答应Adele写在Oracle Graduate Trainee Portal上面的文章，最近感慨比较多。

Brothers and Sisters Forever

When I opened the farewell email from my friend, I suddenly became sentimental and my mind could not stop drifting back to the happy days we shared during this graduate program. At this very moment, I recalled the encouraging words from my first career mentor, Baron Ho, the former director of GC GEH line of business. Back then I was depressed and in despair trying to start my career at Oracle, a totally green hand myself.

He said, “It is all in your hand” and shared with me his own stories and past experiences. I still vividly remembered, at 7 PM in his office, those very words lifted me out of the gloom. It is a priceless private conversation that inspires me striding to the future and keeping Baron in my heart forever after he passed away with cancer.

I summarized the sprit of Baron’s words into two points to share with all of my friends here.

Make decision and put your plan or dreams into action

The first thing I want to highlight is, to make your own decision, no matter what finally the decision is.

I think one of the great gifts our creator has bestowed us is the sensation of anticipation and mystery of suspense. No body knows what is going to happen in the span of two years, six months, one day or after this very moment. How boring life would be if we knew how it would all turn out in advance. The biggest evil power in “Gundam”, a popular comic talking about the future, is the political leader whose dream is to create a perfect world by deciding persons’ roles, jobs, destinies in the society based on their natural gene order the minute when the baby was born. Back to our imperfect world, if nobody knows what is going to happen then you can know by deciding what you want to be, what exactly you will be 5 years down the road. You can see your entire future, which is decided by yourself, not anyone else.

Visualize, dream, realize your potential and decide

What you have imagined and decided can shape the future, and eventually change your life forever. Something could happen and change the entire direction and quality of your life in an instant. But it only happens when you make decision, and take action upon it. I was never expected by my parents and friends to do sales and consulting jobs before I made a decision when waiting for my train on the platform in Tokyo, seeing a flock of pigeons free from care. I asked myself which kind of pigeons I want to be, a shiftless pigeon Japanese style or a Chinese pigeon always on the alert. Yes, I made my decision to come back at that moment, so did my friend make her decision for the next stop.

A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn. Once a decision is made to change, we need to try our best to put our plan or dreams into action in order to make the turn to be real.

Some people dream of success, while others work hard for it. During the first couple of weeks of my debut as an OCS consultant, when I asked for help very naturally, Amar, one Indian friend working together from customer side told me “Don’t wait someone to help you”. He’s right. You can do everything you want to. You will be better only if you start putting your dreams, your wishes into action. Limit the things you hate and change it bit by bit. If you keep doing the same things constantly, you will gain the same results.

Once you take action to realize your plan or dream, you can not avoid failures and disappointments in front of you sooner or later, especially for new graduates making their turn on the career path. But remember, failure is only an event or a fact, never a real character. Trials, temptation, and disappointment in all will facilitate, rather than hinder, if one is resilient enough to leverage them rightly. They test the fiber of your character, and strengthen it. Adele told me during the phone conversation that FY09 trainees were eager to know how I got the outstanding team award for last quarter end and how I survived and adapted to the “suffering” consulting life successfully. I want to say every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes my soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

The farewell email I mentioned at the beginning carried me away to the two sweet months we FY08 graduate trainees spent together in Beijing. Chemical reaction sparks between boys and girls, and we all became a band of brothers and sisters forever. While Baron’s words still ring in my ears, and remind me of treating everything happened in a reasonable point of view. There is an old saying that you cannot discover the new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. That means brothers and sisters need to have the courage to make their own decisions no matter what the decisions are, grasping everyone’s individual destiny and put everyone’ unique dreams into action no matter what difficulties will be encountered on the way.

Cypress Hu, FY08 GT, China