NAME : MUHAMAD ZUL AIMAN B ZULKIFLEE

MATRIC NO : 187089

SUBJECT CODE : FCE3102

DATE : 14th NOVEMBER 2016

LECTURER’S NAME : DR. HABSAH BINTI ISMAIL

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you

courage.” – Lao Tzu.

This is one from many famous quotes from Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu, a philosopher of the sixth

century B. C. Due to the loss of many important records, information about Lao Tzu the man has

been very sketchy. Legend says that he is a gifted scholar, worked as the Custodian of the

Imperial Archives during the reign Chou Dynasty (Wikipedia Foundation, 2016).

The reason why I choose this quote is, first because this quote literally reflects myself,

which now is having a relationship of my own. And yes indeed, I, personally agree about the

meaning of the quote. Through love, you have strength and through love too, you have courage.

When we talk about love, the first important thing we need to understand is, what is love

actually? A feeling? Or just another new girl to fulfill your weekend’s lust? Or the smile a

stranger among the crowd gave to you? Love never has its own definition. Because 8 billion

people on Earth see it in their very own perspective. Some may say love is when you finally

married your girlfriend, some may say love is when you help that old lady cross the road and get

a free hug from her, and it varies. And we cannot say not to others on how they define love. The

love itself have a big influence and covers a wide area in our own, everyday life. Love is

everywhere, as if it unites with the nature, and exist in our every breath though we may do not

see but we still we can feel the presence of the love and thus we show it to people around us.

And with all these various definitions and explanations, we go back to our quote from the

legendary Lao Tzu. And instead playing around on the surface, we have to go deeper to the core,

by means to truly understand this quote, along with its true meaning of love that Lao Tzu has

discovered and he carved it in this quote. May through this understanding, we can understand

more about love and hence, apply it in our everyday life with the ones we loved the most.
 Lao Tzu said in this quote that love will give us strength and courage, but the issue that I

try to bring up here is do love really give us strength and courage? And to how far these power of

love will bring us? Are we will willingly sacrifice everything in the name of love? And in what

context, or what kind of love that give us these strength and courage? Is it love that gives us

strength and courage to strive through all sorts of hardship and troubles in our life? No matter

how comfort our life is, with branded cloths, big cars, beautiful bungalows, or how bad our life

is, wearing the same clothes for a year and half, no home, barely eats chicken, the only thing that

gives us that particular strength and courage to not to give up and keep fighting in our life is the

love itself.

It is undeniable that we have come to an era of technology and modern life where time is

too valuable until there is no one left to appreciate it. Work, money, reputation, those are few

examples of things that we try too hard to achieve and conquer. “It is in the nature of human

feelings that everyone likes to be in high positions and dislikes low positions; everyone likes

gain and dislikes loss; everyone likes advantage and dislikes affliction; everyone likes honor and

dislikes lowliness” (Cleary, 1991). Some may fail but from many that succeed, are they truly

gain success? They reached the summit just to see that their heart are empty with no love at all.

We need love in our life. In fact, we are born from it. From the moment we were

implanted by both our father’s sperms and mother’s eggs at our mom’s uterus wall, the love is

already exist. And it continues to grow and grow, along with our development. From an infant, a

toddler, an adolescence to young adult, adult and at the very last breath of our life, we still

receive all sorts of love from our surroundings. Love dwell in every stages of our life, give an

impact through time to time and it get to affect us in many ways.

 The central claim that comes out from this meaningful quote of Lao Tzu is, when love is

said to be exist and become the source of our strength in overcome challenges and obstacles in

life, do love work the same way in studies? Do love too gives us strength and courage in studies?

Where that love came from? And in what way it helps us?

I personally agree with the central claim that I said above. Not being biased, but along

with my agreement, I list out a few reasons upon stressing that love do help us in our studies,

giving us strength and will to drink as much as we want to quench our thirst towards knowledge,

providing us courage to fight and never give up no matter how hard the challenges would be.

My first point is the very first love that will help us is the love from our own parents.

Why I choose this kind of love? And in what terms it has to do with learning? First of all, parents

are the ones who make it possible for us to exist in this tiny world. They sacrifice almost

everything ever since we are a baby. From energy, time, money, and much more. Bond between

parents and their child, is a special one. The love produced is unbelievably strong and no

boundaries stand between it. Not to mention that our acceptance towards that love varies from

time to time. From just crawling to the state we are able to run happily around, our parents’ love

never replenished. The relationship that relates parental love towards our learning spirit starts, of

course, when we enter the school. But I have to say that many of us, the children, will only

noticed this parental love when they have reached the adolescence or young adult stage, as these

two are critical stages where all the hormones and common senses start to play their roll.

Starting from here, then only we can use Lao Tzu’s quote and altogether with parental

love that I said above, we can see how parental love will give their kids both strength and

courage in their learning process. And we also get to see between parents and children, who will

play much more important role in ensuring this love keeps growing and long-lasting.
 The very basis of a happy family is to be able to understand each of the family members

needs and desire, as to also be able tolerate with each other’s attitude in every situation. Parents

play an important part during the early stages of their children. By being a good role model to

their kids, this will enable the love to be delivered in a harmonious and warm atmosphere.

As the parents succeed in disciplining the children from the early stages, it will be much

easier for their children when it involves learning process. Normally, most of the students who

achieve success in school are due to high discipline and good attitude that enables them to focus

in class and perform high level thinking skills. When parents consistently giving their parental

love, this is the kind of love that will the student strength and courage. He or she is deeply love

by his or her parents and from there come the strength, while loving their parents deeply, they

produce courage in themselves. It is interesting and also important to understand how powerful

this love can be, and if not being channel through the right way, it might turns out to be

devastative (Cheng, 2000).

