freedom is also good for the soul

more nonsense in the title. yay. actually its not really nonsense... its just not well-thought-through.

if someone offends you, and you forgive the person, the relationship is not yet mended. this is something i have come to realise.

you can make a conscious decision to forgive the person, and not to hold the thing against him/her, but still feel very awkward talking to the person. it has happened to me, and i wondered why.

then i realised that the person never apologised to me... without a frank admission of the problem at hand, there can be no resolution, and no mending.

its abit like how God has forgiven us all our sins - the forgiveness is freely given. but we can have no relationship with God until we confess the sins before Him and make ourself right with Him again.

similarly, there are times that although i have forgiven the person, i still feel very uncomfortable associating with that person... and sometimes i wonder if i have truly forgiven the person in my heart, and i begin to doubt myself again... but the truth is that the relationship is strained because the other person has not made peace with me... and the tension can be felt on both sides.

a gem of truth (i think), that jumped me today while i was showering.

freedom is good for the complexion

and before people start asking me funny questions - the title is nonsense. just for fun, yah? =)

such a strange contradiction; in all of my freedom, i am posting less? well, it's hard to justify, seeing as my posting is so wonderfully inconsistent. if you can find a pattern in the frequency, congratulations and don't tell me about it.

the question on everybody's lips now is, so what are you going to do with your free time? it comes in several guises, starting from the open-ended "So you've got a lot of free time now lah" to the somewhat more direct "So are you looking for a job?"

and everywhere i turn i sense a small amount of disapproval that the answer to the latter question is no. maybe i'm paranoid, i dunno. there's a pretty good chance that i'm imagining the disapproval coming from others, because within my own head, the accusing voice still lurks, telling me to "please go and do something with your life instead of wasting it away." it's a persistent voice.

and i guess i don't really know how true it is... but the important thing is that with what i'm doing now, i have peace within myself, and i'm usually happy. sometimes i believe the voice, and then it depresses me.

someone expressed the opinion that she'd go nuts from boredom if she had this kind of free time - i'm quite glad i'm not her, then. only one person (thanks melvin, but i don't think you read this) said that taking a break was a good idea... before school starts and i throw myself back into the grind for the rest of my life, yeah?

today, i totally rearranged my room, and cleaned up a whole bunch of things. the only thing which remained stationary was my heavily-overladen bookshelf, which i dare not move for fear of it falling on my head.

and my bed has shifted itself to the middle of the room. its a weird configuration, especially considering that my room is only three times the width of my bed, and one-and-a-half times the length. its like, the bed is in the middle, and everything else revolves around it. (seems to reflect the life i'm living now pretty well ;-).) so there's a narrow corridor on both sides, one of which is completely blocked by the desk which i shoved in there. and it gets weirder.

the desk, being in such a narrow location, has no room for an accompanying chair. inspired by my sis kat, i pushed the bed right up to the desk, so the bed functions as the seat. space saving.

and there's a little island of floor in the corner of the room, walled off by my desk and the bed, inaccessible by normal walking, which is there because of the power socket in that corner, which i cannot block off with the desk. there's a rolling shelf residing in that corner now.

the concept behind this room layout is basically this: i don't want to leave corners for dust bunnies to breed. i mean, seriously - in my room, dust bunnies breed like rabbits... i exterminated so many today that the hand-held vacuum seems to be clogged, and the SPCA will be after me soon.

and i have achieved mild success in figuring out where things should go... in assigning specific locations for specific types of items, so that more things have a proper place now. the problem that perenially plagues me is that i don't know where things should go... so they end up clogging up any available space. insufficient shelf space is blamed for this. but since i cleared out the army stuff, and probably will throw away another bunch of stuff tomorrow, hopefully this problem will be resolved. i also intend to invest one of those cupboard things for papers and stuff in anticipation of school upcoming.

i also designated a "dumping ground" right next to the door, in the hopes of isolating the mess to that region. or so i hope.

so that was today. i'm quite happy. i'd like to emphasise again the importance of having good music to accompany boring work - today, it's the "Shrek" soundtrack!! yeah!! credit also to "Petra Praise 2", which does a really cool rock twist to some familiar praise songs... v.cool.

freedom rant

on monday begins approximately 4 and a half months of freedom.


things i hope to accomplish in that time:

1. neaten up room, specifically the stuff all over the shelves. figure out how to stop dust accumulating over the top of everything. figure out how to have a proper place for everything when i have so little shelf space. start keeping personal documents a little more organised.

2. make a habit of doing housework. its as good a time to start as any, hopefully teach me a little discipline.

3. keep away the army stuff. get rid of the trash, pack up the useful stuff nicely, and hide it in some deep, dark corner of the storeroom.

4. read some of the good books which have been collecting dust on my shelves. read a little bit everyday. perhaps listen to some of the tapes my sis has been putting into the comp... v. good stuff there from her bible school

5. exercise? a little bit of running, perhaps. abit of static.

6. almost forgot!! learn to cook. i need a book of local recipes... =) start with the stuff my dad whips up on a regular basis, and progress from there.


i've decided that morning is really the best time to get these things done. the afternoons are too hot to do very much. i've decided to use the air-conditioning a little more liberally when i'm at home in the afternoons, if only to improve my mood. and probably go out at nights. little / no intent of getting a job, might start tuition again if i can be bothered to go revise my JC stuff.... still procrastinating over driving... sigh. don't ever mention driving to me, it makes me grumpy for some reason. let me go do all my other happy things, and then i'll worry about it.

Wild At Heart

this book i'm reading has this to say...

"(take) a moment and consider what you would think of yourself if tomorrow you lost everything that the world has rewarded you for..."


this is a profound question. when we've lost everything, do we still know who we are? are we still secure in the knowledge of who we are, the truth that we are co-heirs, beloved, victors....


all of my life i've had a self-image problem. if you had asked me in secondary school if i was geeky/nerdy, i would have told you yes without hesitation, and its not something i was proud of. the image has changed for the better, somewhat.... i think of myself as a fairly smart, nice guy with some self-discipline problems....

so we apply what the book says, and take away everything that the world has ever rewarded me for. and i become a guy.... with some self-discipline problems.

and then i suddenly feel like i'm a weakling... with no redeeming quality whatsoever. someone who is merely using oxygen here on earth, and of no help to anyone at all.....

i wonder if its a coincidence that i was led to read Job recently....


from what i have just written, i see that there is an issue... that to a certain extent, i'm deriving my self-worth from my talents, my intelligence... now that i've identified it, the feeling fades....

and i take heart from the knowledge that i have some idea of where i'm going in this life... knowing what i want to do when i grow up... knowing and believing that God has given me specific instructions about some things which i am taking up (start army cell)... that i have a purpose, and because i have a purpose, therefore my life has meaning, my life has worth............ that i am valued enough to be entrusted with an important part of God's plan in my church...

i don't quite know if that's the right attitude to have.... i thought that ideally self-worth should be intrinsic, something which can never be taken away from you regardless of what you think your talents or your purposes are in life.... could you live with yourself if you lost all your talents and abilities... and could you live with yourself if you felt that there was no goal to strive towards, no battle to fight, no adventure to win....



seems to synergize quite nicely with my previous post.... i sense pattern.....

the only reason i'm alive

just gonna share something one of the men at my church shared on sunday.... something he says was only really driven home to him after the death of another of our church members, Dr Alex Chao.

"... that the only reason Tan Bee Yit (himself) is alive today... is because God still has a plan for me..."

that if God had no plan for you on this earth as of this moment, then you would surely be dead.



just a thought for any aimless souls out there.