The culture of acknowledging people have fade away right? It is not common to see people who exchange glances would smile. We are too afraid to smile, too stiff to move that sweet muscle. We can only smile to people whom we knew, our friends, old acquaintance, family. How about those people that we spent our time together waiting for the bus to come? How about those people that you met while choosing which fish to buy? We are too busy to care, too busy to give the simplest greeting, a smile.
Do you know that by smiling to a person could mean the opening of a new friendship? Do you know that by asking for help, or offering a little help makes our life filled with humanly quality. Because we can't live alone in this world, and to be precise, we are not living alone in a deserted place without anybody around us. We are here, living with every other living like us, humans they are. We need each other presence to go on with our daily lives. If Malaysia doesn't have any fisherman, from where do we get our daily supply of fish? Should Malaysia have no farmers at all, from where do we get our staple food, rice? Basically, we are all together progressing our own lives, that deals with everybody else as well.
The main purpose of my writing here is not to go on saying about how everybody depends on everybody. That would surely took me thousands of years to describe it. However, I would like to narrow down my article on one particular aspect, using the Malay peribahasa "Ikut resmi padi semakin berisi semakin tunduk." Are we practising it now? Do we ever embrace the meaning behind the peribahasa to enrich our lives? Yes? No? We'll see.
I am a student of a public university in this country, my beloved Malaysia. Malaysia that always have me sighing happily when the regular W12 bus driver waited for me running all the way from Federal Bakery. Malaysia that always have me smiling to hear "aiya leng lui, mari-mari tengok ini barang, baik punya". Malaysia, as it had been more than 10 years ago, when my age was 2 times younger than now. I had never imagined that I could feel this frustrated when I get to be a young adult.
I always heard of advices saying how important it is for us to study hard, to compete in the market, to earn more money, to get good status, and what has been the dream of every high school teenagers, is to flung the mortar board to the air while holding their hard earned scroll. It is all that dreams and advices, that sends a school leaver to pursue a higher education. The day we received an offer letter from one of the universities that we applied, might be the happiest day for many. The whole family are happy to get to see the pillar of hope for the family finally could be called a "mahasiswa".
We make the most perfect preparations, everything needed to be brand new, from head to toe, new clothes, shoes, toiletries, bags etc. The young minds are filled with resolutions to be the best student among the best. But we don't realize, do we? Starting from the age around 10, children are never expected to have great manners, to possess excellent moral values. We are too busy pushing them to study and be the school's top student, to enter the university, study and be rich. That's our main focus.
The result? Manual workers are not respected by students although they are a lot older than us. Bus drivers that take us back and forth to class are not thanked. We hate the cleaners who took our empty plates to the basin, yet we had never make any effort to put it ourselves. We step so casually on wet clean floors that had just been mopped a while ago, no apology stated. We make fun of the security guards. We hate them for doing their work.
Students have the mentality that our social class is higher than those people who are closely involved in our lives. We make barriers not to talk to people who are from the "low standard". We think highly of ourselves; smart alecs that are going to be professionals one day, that everything is going to be great all the way. We dream big, we mingle only with friends of similar backgrounds. We throw away moral values, humanity, and love for others.
Where has the beautiful Malay poetic advice of "ikut resmi padi semakin berisi semakin tunduk" been thrown? Isn't it better to be formally educated and possess good manners rather than becoming such a snob? Just imagine, if there is no one to take care of the toilet, are you willing to do it? If all the security guards took a year of leave, do you feel safe in the institution with everybody breaking the rules happily? If there is no one mopping the floor of your faculty for a month, would you do it to make the place look more presentable? If all the bus drivers who always drive you to class quit their job, are you going to arrive on time?
These are all the things that we fail to process in our brain. We fail to realize that these people are those who are willing to do things that we would not want to do, yet we are not thankful. We are too busy projecting the high image of ourselves. But do we realize that if we do good to others, good things will come to us? Life is a karma, we treat people the way we want to be treated. Of course you might say that you're not going to be a security guard but how can you be so sure about the future?
Being a university student is not the greatest thing in the world. It is just a stepping stone before we leap to the outside world. Thus, I recommend all of us, students to "ikut resmi padi semakin berisi semakin tunduk, jangan diikut resmi jagung semakin berisi semakin cekang". It may sounds lame but I'm sure many of us had forgotten this beautiful piece of advice that we had heard since a very long time ago.
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