Best Lesson: Friendship is a balancing act, says this student from Sing Yin Secondary School
A relationship is just like a cup of delicious milk tea – not too hot, not too cold, and perfectly blended
A friendship must be carefully nurtured. Two years ago, I found myself sitting in an examination room, faced with a question which required me to calculate the temperature of milk tea after mixing. But what I didn’t know was that this question would teach me a lesson about friendship.
“This cannot be wrong!” I yelled at my classmates later, holding the crumpled physics test paper I had been given back.
Everyone else had found the milk tea question easy; they’d all used the same method to solve it. But I had taken a different route, and the question had been one of the most challenging on the paper. That’s what started the trouble.
I kept explaining my method to my best friends, but none of them saw the point in it.
“Why would you calculate like that?” they asked. “Our method is fast and clean!”
Even though exam papers generally only have one correct answer, I still argued that my answer was the second possible solution. Our relationship started to heat and boil.
They were my best friends, but I suddenly found that I was not able to join in their discussions. I could see that they thought I was being irrational. They started to give me the cold shoulder.
No matter how hard I tried to stick with them and fix the relationship, I could see myself being pulled further away from them.
Finally, I decided to consult my teacher about my answer.
“Sir, why couldn’t I do it this way?” I asked. His response was astonishing.
“Your solution is correct. However, as you are the only student who gave this answer, we decided not to make any changes to the mark scheme or your result,” said the teacher.
What a miracle! I banged through the classroom door, marched to my friends and announced the good news – that I had been right after all! I expected them to bow down to my smartness, or at least apologise for the misunderstanding, but they didn’t.
Blinded by my need to be right, I broke the friendship – and all over a few numbers.
After a long time trying to cool down, I discovered what I decided to call the “milk tea” philosophy, as a way of learning how to get along with others. The main idea is to think of yourself as a hot pot of tea, while everyone else is a cup of milk.
When we want to mix with others, the first step is to accept that there is a difference between us, and try to find middle ground. We may need to cool down a little, while they will warm up slightly. Once we are all on the same level, we can start building a relationship.
What I have learned from this incident is the importance of stepping out of my world and learning to adapt. I expected others to change their way of thinking for me, and ending up hurting them.
Hot milk tea tastes great, as long as the milk isn’t as hot as lava. You can still be true to yourself without imposing your will onto others.
Milk tea may not be able to decide its temperature, but we can all decide how we treat others. If we accept our differences and learn to mix our own uniquely-flavoured cup of milk tea, we’ll always end up with a friendship worth savouring.