There is no love stronger than our parents love, and through it we gain strength. Our

parents did their very best in loving us, giving everything they have to fulfill our needs. They are

our strength. Whenever we failed in our studies, they support us from behind, comforting us and

giving us the strength that we need. And upon seeing our parents’ non-stop effort and struggles

in ensuring us not to give up, we gain courage. We want to prove to them we can make it, we

want to repay them for all those invaluable sacrifices, we want to make them happy. Isn’t it

beautiful? Through love we gain both strength and courage, two essential values that we need

along our journey in learning and studying towards success. And with these two values also, we

will eventually develop lots of good values inside ourselves and hence become a nobler person.
 My second point on showing that love can help us in studies is through the education

itself. Yes. The idea here is to love education and also getting that love back from the education.

How is it possible to get the love back from the education? Before I explain more about the

above statement, lets see what is education at the first place? Books? Your examination slips

with multiples grade on it? Or just another day you wasted by sleeping at class?

Education is the process of promote learning, or the possession of knowledge, skills,

values and habits. Educational methods including discussions, teaching, trainig and organized

research. Education ususally takes place under the management of educators but learners may

educate themselves. Education also can run either in formal or informal class depending on the

lessons being taught. The common stages of education system starts with kindergarten, primary

and secondary school, then college or unversity (Wikipedia Foundation, 2016).

Now that we have know the meaning of education, finally we can go through its relation

with love and how it will affect the student in achieving success in their studies. But before we

going much deeper, lets us see an example of how love towards education, when really being

appreciate by the student will give a big impact on his or her studies.

Story of Nik Nur Madihah bt Nik Mohd Akmal, a girl who scored 20A’s in 2008 SPM

despite living in poverty and experiencing much difficulties in going through her life as a

student. How she done it? It seems to be not logical for someone who live in a such small and

depleted house with a rent of RM90 per month, forgot to eat at school as her allowance is only

enough for the bus ride fee, and have no side class or tuition to score such a shocking and

amazing result compared to other students who come from more well off families (blogspot.my,

2009). From where did she obtained the strength and courage to study 20 subjects and actually
did score all A’s? This is exactly where we can see how love towards education can be so

powerful and benefiting.

This ambitious young girl is a living proof of someone who really love education and

from this very pure love, she managed to create very big achievement in her life. From copying

the whole dictionary until willing not to eat at school, she overcame every challenges succesfully

and she made it to the top. Nik Nur Madihah is one from many other successfull stories of

someone who did well in education.

Education is something that you need to embrace and enjoy when doing it. Only when

you pouring your love towards subjects you are learning and classes you going to attend and

assignments you need to finish, that’s the moment you will gain both strength and courage

needed to achieve success. Through education, people will be able to acquire the skills they need

to navigate the world. Education also indirectly have the same benefits as love. It connects

people, and also easily spread to all over the world. Together with love, it brings lots of blessings

and help. Right education can lead you to unlimited possibilities, and set you in th right path to

get into the career that you wish to pursue.

Knowledge belong to Him, The Wise. It is like a vast ocean that never ends. And to seek

knowledge is an obligation for each and every of us. It would not be a detriment to a person to

continue his study, gain more and more awareness thus making him much wiser person in life.

Indeed, everything that we do depends on education. If we don’t have the best education ever,

we can’t overcome whatever challenge we have in the future. Nelson Mandela said education is

the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. Education comes in many forms, not

necessarily in books, but there is no knowledge that isn’t woth knowing. Focus on what are you

doing right now as a good start helps for an easier finish.

 Love is infinity. And it connects everything. From people, animals, nature and the

Creator Himself. Love give us purpose to achieve something, together it gives us strength and

courage upon doing it. We all feel love, experience love, dream love. Every single human

practice of how to love and express them. It is undeniable that life sometimes may not be on our

side, with lots of challenges adn hardship, but believe me, love conquers all. Come forth

whatever it is we will be able to overcome it because of why? Because we have love in us. We

are love.

And after loking through examples that show love will help us in study, enabling us to

achieve higher marks and get to improve our soft skills, no doubt anymore that there are no

reasons of why love cannot be used as tools or as a medicine or cure for our problems in life. Lao

Tzu saw this along his journey to the West, putting himself together with nature in finding the

true path and peace. And through this quote, he left us his legacy, leaving us to discover by

ourselves the true meaning of love.

In life, you have to find a way. There will be no one to help you when you’re in trouble

except for yourself. Plus you have something inside you, you have LOVE. Use it to control your

problems. Don’t let them control you instead. That is exactly how an excellent student would be

whenever they are facing with any problems. You should recognize your own strength and be

wise upon how to use it against your problem.

One day, our life will come to an end and during that time it’s already too late to show

your gratitude towards someone you love. Appreciate the time also not to mention the love that

you shared with them. Live your life happily. Spread the love, and be honest to yourself. Have

faith and never give up in walking your path of life. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery

and today is a gift of god, that’s why we called it present.

References

1. blogspot.my. (2009, March 14). Retrieved from mudzaffar.blogspot.my:

http://mudzaffar.blogspot.my/2009/03/this-is-my-home.html

2. Cheng, D. H. (2000). On Lao Tzu. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

3. Cleary, T. (1991). Wen-Tzu: Understanding the Mysteries. London: Shambhala Pub. Inc.

4. Wikipedia Foundation. (2016, November 6). Retrieved from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi

5. Wikipedia Foundation. (2016, November 4). Retrieved from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education