Introspection is More Precious Than Exposition – Unknown

 An excerpt from one of my assignments. Hope it makes good reading:

 

“As I am writing this, I am forced to rethink and realize how I was looking at my future life through the lens of a telescope. With a telescope, the lens is small and the view is narrow. When people place their eye on the scope and focus on the scene before them, the view of their surroundings fades and eventually disappears.

 

Having a narrow view on life is not the problem because we eventually have to cast our eye on a singular point in life and work towards the fulfillment of our ambitions and ideals. The problem I think comes when we unknowingly follow our peers and point our telescopes towards what they are looking for in life rather than make a well thought out decision to pursue the one thing in life that makes us happy. When people do not take sufficient time off to think about their ideals in life, they sometimes choose to adopt other people’s decision to wholeheartedly pursue wealth and by doing so, they live out the life and dreams of another person. Although there is nothing fundamentally wrong with earning money or owning it, the main issue lies with the fact that when people look through their telescopes and take a long term view of wanting to become wealthy, they often base their opinions of success on the amount of money they earn relative to their friends. When a person’s view of success is based on the material quality of lifestyle, we tend to become less appreciative of the intangibles in life. Whenever intangibles such as social relationships, social action and responsibility, human dignity and integrity are not held in higher regard than wealth, people become lost in their self-interest and society suffers.

 

3 months in the NOC program and I am forced to put down the telescopic view of my life. My life is at a standstill, I have taken a step back and with my own naked eye I see more of the world around me. I could now see the opportunities that exist around me as well as the risks and pitfalls, which come with each opportunity. As I meet more and more successful entrepreneurs, I gradually come to the realization that the value of becoming an entrepreneur only lies partially on the success of their enterprise. The other part lies in the strength of will and courage required to prosper a venture from its infancy to maturity. Each person’s experience reads like a storybook and each story ends in its own unique way, some are simple while others are spectacular, some end in success while others in failure. Nonetheless, each one of them carries a lesson worthy of learning by anyone who is willing to listen.”

Inspiration

Two hearts hurt when one union’s broken

The love that burned and was lost in a moment

Loneliness spoke the loudest in our silence

Expressing the loss with words unspoken

 

 

Promised the stars, the moon and the sky

Promised to kiss the tears she cry

Fine words penned out unabashed or shy

Became lies that completes a bigger lie

 

Bitter and Sweet

Recently a friend of mine, a really nice girl, just got attached to another really nice guy. Cheers to that, because I know that she’s been through some tough times lately. But then I look at where I am right now, isolated in a country where the only company I have are my table, my iBook, my bed and my imagination and I can’t help but feel alone and isolated.

My life is like the darkest chocolate you can find, its bitter and its sweet.

Stockholm

So much time has passed since I made my last post that I really do not know what to post about anymore. I think I’ll just make a general post about Stockholm.

There is just no comparisons between Singapore and Stockholm because they are just so distinct. Stockholm does not have many if any tall buildings at all. It simply doesn’t have the need to build any tall buildings because it has so much land for a country with 9 million citizens. Sweden also hasn’t been in any wars for over 200 years so much of its old architecture is very much in tact. This means that the streets, houses and churches never fail to emit a faded, rustic and cultured flavor. Sweden is also a pacifistic country, war never cross the minds of anyone here and its almost as if the city is shrouded in vail of calm.

The place where I work is in Sveavägen, the city centre of Stockholm. If we compare it to Singapore then it’ll be a cross between Shenton Way and Holland V. Although there are quite a few offices located here, all of them are these old short houses which are probably just 4 or 5 stories tall and when they line up together along the road, they will remind you of Holland V. 

