will not let these opportunities given by God slip through because I don't fight hard enough and if that is the case, I'd be ashamed for I cannot not associate such an act with a lack of gratitude on my part.

Personally, I must confess that whatever I'm writing about, while of course is applicable to every aspect of life, has a lot to do with my career that seems to be taking the centre stage in my life right now.

I'm 25. Every step counts and the clock is ticking. I am struggling over here.