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LARRY was an average pupil in primary school, with examination grades that ranked him somewhere in the middle of the class. He was not among the bright stars, but not dumb either; not particularly well-behaved but neither was he among the notorious naughty boys.
Just average.
Apart from being very small built - Larry was the smallest boy in class - not much else about him was outstanding or memorable.
Except one other thing. One day the teacher picked a composition that Larry wrote, to be read out for the whole class as an example of outstanding writing.
The very fact that the teacher had highlighted an average boy’s composition was itself memorable. But it was what Larry wrote that stays in my mind - and possibly the minds of many of our other classmates - till this day, more than 35 years hence.
The class had been assigned to write “What I want to be when I grow up”. Larry wrote that he wanted to be a jockey.
This was in a Primary 4 class when we were barely 10 years old and most of us only knew how to say that we wanted to become doctors.
I had tried to be smart and had foolishly written that I wanted to become a medical specialist, giving the ill-informed argument that a medical specialist needed to study fewer subjects than an ordinary doctor. Those days we didn’t know better.
Advantage
Yet Larry knew better. He knew he was not likely to excel in his studies, he knew that his small physique could be a great advantage in certain professions.
So Larry wrote that he wanted to become a jockey. Naturally, I was curious as to whether Larry did become one.
After all, I did not become the medical specialist that I thought I wanted to become when I was 10. In fact, I did not become many things that I had wanted to become.
For I had no definite career ambitions. When I finished school, I applied to study accountancy at university because many of my other family members - inlcuding my father, two brothers and a brother-in-law - were accountants. Then just before university started, I switched course to economics instead.
Meanwhile, I had been playing the trombone in orchestras, jazz bands and various other music groups. I considered going for music studies to become a professional musician. A failed audition put an end to that.
After university, I applied for jobs with banks and various government departments dealing with finance, foreign affairs and what not. Eventually I landed in journalism and discovered that I write well.
But well, that did not settle me in either. I went on to learn about natural health and left the newspapers to publish my own newsletter on the subject. I also became a natural health teacher, counsellor, cooking instructor, health foods store owner and everything else rolled in one.
I got tired - exhausted - after eight years and ventured into a totally different field. I now own and manage a hi-fi store. I joke that it is not such a big switch - “from hi-fibre to hi-fi” but the two worlds are really quite different.
And now, after a break of about four years, I have begun writing again.
I have had so many career changes, and I have friends who had been through more.
Outstanding
One friend took three different university courses - architecture which he abandoned, then a combination of engineering plus economics and finally library science before he found the career he was happy with.
Another friend, who did not have much education, told me he had worked in more than a hundred jobs to date, some jobs for less than a day!
Yet my old classmate Larry was clear and focussed about his career path. From an early age, he knew what he wanted to do and he went on to do a good job of it.
Yes, Larry did become a successful jockey. The last I heard Larry is now a jockey trainer.
I heard he has had an outstanding - not just an average - career.