December 2015


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When I first entered the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus four years ago, I would have never imagined that this is what I’d be doing today. In fact, when I first entered the UWI, I wasn’t even a member of the Faculty of Humanities and Education. I entered as a law student. I was following the natural and conventional path towards job security, prestige and supposed wealth, fulfilling the dreams of my immigrant parents, and fooling myself into believing that legal studies was the only worthy thing to do for someone who liked “to read and write.” However, I quickly learnt during my one semester of law, after weekly contemplations of “What am I doing with my life?” that pursuing a field and career that I had absolutely no passion for, that awakened no sense of purpose or drive within me, was in no way a worthy existence. Each day, as readings and case studies piled up, I yearned to return to the domain of liberal arts and to study what I truly cared about: literature. And after overcoming the painful struggle of feeling like I was failing both myself and my family, I made the choice to switch majors and joined the Faculty of Humanities and Education. Standing here today, I can confidently say I have no regrets.

Some have described my decision to pursue – what I jokingly call – “a life of poverty” as “radical.” Others have described it as “romantic.” For me, the choice was simply “necessary.” All of us graduating today have ended up here via different routes. Maybe you always knew you wanted to be a filmmaker. Maybe you took five years to get here. Maybe you weren’t accepted into your first choice major and did a different degree. Nevertheless, regardless of how you arrived here, and regardless of what programme is labelled on your certificate, I am sure you, just like me, are continuing to battle the realities of coming into your authentic self. It is a battle we face every day, with each decision we make, as we attempt to find the balance among what we want, what we need, and what our family, friends and society expect of us. And in the midst of trying to figure this out, we have no idea of what the future holds for us and the potential opportunities that lie ahead.

My decision to abandon legal studies to pursue my passion was a pivotal point in my journey towards uncovering my Truth. And it was by no means an easy decision to make. Growing up, I felt an overwhelming debt to my parents to succeed. I felt like I owed them for all the sacrifices they made, as they gave up the comforts of all that they knew to move to Trinidad and Tobago over 20 years ago, with limited education and no English-language skills, to work immensely hard and give my sister and me the life we know today. Yet, if I never faced the fear of disappointing my family by following my aspirations, I would not be standing here today as the Valedictorian of this Faculty. I would have never discovered my love for my second major: linguistics. I would have never gained all the crucial values that the Faculty of Humanities and Education has bestowed upon me. And I would have never found the sense of satisfaction, fulfilment and happiness that I experience each day pursuing my field.

Today, I am not going to tell you to “follow your passion” like I originally intended to in the first draft of this speech. Instead, I simply ask you to continue to consciously and fervently commit to your true self. This may, indeed, come in the form of following your passion. However, it also may not. Either way, no matter what path you choose in life, be sure that it speaks to the wholeness of yourself. Because at the end of the day, with the fleeting reality of existence, the one person you will always have to live with is yourself. And the closer you are to your truth, the better you can be at giving back to your society and the wider Caribbean region in the ways that it most need. So whether you desire to follow your passion, or seek to do work outside of service to your dreams, allow yourself to flourish into its best version and satisfy what you most need to do. We live in a time where we surely need more people striving towards their best, authentic selves.

Throughout my life, I’ve learnt a lot from my father – mostly through observing his actions and the way he lives his own life. However, there has always been one piece of advice that he has consistently and directly given me and continues to give me today – “Do your best at everything you do.” We live in a society where mediocrity has become too acceptable – where doing the bare minimum has become the default – where we have become complacent and unwilling to exert the necessary effort to actualize a better reality for ourselves. We live in a time where we need more people who want to do their best; people who will funnel their positive energies towards the greater collective health and productivity of our respective countries and the region. And it is only through the pursuit of our individual truths can we come closer to effectively committing to issues beyond ourselves; because when we are at our best, and we are doing our best, only then can we work together towards a greater good.

For instance, if I had never come to accept my Chinese heritage and learn to live with and celebrate my diasporic identity as a Chinese-Trinidadian, I would have never been able to start a social media campaign against xenophobia and racism online. How does one begin to be a productive member of society if one cannot live with his or herself? How does one begin to effect change at the macro-level when the micro-level is in disarray? So once again, I ask each and every one of you graduating today, to continue cultivating your genuine self, so that you may be able to do your best, for yourself, for the Caribbean, and for the world.

This task may seem difficult and daunting, especially for us who are now penetrating the real cusp of adulthood – working 9 to 5 office jobs and trying to balance our finances. In the midst of this transition, it is easy to lose sight of all the things that matter most to us, to forget the values that we inherited during our tenure at the UWI, and to unconsciously slip into a routine that numbs us from wider societal concerns. As we enter the world as new graduates, let us never forget why we spent so many years here, and why we studied what we did. Let us never forget that in this faculty, we did not merely learn knowledge and content – we learnt ways of seeing and ways of thinking. And by virtue of this, we learnt the true power of empathy and compassion. Most importantly, however, let us never forget the value of patience and time. For some people, it may take doing the wrong thing for one semester to recognize what the right thing is to do. For other people, they may discover their purpose in life unexpectedly by chance and luck one day. So let us take each day, step by step, tackling this seemingly difficult and daunting task, with patience, mindfulness and compassion. Thank you.