Alhamdulillah, in academics, I had never tasted failure (read: having to repeat) both at the Uni or high school. Life has been smooth for me, so I am thankful to Him.
Yes, the dean of mechanical engineering did warn me at one time in his office at Monash when I failed his subject in 1982. Yes, he even threatened to kick me out if I ever fail again. I am pleased to report of a happy ending in this particular case.
Barely though.
A friend of mine told me more than a decade ago of how his brother had to take SPM three times, before he passed the third one. No he did not score straight A's then eventhough he should have since he would have memorized the entire SPM books.
He is now a successful businessman (and a multi-millionaire).
I told this friend of mine that even though I am not a millionaire (let alone a multi-millionaire), I do not wish to follow his brother's foot steps. There are reasons why he is successful today - he dared to failed and that he would not let that be an obstacle for him to move on and try again. I'd believe I would do the reverse had I failed at my (SPM) attempt.
I would probably walk away and give up.
But he did not.
Akmal passed at his first attempt in getting a driver's license today. So did Arif 3 years earlier. So I complained to the both of them that I thought the driving test in Malaysia is too easy. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can pass, earn their right to drive and then would go all out to make Malaysia No 1 country in accident.
They concur.
May be we should increase the driving age to 21 and not 17.
So now we have four drivers in our household. That's the max for now, I guess; and for sure we are not going to have four cars in our garage. For one, we can't fit all four cars in that small garage of ours.
Secondly I am sure my pocket is not deep enough to have four carst!
Talking about failure, and license, the only blotched in my resume would be just that. I failed four (4) times in my driving tests all in 1981. I was not younger than Akmal and Arif now, but for some reasons I could not passed my tests. The test officer would always find fault with my driving. At one time, he even did an emergency brake on me.
That was an automatic failure.
So in the end, I simply gave up and not bothered to continue. About the only consolation I got from this sad episode was driving through the nice Perth suburbs and it was a totally enjoyable experience.
Throughout my university days, I did not have a driving license, so I would walk, take the bus or train everywhere.
Only when I returned in 1986, I got my license at first attempt in Malaysia.
So a failure in Australia - four times at that, and yet, I had no problem in getting on within 3 months of returning. How do we reconcile that?
Is there a wonder about our high accident rates?
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