“What’s a job?”, this question was asked to me during a sharing session with Ahmad Naim Jaafar, a leadership trainer and a social innovator that has, and still trying to change the landscape of education of Malaysia. He has written a sum of famous books in Malay, such as Membina Karisma (Building Charisma), 2006, and Sekolah Bakat, (Talent School), 2013. Membina Karisma has become the teaching module for Malaya University’s co-curricular center. Ahmad Naim Jaafar is also the recepient of the Tun Razak Leadership Award held by the Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM) in 2004. This person that I humbly call Abang Naim (Abang means brother in Malay, and also can be used to refer a man that is older than us) also ironically was born a day before my birthday, which is 18 May.
“It’s an occupation, isn’t it?”, I answered, while sipping plain water from a glass. It was held at an open-air cafe’ and most of us were just listening, absorbing and discussing with each other regarding many topics, so I couldn’t care less and bat an eye on the trap that was waiting next.
“What’s work then?”
Suddenly, I became clueless, the ambience became intense, my friends were looking back at me as if they were searching for the answer that hides behind a cough to clear my throat. My teacher beside me remained silent and was waiting to see if his student may be smart enough to escape this spider web. I didn’t have any smart response to outsmart him, so the last resort that I had was to remain silent.
Acknowledging that I had nothing left in mind since I stared back at him like a statue in a museum, Abang Naim smiled and started to explain whole-heartedly as we listen eagerly to collect all the information that we needed.
“Look, a job is something that you do, that you expect something in return. For example, you become a doctor and work a 36-hour shift at the emergency department for a double pay. Work, has a different concept. You do something with an outmost passion and doesn’t expect, or doesn’t care for anything in return.”
“Someday, you will realize that your work will eventually pay you more than your job.”
I was taken aback by his explaination and still made me ponder about it to this day, on how I have living a lot of things in life wrongly. I never tend to enjoy carrying out my core responsibilities as a Science stream student in high school, and I keenly sure that is the main reason why every chemical equations becomes very complicated and every Calculus questions become a Math Error in my brain because I never tried to put even 1% of my passion or fertile it with love, and in the end, I became average.
I can prove that his theory was correct because it happens to me in this journalism and creative writing industry. Words are my lifeline, and I would continue to write and have my name inserted in journals, zines, chapbooks, and anything to expand my writing career. My base might be small to be well-known but I am genuinely happy with every opportunity that passes by as long as I am still given the platform to voice my thoughts and ideas out on a white WordPress and MicroSoft Word template. Fair enough, my pieces has brought me across literary exhibitions, spaces in the newspaper and much more places that I can explore, and those experiences are the highest payment that I have ever received.
Abang Naim’s explaination has made me to finally compare and contrast from these two different experiences and built a bridge for me to relate and link them both. I would like to make all the late night studying hard core subjects until early hours in the morning as enjoyable as staying late opening multiple tabs and doing precise research for the authenticity of my articles.
I am aware that most of us must be facing the same problem as I do, especially when it comes to studying the subjects that we less prefer (hate is an extreme word, better keep it to yourself) and enjoying the things that we love, such as writing for me, and a lot of other hobbies such as photography and much more. We felt that we are forced to obey the education system and sometimes we would think that whatever we study at school at the moment doesn’t have anything to do with our planned future undertakings. Here’s a little conclusion : Life has a lot of choices, and also some that is inevitable to refuse, and I choose to live the best of both worlds, the best that I can.
Face it, brace it and succeed. Any way, every way.
