PERSPECTIVE: After the day of knowing the exam results

We, 5 high school friends, sat in a small corner of a beer house, between bursts of laughter were many quiet moments.

We reviewed the strange things our friends had done since we broke up. Three of them were good at math, one worked for a robotics company, one was a risk prevention specialist at an insurance company, and the last one sang.

There was a friend whose father died on the day of his university entrance exam registration - but he still firmly passed the exam. Such a person seemed very brave but made many mistakes in life later. A "exam genius" - played all year long, only studied properly for a few weeks - still passed the university entrance exam, now he is in prison for drug trafficking. The most handsome, mischievous, heroic friend chose to join the army and sacrificed himself while helping people during the flood season.

I suddenly remembered a line from a Taiwanese youth film called At Café 6. After the broken love of youth and students, the character realized that: "Youth is the same, life is different".

Our youths are similar because no matter what we wish to do or who we wish to become, we seem to only think of one straight path for our dreams: passing the university entrance exam. But each of us has gone through many turning points, so that not only is our life different from the other, but the life we once thought of and the life that actually happened are also very different.

The university entrance exam, for us eighteen years old at that time, was a finish line. Pass or fail, good or bad - like a "sentence". We all felt like we were about to step into a single gate: going to the other side was safety, promise; staying on this side was a dead end, no way out.

But the more we live, the more we understand that the "destination" is actually just a gentle slope on a long road.

We were too stressed, too hopeful, too miserable because of a score. But when life goes by, 20 years later sitting together, no one remembers who passed, who failed, where they studied, how many times they took the test. What remains is how we lived after the day we found out the score.

That exam may be the first step, but it is not the decisive step. Some people walk through the university gate and still get lost. Some people turn around and look for another way, but eventually find the way. Some people stumble and get up. Some people take a detour but still reach their destination.

In 2025, the national high school exam has just ended, the results have just been announced. Another generation of eighteen has reached the first self-imposed finish line in their lives. On the internet, there will be news of scores taken and shared with pride. But there will also be those who cry in silence. Worse still, there are those foolish children who think "that's it".

But no, there is no "end" at eighteen.

This is not a consolation. This is simply something that those who have gone through, whose hearts skipped a beat when the invigilator called: start of the test, whose hands trembled as they typed in their registration number to check their scores, whose disappointment, bewilderment, emptiness and falling, whose thoughts of going off the rails... can now put into words.

No score is worth it for an 18 year old to feel bad about themselves. And no score is big enough to be proud of for the rest of their lives.

We, twenty years after the day we learned our scores, sat together in a beer hall, talking about what had happened - the turns, the mistakes, the lessons, the quiet determinations, and the miracles that had come beyond all expectations.

And then we laughed, because we realized that youth is really the same - confused, dreamy, afraid of being wrong, thinking that something is everything - but life is so interesting when it never follows a fixed path.

If your exam results disappoint you, you don't have to let your sadness linger until the next day. The best thing about youth is that it always allows you to start over, completely fresh, with all your determination, until you see the wonders of this life.

Don't let a July morning make you forget that youth is long, and this world always has wonders for those who are willing to move on.

We have come a long way, to experience a part of this miracle. And today's eighteen years old will one day also tell his story in a small shop, with old friends, with a smile and all the tolerance and pride in his own life.

According to Bui Phu Chau

Source: https://baohatinh.vn/goc-nhin-sau-ngay-biet-diem-thi-post291828.html