Parents, while each and every one of them can be great in their own ways. There are definitely some ways on how our parents have dealt with us that we don’t agree with. Obviously, as a child, we tend to follow whatever our parents want us to do. Parents, not realising that they are pushing their kids to their limits. Not taking it slow and understanding their kid's abilities, pushing them to the edge. 

Of course, every parent wants what’s best for their child. However, that is really debatable. It can differ between these things, whether they want what is best, wants their child to achieve the dreams that they themselves couldn't have done or just to follow the social trends. 

Singaporean parents I feel, are hell-bent on wanting their kids to be the best based on what is on the paper. It has become a social norm for parents to talk about, in gatherings, parties and such. “My child has a degree, my child is a lawyer, my child has gotten All A’s, and so forth.”

Of course, education is important but how can we expect our children to be productive if that is the only thing we wish for them to do. School and then tuition and then extracurricular activities. Sending them to extracurricular activities that they are not interested in, or NOT sending them to extracurricular activities that they are interested in. 

For example, kids that love gaming, don’t discourage that. Instead of banning or confiscating all of their devices, support it. Enroll them to learn programming or game design courses. Lawyers, doctors, pilot and teachers are not the only sought-after career in the world right now. Technology is the future. And in the future, lawyers, doctors and pilots might not be a need for the world anymore. Whereas IT support, game designers, website designers, technology developers are in huge demand.

I was smart, like really fucking smart. I breezed through everything for a long time, on the first time. My parents and teachers cooed about how smart and how special I was. I never really had to work really hard because everything came naturally. That is, until, things stopped coming naturally, I didn’t suddenly know the answers. It was hell, was I stupid? Is this how it feels to be stupid? Why am I suddenly hitting a wall, while everyone around me is excelling?

I thought I was smart. I thought I was special. Now I realize how necessary it is to make mistakes and learn from them. Nothing easy lasts forever, life is about working hard and continuously improving yourself. This applies to EVERYTHING in your life. Do you want to play an instrument? Draw? Paint? Be a carpenter? Be an IT guy? Get in shape? Practice. Don’t ever give up because it’s too hard, or because it doesn’t come naturally. Once you do that you’ve failed.

If everything came easy where would we be? Nothing would have value because nobody would have to work at anything. We would be at a permanent standstill because we would strive for nothing.

Sucking at something is the first step to being good at something. There is no true raw natural talent, EVERYTHING requires refinement.