The problem there was that I hated school. Don’t get me wrong, I love learning about anything and everything. To this very day, I still love learning. I got good grades without trying, but I never studied. My teachers and my parents were constantly telling me to “TRY”. So I could get great grades. I would, at the beginning of every school year, try. To make my dad proud. It would last a few weeks at most, and my grades were always in the top 90%, still without studying. I’d just put in effort.

The school system just wasn’t for me. Especially High School. I started “wagging” (skipping school) school from the first year of high school, not even 13. Up until the end of the second last year. Year 11 here. In Year 10, my report card to Dad said, "66 days absent." I squeezed in a ½ between the 6 and the days. I told Dad that it was 66-half days of absence. You know, when I’d miss the bus and get there late.

A couple of years later, I told him I was worried about my sister wagging school. She had already been kept back a year. I was worried Dad didn’t know. How naive of me.

He looked me dead in the eye and said,
“Your Principal called me every single day you weren’t at school. As he does with your sister.”
Wait. What?

Every single day. Dad never said a word. I asked him why, as early on, I’d get punished.
“I wasn’t worried about you. I knew no matter what, you’d be okay.”

That’s why he stopped the pressure for University for me. I was strong-willed, just like him. In so many ways, I am just like my dad. It wasn’t until he was gone that I could see it.

By the way, I did the mature-aged entry exam at 22 for entrance into University. I’ve been accepted three times. I still didn’t go to University.

I was lucky to have such a great man as a father. Truly. He let me have and make my choices after instilling core values in me. He let me be, me.

Others aren’t so lucky. They go to University for 4 years or 6 years. Longer. To make their parents happy. To make them proud. To do the career that they pushed them to. Some do all that and find out they are not happy. They become successful in the eyes of society and their parents. But not theirs.

hjkh

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