Running through Stockholm are the veins of this city, the subway. Driving is generally unnecessary and people who drive big trucks or SUVs are frowned upon by the people here, where environmental preservation is very much ingrained within everyone’s minds. Unlike Singapore where the 5th or 6th question asked of you is: “Do you drive?” (Everyone is hoping for a free ride on a car from someone else), driving in Stockholm is definitely not a prerequisite to be the popular guy among girls. I can also now say that Singapore is a really tiny and congested city. The only reason why we end up complaining about the time it takes to travel around Singapore is quite frankly because the MRT is too slow, takes too long to arrive and that the roads are too congested and too complicated. People in Stockholm are pampered by trains that arrive every 2 to 3 minutes, the buses here are always half full (even during rush hour) and they actually arrive at a fixed time, which is predetermined by a time schedule. Amazing, everyday I have to remind myself that this experience is only going to last a year and I ‘ll have to one day return to mighty crowded Singapore.

Seriously though, Singapore is really not as bad as many Singaporeans make it out to be, its hot… yes. Its crowded, yes. It has an artificial style of colonial architecture, yes. Our political environment is ********, yes. But! It is without doubt a very unique, modern and cosmopolitan  city and I don’t think that any Singaporean should be ashamed of staying in a city like that.

All right, there just isn’t time to finish talking about Stockholm, I will resume another time.  

Church

Over the past two sundays, I have visited 2 different churches and both of them have pretty distinct differences in the manner of their worship and service. The first one I visited with the other siblings in Christ is called Immanuel Kyrkan or more specifically the Immanuel International church. Over here everything was in english which meant that we sang english worship songs and the message that was preached was also in english. The worship was more mellow and was different from the contemporary style of worship I was used to in Covenant. Each of us held a bulletin with the lyrics on it and since we were not familiar with any of the songs, we had to bow our heads down in order to sing along with the congregation. I guess in this way, it was a little less interactive but hey, worship is worship and I won’t have any complains about it. Authentic Prayer was the sermon topic and upon hearing it I felt genuinely inspired and glad to have attended church.

The adults or more likely the senior citizens (many of them had grey hair) were having their service when we finished ours. It was a pretty dramatic to see a grand organ blaring away while everyone was singing Amazing Grace in Swedish. The sound of the organs were like sounds out of a Dracula movie. Rich, grandiose but creepy and dark. Overall though, it was fresh and interesting.

The second church I attended was called New Life and we went at a great time cos they were celebrating their 15th anniversary that sunday. It was a really unique experience as we had tables set up within the sanctuary for us to sit around and have kaffe(coffee), bread and cake while we had service. The worship here was more contemporary with a full band and a small boy on the Tumba. The worship and the sermon was done in Swedish and English which meant that there were people translating one language to the other. It was actually difficult for me to take in everything but by the end of service I felt fortunate to have been there because far away from home I could feel the presence and blessings of God on these people.

After service, one of the most amusing moment of my life occurred when one of my friends asked three kids to play football with us. 3 on 3 in the courtyard, me 23 years old, one guy friend whose 24 and one more guy whose about 20 against 3 swedish boys who are probably 9 or 10 yrs old and stand as high as my waist. We split up into two teams and started to kick the ball around. I was on the team with 2 of the boys but we faced no real disadvantage as we drew first blood when one of my boys scored a goal! Hoo Hoo… But it was not a serious game as we were trying to let the boys score all the goals. The game ended in a draw (we obviously cannot let anyone lose) when their parents came to pick them up. I found the whole situation so funny I could not stop smiling throughout the game and when it ended my mouth was sore and numb from the cold wind that was blowing then.We must play some more next week, will be fun. In fact it must be a long time since I have really played with small children, I think it was 7 or 8 tears ago… Hi ya… lao le.

There will be pictures coming up. Soon I hope. 

Overdue

Okay I have procrastinated enough and now I’ll have to pay my dues. I have not posted anything on my blog and now I have too much things to say. I need to organise my thoughts so that nothing fun or exciting is missed out. From this point on I’ll probably talk about a certain aspect of life here and maybe make a comparison to my life in Singapore. So let’s start with the most important thing to me besides my faith, church. 

Departure

Big thank you to the people who sent me off, you guys didn’t have to bother but each one of you did and I’m grateful. Will always look forward to the day we meet again. Here’s a picture with me, all the friends who sent me off and one of my friend’s pet dinosaur, Euphe.

 

 

 

Sentiments

Batman(Sister) and Robin(Me)…I’m using Robin as a keychain