Apakah Cita-cita Anda?
All Malaysians know this question well.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
Writing about it is like a rite of passage. An initiation, even. It begins when words are committed to paper, and ends only when a grade — along with some sense of self-worth — is conferred in bright red ink.
We encounter this question early in schooling life — at about seven years old — often as a prelude to essay-writing. We encounter it early enough to remember the question for the rest of our lives, but far too early to help us find a meaningful answer, be it then or later.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
Just seeing these words on the screen is like being in a time machine. Exercise books with coarse brown covers and large white spaces between skinny blue lines. Names of murid bising (noisy students) scribbled on the chalkboard. A teacher who would rather be anywhere but here, sifting through a short and predictable list of writing prompts:
- Aku sebatang pensel. I am a pencil.
- Kebaikan membaca. The benefits of reading.
- Berjimat cermat amalan mulia. The virtues of saving money.
And of course.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
There was one thing more predictable than these so-called writing assignments. And that was the ‘correct’ answers. Yes, the art of self-expression had an answer scheme.
In this case, the answer scheme started with Doctor, Engineer or Lawyer. Accountant is also sometimes acceptable; never mind that I didn’t know what it meant. Never mind that my mother was a teacher, my father a factory manager.
The answer scheme is then followed by the virtues of the profession. Something about helping people, supporting your family and having a big house. Maybe a nice, shiny car parked out front. The details elude me. I can only reminisce in broad strokes.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
At seven, eight, nine years old, it is an innocuous question. It is just homework. A necessary hurdle that is quickly cleared and forgotten.
What mattered more was the reward that came after — a return to more joyful pursuits! Doodling poor imitations of Dragonball, wuxia comics, whatever caught my eye that week. Playing tunes on the piano. Writing about suspiciously familiar fantasy worlds on scrap paper. Or just playing some Street Fighter.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
At fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old, it is a trite question (we already know the answer, after all). The question morphs into something more concrete, yet distant enough for to ignore (but at one’s peril, as many would advise).
What degree will you study? What university? What job will you do?
I did not really know how to navigate these questions. But in the face of uncertainty, I found — and continue to find — comfort in having a plan.
So plan I did.
I planned with what I saw, knew and heard. Local success stories of other local boys set the benchmark. These were neighbourhood legends, cemented by countless retellings at school corridors and shophouses.
It was a simple plan. If you can repeat what they did, then you know you’ve made it.
Straight A’s. Some debate trophies. Fully-paid scholarship for an overseas education. London School of Economics. And for goodness’ sake, do not come back to this country.
Was this a good or bad plan? All I knew was: it was a plan.
The thing about planning is that it forces you to confront trade-offs. You come to terms with what is scarce. Time, energy, money.
None of these legendary stories seemed to have any space for my hobbies of art, music and writing. But these stories did have things at which I excelled (or could see myself excelling).
I might just be able to do this, I told myself.
I didn’t fully comprehend the complexity of the choices I was making, nor did I fathom their longer-term consequences. But I felt I understood enough. I certainly understood that choosing one thing sometimes meant abandoning another… gradually, even if not entirely. This I accepted.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
At thirty something years old, it is no longer a trite question to me. In fact, none of those predictable writing prompts seem trite anymore. A little bit of life experience helps one look further and think deeper:
- Aku sebatang pensel. I am a pencil. An exercise in empathy, something I found out much later that I deeply lacked.
- Kebaikan membaca. The benefits of reading. An exercise in learning about the world, one that I would come to admire, nurture and even write about.
- Berjimat cermat amalan mulia. The virtues of saving money. An exercise in balancing between the fluid states of paranoia and prudence, greed and gratitude.
And of course.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition? An exercise in dreaming.
At thirty something years old, I can see clearly now the absurdity of the answer scheme… but also its profound power to shape one’s life trajectory.
The grades, the debate tournaments, even the choice of university… I followed it to a tee. Except for the part about not coming back to Malaysia. Here I am, after all.
As I reflect on my own experience, an intense emotion washes over me. It is not regret, sadness or longing; I am quite content where I am.
No, it is a feeling of overwhelming clarity. Clarity about how much this question matters. How one chooses to answer it, matters. How one is taught — or influenced — to search for the answer, matters.
Unknowingly, the horizons of my immediate realities then became the horizons of my cita-cita, my ambition. And soon after, these became my current realities… for better or for worse.
I think about the horizons that others had at different stages of their lives, from seven to sixteen, and the years that followed. My parents. My brother and sister. My classmates. The neighbourhood legends. And the people that I met after, leaving me in awe and admiration, and my horizons in question.
Apakah cita-cita anda? What is your ambition?
How fluid and fickle, the horizons of dreaming. Limited and infinite, all at once.
