A JOURNEY

"A journey of a thousand miles starts with the First Step", so goes the saying. I am congratulating my eldest son ( now 33) in his achievements to date. Last night he came "running" to me to show that he was featured in an INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS magazine as an up and coming entrepreneur in the Animation and Multimedia industry. He was also once featured in our local TV production focusing on how he operates his business venture.


This achievement is nothing compared to Bill Gates' business achievements, but I am putting his success story on my blog because I see his achievements as being unique considering he literally started from scratch. I remember his school days in Sekolah Menengah Sains Muar where I was often called in by the Principal of the school because of his poor performance in class. He failed his SPM in the Trial Exam and of course we as parents panicked like never before. He seemed unconcerned and did not say anything when asked why. We spent about an hour with the principal and his subject teacher who complained that he was often playful in class and found himself difficult to pay attention especially in the Science subjects. But just before we left for Kuala Lumpur, smilingly he said, "Mak, if you want a 1st grade in the exams, I will give you the 1st grade. Don't worry." Imagine hearing that just 2 months before the real exams. But surprisingly he did it. It was not a fantastic 1st grade, but a 1st grade it was. What could we say? He knew we were happy and I believed that made him happy too.


This son of mine has his own whims and fancies. He was in University Utara for his matriculation. We had to take him out for some family reasons. He was not happy at all and he was at odds with us for doing that. We put him in a private College in KL but he "stopped out". We never understood his reasons but we let it be and we asked him to apply for ITM which he did. This time he "dropped out". We knew that he was skipping classes and was doing a part time job of his liking which we knew little about. To cut the long story short we later persuaded him to continue at the Multimedia University but again he "stopped out". This time we really gave up. We reasoned with him that it would be good to finish college first before embarking on any business venture. By this time he had made up his own mind and nothing that we said or did could change his. He reasoned with us that Bill Gates never finished College and showed us few other examples that finally we let it be and helped him with whatever we could to start "building his dreams" of sort.


So today he is well on his way up. Alhamdulilah. We know that the journey is never easy. Lots of sleepless nights and juggling his way through nooks and corners. The business world is never easy and never kind. We du'a for him that this will make him reach for the stars. He likes the song "I did it my way", and so do I but we never thought that this is it for us in reality. May Allah guide him and give him a smooth passage up the ladder in this competitive business world. And sometimes I reminded him to take it easy in this "rat race" world because in the end only the rats will win. Hold steadfast to family traditions based on the alQuran and hadiths and wish him well to be like the companion of the Prophet saw, the Abdul Rahman Aouf of today.