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  • Norris Lam (1990-1991) | Finalist of 6th Hong Kong Outstanding Students Award

Outstanding means important, wellknown, excellent, eminent, significant, conspicuous, distinguished, noticeable, prominent and many other great descriptions. We can easily relate outstanding to someone very famous or something very successful. Picasso is outstanding for his paintings. Kuen Kao, Charles is outstanding for his invention of fiber optic communications. Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele is outstanding as the best soccer player. Of course, they are all outstanding people without doubt. However, to me, outstanding brings some more meanings…

Otto is a two year old boy. He was born with some muscle problems and so he could only crawl when every kid had been standing up and walking. Every time when he moved like a snake on the floor, his daddy, mommy and even the other parents would cry. Though the doctors and the psychologists still had some hope, his parents were preparing to give up. However, Otto seemed to have unlimited faith and energy. He tried to clutch everything he could touch as handrails. He tried to push his body upright by his hands and force his feet to stand firm. He fell many times but after day to day practice, he could stand up and start his first step to walk. Though it would be a long hard time to go, he started his very important step.

To me, he is outstanding.

Suki is a ten year old girl with reading problems. Her hard times started when she went to primary school. She was good at math and art, and was a cheerful and helpful girl. However, she always got no marks in dictation. Even though she read and read, she could hardly get a pass. The alphabet and Chinese characters were monsters to her. She could only see them as some pictures or images. Despite this, she didn’t give up. She learned to find her own way to memorize. Her classmates read twice. She read twenty. Her classmates wrote five times. She wrote fifty. Even though, her classmates could easily get full marks, she could only get twenty. After a year of non stop training, she started to get used to her own way to memorize things. Her reading and writing skills became better. When she went to the secondary school, she completely got over her hard time. Studies went smoothly and her ability to memorize was excellent, though many people still couldn’t understand how she could make it.

To me, she is outstanding.

Anna is a fashion designer. She is always having a tight schedule and has to fly all over the world. Her friends always say that the plane is her home and the flight crew is her relatives. One day, she started to study a child development diploma program just because she found her little cousin having attention deficit problems. She needed to rush to the classroom for lessons without a meal but she still flung herself into every activity she could join. People could hardly understand why she could be so devoted. Whenever people asked her why she helped her cousin, she would say, ’Just want to help, nothing more.’ She kept on learning various skills and practicing with her cousin. Her cousin benefited from her teaching and she also gained the advantage of quiet down during learning. She continued her studies in teaching children with special needs after the diploma program and her cousin kept on having a well balanced development.

She is outstanding, at least to me.

Eldon retired at his sixty. He had been working for a police team for over thirty years. His hard work and good interpersonal relationships brought him many friendships and an excellent reputation. As he had been working non stop for such a long time, everyone would think that he would live at his ease after retirement.

One day, an organization invited him to give a talk about his experience in management. He performed very well in the talk and the organization asked him to teach in the management course afterwards. However, he rejected the offer, but at the same time, he applied for the MBA program. The reason was that he wanted to well equip himself with a theoretical background before teaching somebody else. Then a new life started. Becoming a student, he went to school everyday, discussed everything with the youth and shared his experience with the professors. Of course with his great work and brilliant thinking, he got the MBA degree very quickly. Then he started to teach at the universities. Young people are around him everyday and he enjoys his new life very much.

He is extremely outstanding.

Rebecca was sitting on a wheelchair when I met her in a charity event one day. She was seventy six years old and had been being a volunteer for sixteen years. Though she could not walk since she was sixty, she kept on comforting people with her smile and experience. The elderly went to see her. Kids ran to her every afternoon for story telling. The young people also liked to ask for her opinion when facing problems. She had a mission to make at least three people smile everyday and she liked to share with the young that life was too short to waste time hating people. With her optimistic character, she cheered up many people and also made friends with people from all walks of life. She always said, ‘Life is not fair, but it is still good.’ Undoubtedly, her life is not bad and she is outstanding.

Outstanding is not just a word to give praise. It also carries the meaning of being incomplete or unfinished. When we have difficulties, we do not give up, as something better must be waiting for us. When people ask for our help, we should give a hand as something incomplete is awaiting us to complete it. When we feel inadequate, it brings us the idea of learning.

‘Never give up, helping people and lifelong learning’

Nowadays, it is the era of information and the world is changing rapidly. People may face different kinds of challenges from time to time. We need help or to be helped sometimes in our lives. Interpersonal relationships are important and learning is also significant. Friends help us to get over the difficulties and stand by us whenever we are happy or sad. Learning helps us to maximize our potential to face more challenges in the future. Therefore, apart from caring more for the people around us, we need to learn from our daily interactions with others and the world around us. Learning is no longer confined to childhood or to youth. It takes place throughout our lives on different occasions. It is taking place on an on-going basis. So, if you are outstanding, you should have been learning and caring for others. If you keep on learning and caring for others, you should be outstanding.

This is the magic of outstanding I want to share with all OSAers.[/vc_column_text][tek_button button_text=”Back” button_style=”tt_primary_button” button_color_scheme=”btn_primary_color” button_hover_state=”” button_icon_bool=”no” button_action=”button-action-link” button_link=”url:http%3A%2F%2F159.89.198.89%2Fyoutharch-web%2Fstories%2F|||” button_position=”button-center”][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row]