Thirty One Years of Compound Interest

Such an emotional rollercoaster day for the second day of Ramadan.

Little quarrel in the morning.

Then in the afternoon, received an extraordinary exam result after waiting for 1,5 months and felt extremely overwhelmed about that.

For the past 30 years dealing with piano in any kind of situations, maybe today was one of the highlights.

For a student who practices diligently every single day, without any excuse, we expected the little girl to at least get a proper result. But, nothing prepared us for more than proper result…

For her, it seems nothing because she didn’t really bother about that and not yet fully understand what it means.

But for me, it feels like to be finally arrived at one destination that I had been wondering how it would look like, how it would feel to be there, for a very long time.

Went to the same school more than thirty years ago, completed 13 long years of education, not once my final exam result even close to what she got.

Every report card with final exam meeting had been just another tiny disappointment felt at heart, knowing how hard it was for me to get, even least important award available there, for 13 years.

Many things contributed to that of course. I realized how different my situation back then with hers right now.

Yet, Piano is one thing that has been compounding more than I could think of. I had no idea how surviving 13 hard years doing that would give so many returns in many unthinkable forms in my life. Finish what you have started matters. Saying that, I wasn’t even close to a top student. I was one you could find easily from the bottom here.

Reading those papers, I realized how much it took for one little person to achieve such result. It’s not all about her. I wish her to not making a slightest achievement becomes entitlement.

Later, when she’s older, I hope she understands that whatever good things in life that comes to her, it’s not entirely because of her.

It has always been massive collective efforts from many people around her, that crossed her path who has been helping her in every step she takes. Beyond her parents. Beyond her families. Good things come to her thanks to many invisible hands that allow those things reach her and become part of herself.

Everything she has in life is something borrowed, and it means she has to return in some way. The best way she could do is not paying the one who helped her back, but the best way might be pay it forward.

But still, our own hardwork matters.

For every morning sitting on the same spot,
drilling hundred notes,
showing up in every weather,
dealing with all the pressure,
she deserved all those awards for all the efforts she had done.

In the future, the harder work is actually on the parents.

With such previous result on Royal College ABRSM exam with a rare distinction score of 147/150 (while normally, mostly it is around 130-140) and now her YPM with 99/100, managing our expectations might become trickier than before.

Standard has been set a little too high with, meanwhile I fully realized there’s no all time high for everything in life.

But, for now, felicitation,little girl!

Our work is getting harder.