Life is but full of challenges!

During the last school holidays, my 7 year old nephew Adam spoke to me about the many challenges that we have to go through in life. Amongst the challenges he had just gone through he said were:

• he just got his jab (injection) in school
• cuts and bruises from his falls
• having to deal with his naughty sister (Avie), because of whom I pulled out from allowing any of them to play at Boo Boo Land in 1Borneo

Then he said, all these challenges are given to us by God. And that we must face these challenges so that we'd be stronger to handle bigger challenges later on in life. Hmmm, wise words from a young fella.

When he returned to Sandakan last week, his father went to pick up his (Adam's) report card for his recent exam. When the father came back, Adam excitedly ask his father, "Did I get No 1?!!"

The father turned to him and said, "Adam, you got No 40." No 40 out of 50 in class! Needless to say, Adam was shocked, disappointed and screamed as if it was the end of the world.

Later on, I called him to try and console him. After all, I knew his results were not that bad. Yes, he failed 1 subject but he also scored A and Bs for all his other subjects.

By the end of our talk, Adam said, it's ok because there's going to be another big exam before Christmas and vowed to work even harder to make sure that he'll bounce to the top 5 in class. Good for him.

Now, if I can only find a way to explain to him that rankings are not so important. It's more important to learn and understand better, and to improve on the grades.