By Nur Adilah Ramli
I came across one witty tweet moments before result was about to be announced which was something along the line,
“UIA ni pandai nak tenteramkan hati students. Dahlah result keluar hari Jumaat, second day Ramadhan pulak tu.”
“UIA is trying to calm students by releasing the result on Friday, and on the second day of Ramadhan to add.”
Perhaps the twitter-er was true that the administrators purposely released the final examination result at such a godly hour. Whether it was accidental or planned is not the issue rather the real issue behind it is the result that is the GPA itself!
About the GPA, my acquaintance was downhearted upon checking his result because of not getting a 4 flat. The only A- (the rest were all A) was for a COCU subject! I was about to congratulate him but his sombre mood said that I should better be silent.
As for my own result, I was surprised and happy that the one subject I screwed up the most didn’t turn out to be that bad judging from the grade. But I had mixed feelings when looking at the grade I got for this one subject which I gave my all (or so I thought I did). Nonetheless, above all, I have nothing to say but Alhamdulillah!
Say, I messed up my CGPA because of my broken-beyond-repair GPA. Would I fervently utter Alhamdulillah? And, can I possibly repair my CGPA?
First, I would be crying a river, and pondering about my future (whether I still stand a chance to have a future). I would most probably suffer from (hopefully) temporary mental breakdown, before getting back to my feet after wasting buckets of tears.
Second, social media, Whatsapp especially, is to be severed, and of course, it goes without saying that I’ll disappear from the virtual world and the isolation might go on for a week or more. Until sad air is blown away, and until contemplation is ethereally made, the lips will find it hard to say Alhamdulillah.
But essentially, there is magic in the phrase Alhamdulillah; it is more than a phrase, in fact! One way to look at it, Alhamdulilah is actually the antidote of our unhappiness, because when saying Alhamdulillah and actually meaning it, we are sending a signal to our mind that we should accept our result with an open heart. And when we could accept it, we’ll feel a huge wave of relief, and that is Allah blowing away our sadness!
A dear lecturer of mine said that when looking at an issue, we should put it in perspective; that way, we will be able to take the good of something, and leave the bad of it. Thus, if we give a positive look at our result, we will actually smile in gratitude be whatever the letter or the number is.
If the result is not in our favour, then that is God giving us a wake up call to work harder! If it is good, then Allah wants us to work even harder to maintain or boost our performance. In any case, it really goes back to ourselves on how to view our result.
Before I end, I would like to leave a message relayed by my friend through her mother,
“Exam ni dunia ja.”
“Exam is just a worldly matter.”
If we put the statement in perspective, it’s true that examination and the result are worldly! But of course, we need to go beyond that statement!
Photo of JWS