Stop

Have you ever had this weird experience whereby you stop doing something you used to do, or you once loved to do, or something you once had a burning passion for, something you once had a freaking talent at?

Here's an example of what I'm typing about. My aunt, who is my mother's younger sister, used to draw and paint like a pro when she was younger. Some of her artworks were hung all over my grandma's house. She even sold her masterpieces once in some exhibition or something. She was very very artistic, and if she continued to sharpen her skills and keep drawing and painting, I bet she'd be an artist featured on Instagram or some other websites. But no. She stopped. Had a job, got married, had a family. She stopped. Her job working in a bank takes up many hours of her life. So she stopped drawing and painting. Stopped creating masterpieces which she used to compose. I remembered this time which I went to her house when I was a kid and she taught me, my sister and her daughters how to paint. Once. And since then I never saw her paint again.

I learnt Taekwondo before during my primary school years. I don't remember when I started learning but I remember that we all started with THE WHITE BELT. We had to take tests to "upgrade" our belts, like going up level by level. Here's how it works: http://www.butf.com/belts.htm
Ok so I took test after test and ended up getting THE GREEN BELT. And after that, I stopped learning.

After Taekwondo, my mum sent the three of us, my brother, my sister and I to Wushu lessons. We had two coaches teaching us, a very kind and passionate couple. I found Wushu a very beautiful kind of martial art because within Wushu, there are many different types of styles you can learn and different weapons you can equip yourself with. CLICK HERE to know more about various Wushu styles. I was kind of good in Wushu, and was even given a chance to take part in a Wushu competition once. I won a silver medal in the 南拳 (Southern Fist) category, and the 4th in the sword category (but here I was counted as the last cause there were only 4 person in it haha) and I even had a Wushu costume made to wear for the competition. I continued learning until I was in Form 2, and I stopped. After all those years of painful stretching, tired running, swords, fists and wooden poles, I stopped. My coaches used to pick me up from my house early in the morning to Bukit Lima Park for Wushu lessons when I was in Form 1 and Form 2, and treated me breakfasts at nearby coffee shops, but I stopped. Their kindness was overwhelming, but I stopped.

And squash. I started learning around Form 2. Me, my sister and my brother. I had no talents in playing squash, which was pretty obvious from the way I handled the racket to the way I smacked the ball to the way I ran to catch the ball. But I continued learning anyway, for months, until a competition came. It was in Miri, known as Miri Leg. Well, my brother and I got last positions as beginners in that competition. I lost my match to an 11 year old girl. That's freaking embarrassing for me. Then when Sibu Leg came, meaning a squash competition in Sibu, I got second last, which was still pretty embarrassing because everyone in my category were much younger than me. Primary school kids. And so, realizing that I had no hope to proceed with any more squash training, I stopped. Even when the squash committee invited a professional coach all the way from Pakistan to train Sibu players, I still sucked at playing. So I stopped.

Sometimes we really do stop doing pretty much stuff that we used to do. What if we held on longer and things would be different? What if we're just a millimeter close to an extreme change, but we give up? What if that particular thing we used to do was the thing that truly made us happy, but we stopped?