Do you ever wonder how long it takes to change your life?
What measure of time is enough to be life-altering?
Is it the 5 years in secondary school? Perhaps 1 year of missionary expedition across the African continent? 1 week with your favourite hunky star?
Is 1 week enough, baby?
Can your life change in a month? A week? Or a single day?
We are always in a hurry. To grow up. To go places. To get ahead.
But when you’re young, one hour might just change everything.
LABELS. Haven’t we all gone through the phase in teenage life where everyone around us, including ourselves, were fitted to certain ‘names’? Be it ‘The Jock’ or ‘The Prom Queen’. Some may be called ‘Geeks’ while self-isolating ones are usually considered ‘Loners’.
I, for one, was one of the “Friendly” bunch… if you get my drift. LoL
Whether we like it or not, our image usually conforms to what people around us, thinks and expects of us. But when we leave this stage, these people (e.g. high school), we can erase all those labels and start over. For some of us, shedding this image might be a great change. Au contraire to the others.
About 4 years ago, I was randomly paired up with this ‘ostracised’ guy in my Civics class. It was the teacher’s bright idea to break the borders between ‘invisible cliques’ within the class. We were supposed to spend one hour together, anywhere within the school compound, and learn more about each other; with a list of questions. It surely changed my perceptions on people. I still remember the day so vividly.
Aaron... *hmmm*
Aaron (that guy’s name) was a really quiet and almost non-existent member of the class. He hardly spoke to anyone. And he usually skips lessons to play basketball. Teachers sighed when they heard his name. Nobody bothered if he was present or not. Nobody knows anything else about him. And we were in the same class for about 3 years.
I never cared about him. He definitely was not part of the gang I was in. All that mattered to our group were the 3P’s (Popularity, Power, Presence). We were the typical stuck-up jock-ish guys, I guess. We made the prefects’ lives horrible. While we behaved as ‘goody-two-shoes’ around the teachers. We ruled the place. Aaron was too ‘insignificant’ (for the lack of a better word) to be noticed. In short, he was a “Loser”.
"The Popular Boys"
Imagine my dread when I had to be ‘acquainted’ with him. Well, he wasn’t too happy about it either.
To be honest, we started off the assignment being rather hostile to each other. *LoL* a lot of name-calling on his part (you don’t wanna know what he called me!) and I was just being very princessy. But we had to finish the tasks hence we did. And it improved as time went by. One question led to another (on the tasklist) and it really opened up our inner self to a ‘stranger’ respectively. He even said I was pretty good company ok? I found out that we liked the same ice-cream (green tea) and loved Power Rangers among other things. We even shared family issues and dreams. (everyone thought he would end up being a communist!) Gosh, at the end of it, I was having more intellectual conversations with it than I ever had with my closest friends in months.
I spent an hour with Aaron that day and I learnt something. People ARE going to label you. It’s how you overcome those labels that matters most.
People thought they knew Aaron. I know I did. But I discovered something new that day. He was more than a single word. In a way, I guess, we all are. And the both of us had things in common. Who knew? I wished I hung out with Aaron a bit more before that day.
And I learnt that one hour, can change everything.
(Plus, I got a cool basketball for my birthday, the following week.)
