Small Sacrifices

My friends often asked me why I waited so long to join the teaching profession when I could have done so when I turned eighteen right after my SPM examinations.  They asked me why I waited seven long years before I finally decided to enrol into teachers training college.  In fact, the biggest question was why I waited until I was twenty-five, the maximum entry age, to enrol.  The answer was always the same; that I wanted to check out all my options before I committed myself to becoming a teacher.

The answer I that I have held on to all these years is far from the truth.  In reality I hesitated from embarking into the teaching profession at that early age, merely because I found myself holding back my desire from achieving that ambition and making way for my younger siblings to achieve theirs first. 

Nobody actually forced me to make that choice.  However, I realised, at the early age of seventeen, that I had no choice but to deny my own ambitions because I realised that my father, the bread-winner in the family, could not possibly send so many of his children through tertiary education with his salary, all at once.  Thus, I patiently waited until my second sibling graduated and my fourth sibling was about to graduate. 

I guess, not pursuing my own tertiary education before my siblings, made it financially easier for my father.   And, even though my contributions may not have been much, at least what salary I got working as a clerk, helped to ease my family's financial burden.  At least, then my father did not have to worry about spending extra money on me.

I have never regretted that it took me so long to become a teacher.  In fact I am glad my siblings graduated well before I did.  My sacrifice may merely be a small one.  In fact, it may not even be suitable to be called a sacrifice.  But I'm happy I did it.