My Principle #2: Self-Honesty (Part 1)

Foreword

Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who support my first three articles: “My 3 Principles at Life” and “Principle #1: Integrity (Part 1) & (Part 2)” ❤️

I feel deeply humbled and rewarded that my inner thoughts resonated with you all. This is what creating BULB is all about, a community where ideas, passion and engagement are rewarded. Rewarded not only in BULB Tokens, but the spiritual reward that comes from learning and sharing all these diverse and cool ideas with each other 💡

In this article, I will discuss my high school story which deeply influenced my conceptualisation of self-honesty. If this is your first time reading my blogs, I would suggest you read my previous blogs to get some context. Now let’s get into it!

The Beginning

In my own universe, I perceive the principle of self-honesty as dictating how you treat yourself. The principle of self-honesty is arguably the most important of my three principles, because it empowers you to properly reflect on yourself – and in turn, it gives you the proper system to determine whether you are acting with integrity or following your passion.

“Vincit Qui Se Vincit” – Publilius Syrus

"He conquers who conquers himself", was the motto of my high school. The first time I saw this phrase on the front gates of my high school, I paused, stared and pondered at it for a good 10 minutes. And every so often, I would again pause, stare and ponder at the phrase whenever I walk pass it. At the time, I really did not know why I was so drawn and fascinated by the phrase. However, looking back, I realised that it was because I did not understand the idea: “conquer himself”. With the constant portrayals of invincible characters, taking on the world and going on inspiring journeys on blockbuster films, media and pop culture, we are at some point in time wish that we can conquer the world in our own way. Thus, I felt familiar to the idea of “He who conquers”, while the concept of “conquering himself” was completely foreign to me.

Looking back, this was the beginning of rapid and radical self-growth. However, being the arrogant 16-year-old that I was, I was yet to fully realise just how impactful these five-words will be in my life.

The Realisation

At age 16, I transferred from an average high school to the top academic boys high school in the state – let’s call it NSB. The motto of NSB is the above phrase: “He who conquers, conquers himself”. In my old high school, I was the top student, and I felt like I was the smartest kid in the room all the time.

It all changed when I transferred to NSB.

Suddenly, I was just an average student. My classmates learned faster than me, they understood complex problems deeper than I did, and nearly everyone was more hard working than I was. It was at this moment that I was deeply humbled.

It made me realise that there are so many people out there that are smarter, more intelligent and more hard working than me. And that is just in this school. What about the top school in the country? What about the top university in Australia? What about the rest of the world?

"I was a small fish in a big ocean."

As I matured and grew in high school and in University, I gradually realised: before “conquering” anything at all, you must conquer yourself. This means that you must be able to have full control your own body, mind and consciousness in order to do anything truly great in life.

Life Advice From The Special Lady

At many moments during my high school life, I felt inadequate, inferior and just simply not good enough. Like all other troubled teenagers, I turned to my special lady, my mummy, for some advice on getting up from this slump. This is what she said…

“Who you are today does not define who you are tomorrow. So, what do you want to be tomorrow? That is the question.” – Mummy

“I want to be better Mummy.” – Me

“Then go be better.” – Mummy

This is where I started my journey to truly “conquer myself”.

Author’s Note
The article became overly long once again, and thus the article will be split into two parts. Part 2 will be coming out soon!