Summer vs Winter

When I was in secondary school, we were all made to attend etiqutte courses These lessons range from having to walk in a straight line in heels with your head held high to learning how to pick up something you dropped in the most elegant manner.

In one of the lessons, our instructor was on the topic of choosing the suitable colours for our make-up and clothes for each and every unique individual. According to her, it seems that Asian skin colours are divided into two groups---summer or winter. If your skin have a tanned, bronze, gold, orange or yellow tinge, then you would most probably fall under the "summer" category. Colour suitable for "summery" people include earth tones like brown, olive green to even yellow, orange and red hues. On the other hand, if you are fair or have petals-pink skin, then you would be categorised as "winter". "Winter" people would look their best in pastel tones like pink, purple and blue.

All's well goes well if you fall under the "summer" group and preferred earth tones over pastel tones. But what if you were "summery", yet your favourite colour is say, purple? Should you compromise your likes and adopt other colours which suit your skin colour the most? Since you were born with your unique skin colour, isn't it better if you stick to the tones that were "fated" for you since birth? Should you try to "convince" yourself that you actually prefer earth tones over pastel?

Similarly, if you were good at something, let's say math. You top your math class in every test without having to put in much effort. The chances that your favourite subject is math would be very high. Naturally, self-motivation arising from the good grades, coupled with the acknowledgement from your peers for your capability, would make you feel very comfortable with math. But what if one day you failed a math exam? Would the disappointment turn you against math? Would you still be able to declare that math is still your favourite subject?

If the answer is no, unfortunately, math was never your passion right from the beginning. True interest and love for something transcends material credits. Even if you were confronted with obstacles aplenty, your raw passion would fuel you on. Simply because there is no other way, no other things that you can want to do more than this. This is it. And you know it.

Likewise, even if you fall under the "summer" group, and you deck yourself in purple from head to toe, you can still be the most beautiful person on the world. For daring to follow your true passion and dreams, for simply believing in yourself, miracles can happen. Who knows? Maybe you are the one who turned summer into winter.