I will walk you through each chapter of my life until the moment that I realised that I am now adulting.
Childhood
My childhood was mixed. We weren’t too well-to-do, a lower-middle-class family at that time. My paternal grandmother had contracted cancer as well. Despite our financial status, my father was like our Santa Claus. He always bought us toys and would surprise us by leaving it by our bedside. “Our” would refer to me and my younger sister. But family life was rocky too, my parents got into a lot of arguments and things got violent too. There were times I felt like my parents were divorced because they didn’t speak to each other. For entertainment and outings, my father would take responsibility and for education, it was my mother’s port of call.
12–17 Years Old
Things got better when I was 12 years old. Whatever problems my parents had were resolved, the arguments got lesser and they were no longer violent. I was sold on the idea that doing well in school would set me up for my future. That is what I focused on, to do well academically in school. I studied on my own without the help of any tuition teachers and relished in independence. There was a time to study and there was a time for play. The closer it got to examinations, I would sacrifice play for studies. After examinations, it was all play.
I always paced myself to do better for the end-of-the-year examinations because I believed in ending the year with a bang. I was rewarded with scholarship awards as well for most of my secondary school education. I wasn’t involved in any co-curricular activities and took my own “holidays” from school. For play, I would play football or play football video games on the PC. My other objective in those years was to go to Malaysia to be with my maternal family during my holidays. From that age onwards, I started identifying myself as a Malaysian such was my sense of belonging to Malaysia.
17–20 years
At the age of 17, I achieved my academic objective but was quite clueless on my next step. I didn’t have a strong desire or passion to take up any course. In the initial years of my secondary school life, I wanted to take up a civil engineering course not knowing what it entailed. Later, my English teacher encouraged me to take up Mass Communication instead since it levied on my strengths, English and History. The course that I finally took? Telecommunications, an engineering-based course. When I started my course, I realised it’s not what I was interested in. But I gave it my best shot. It wasn’t too bad either as it had elements that interested me.
21 years onwards
After graduating with a diploma, it was always in my plan to get a degree in something that I was interested in. My family couldn’t afford to sponsor me to further my education so I had to find my way doing it on my own. Another hindrance in my path was being forced to serve two years of my life for a nation I had no love for. To make the best use of that time and to finance my degree, I joined the Police Force as I had a keen interest in being a policeman and police work, joining the family tradition of police officers in my mother’s lineage.
I normally set a plan on what I want to achieve and I never faced any issues achieving it until this moment. My plan to be a policeman and to finance my degree went up in smoke. I had picked up a bad knee injury while playing football at about the age of 20. That injury wasn’t properly diagnosed or treated. It made a nasty return during my police training rendering me unable to participate in any physical activity. I was removed from the Police Force after 7 months in training.
Adulting Comes Home
I had not known it then but this is where I realised that I began adulting. My paternal grandmother had passed away when I was 19–20 years old. That was a big blow emotionally and I suffered mentally from it for a few months. Getting terminated from the Police Force was a further blow. All of a sudden, all my plans went out of the window and I was clueless on how to react. I started living my life, day to day, afraid of making long-term plans.
My troubles didn’t end there. I wasn’t free from my obligation to serve the nation. The 7 months I spent in the Police Force counted for nothing and I had to spend 2 years all over again in the Army. Logic would dictate that after spending 7 months in the Police Force, I should just serve the remaining 1 year and 5 months there as part of fulfilling my National Service commitment. But logic and common sense are, unfortunately, lacking in the Singapore public service where they only strictly adhere to the rules.
My dreams of getting a degree took a back seat. My focus changed as well to establishing my career but I couldn’t find a job that I was interested in enough to stay long in it. I had some rocky relationships as well. The money I had earned while in the Police Force and through my scholarships were reduced considerably, spending it in my relationships. It wasn’t until I was 27 years old did I find a job that I was interested in and found some stability in my career. Since then, I have progressed in my career as an entrepreneur but I can still do a lot better. I have got married to a beautiful woman, expecting our first child together. But adulting and the struggle continues.
When did you realise you were adulting? It is not just reaching 18 or 21 years of age. It is not when you start working in your first job or when you first start living on your own. It’s a phase of life that just ghosts up on you and grasps you firmly in its clutches not realising what hit you. That is until you take a step back and look back at your life.
