Do.

Act.

Be.

Don’t hold back.

What’s stopping you?

Everything that you need will be granted.

Believe.

Seemingly Inadvertently but Realistically Precessionally.

Everything that needs to happen will happen.

Find the flow.

Use the flow.

Grow the flow.

Find the magic that resides deep within.

Let that be manifest.

Go forth. Be the light you need to be.

That you were meant to shine.

Shine Forth.

Brighter than you ever thought possible.

Don’t hold back.

There can be no darkness.

As long as there is light.

Be that light.

That beacon in the night.

That steadfast flame.

The energy of love.

That essence of integrity.

Shine.

Aho!

Have you been half asleep?
And have you heard voices?
I’ve heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound?
That calls the young sailors
They might be one and the same
I’ve heard it too many time to ignore it
There’s something I’m supposed to be

Someday we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lover, the dreamers and me

Kermit

Once in a while we get moved and reminded.  On how much we decide we want to do with this life, in this lifetime.

We know some of these people. Some who will do grand things and others who will do not so grand things but inevitably change the lives of people in ways more profound than we can imagine.  They keep the human race moving forward.  They inspire us and move us.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson

“Our true purpose may forever remain obscure to you but if you commit yourself to the highest advantage of others, you can assume that you are fulfilling your true purpose.“

Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller

Same thoughts echoed in different ways.  Do the grand thing to the highest advantage of others.I believe deep inside we all simply want to do our best.  It will never be perfect.  But that’s the entire point.  To take that journey, and in the process, discover the person that I can become.  And the contributions that I would have made along the way.

And that would be sufficient.

So the secret is believing that good things do happen and that they can happen for you, and they will happen.

“Look at what’s happened to me.  I can’t believe it myself.  Suddenly I’m up on top of the world.  Could have been somebody else…”

Enjoy these moments, for many they will be.

Friendships don’t need a reason.  They are who life throws at us.

They reveal themselves when the time is right.

For a grander purpose.

But we have to look, or they will pass us by.

But it’s been 20 years since I left that city. 

I think I live an unexpected life.  I grew up with grandma, not unusual in itself, but hardly typical.  Looking back, I see my life as a whole series of coincidences and accidents of circumstance, there aren’t any significant parts of my life that could have been planned, that have made as much difference as the parts that have happened, unexpectedly.  I’ve been lucky though, I think that things could have turned out worse.

I was having a conversation with my uncle, the closest person that came to being a father to me, over the weekend — someone whom I have great respect for, whom I will say has been an extremely strong influence as well — in a series of conversations that had evolved through the years, that has gotten closer, bridging a “generation-gap” that had not been less apparent when I was growing up (sometimes I’m not sure if I have “grown-up”, but another discussion for another time), when he said “Adversity builds character”, as we discussed how life can be strange a lot of the time. 

That’s a phrase that I use, for myself and to people who sometimes come to me about “problems” that they have.  It’s all about our response. We decide how we want things to work out.  Not always in the way we would like, but unexpectedly, in a way that takes us a little further in life. 

I attended a Feng Shui workshop a couple of days ago, on how Feng Shui and our elements influence our lives.  At the end of the day, it seems that our lives are influenced a lot by our element, and time of birth, that sets of an entire series off events to be woven into a tapestry of life to come.  Some people are “luckier” than others, right time, right place.  Others have more challenging deals.  What is intriguing, is when two people who are born on the exact same date and time, who should for all reason have been given the same “luck bucket” whose lives turn out totally different.  It’s the unexpected life.  Two people can get the same luck-bucket but how they use it is entirely dependent on each of them.

We grow up shaped by expectations — our own and those that are imposed on us by well-meaning people around us.  We spend half our time fulfilling these expectations, and the other half resisting.  Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t.  But nothing ever prepares us for un-expectations.  Seemingly totally random events that cross our paths, sometimes when we are busiest meeting or resisting an overwhelming set of expectations already.

Sometimes good, sometimes not, but in either case, we are unprepared.  They are the little branches that fall into the stream that we have to jump over, and the roaring waterfalls at the edge of a mountain.  What do we do?

We ride them out.  

I’m sure we all have our stories to tell about these “unexpectations”.  Both the windfalls and the tragedies.  The joy, and the tears.  We don’t prepare for them because often, we can’t. 

I’ve had my share of unexpectations. Both good and bad — they have definitely been interesting and I don’t think I can really complain about how life has turned out.  I’ve had my share of tears but I’ve also had my share of “Look at what’s happened to me, I can’t believe it myself. Suddenly I’m up on top of the world, could have been somebody else.” moments.

I’m sure all of us have.  Be glad for them.

And everytime I think that life is really being unfair, I remember my gratitude stone and am really glad for my unexpected life.

The boy pondered at the question for a moment.

“I don’t know.” He replied.

“Why not?”

“Am I hanging on to anything?”

“Are you?”

“Hmmmm…”

He stared out of the window into the still night.

“What’s the alternative?” He asked, “I am making changes, you know.”

“I didn’t say that you weren’t. I merely asked if you are still hanging on to the irrelevant.”

“But what’s irrelevant? As long as they matter, they are still relevant, no?”

“But are they still relevant to you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then so be it. As long as you know.”

“Okay.”

“Do the new displace the old? Do we need to let go of old things if we are to embrace the new?”

“They can co-exist.”

“Can they?”

“Sometimes, yes. But that’s not the issue. The issue is one of relevance. Whether they are still relevant to you.”

“I do not fear the unknown. Nor the unfamiliar.”

“I know you don’t. You can be quite adventurous.”

“Okay.”

“Why do they still matter?”

Pause.

The boy thought about that question a little.

“They just do.”

“So if they don’t you will have no problem letting go?”

Pause.

If nothing else, the boy was honest.

“I’m not sure. I won’t know. It’s too hypothetical.”

“Hypothesize.”

He knew that he was stuck.

“Okay. I’m afraid to let go. Because I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t know what will happen if I do.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what do I do?”

“I don’t have answers for you. I am not here to give you solutions.”

“Oh.”

Pause.

“So why did you ask me if had problems letting go?”

Silence.

He knew the session was over.

He stared out of the window into the starless night and fell into a dreamless sleep.

The occassional car passes, it’s quiet now.

How, in the last two years, much has changed.

It’s funny looking back at the distance that we’ve come. It seemed just yesterday when we made the downpayment for the first property that we would ever buy.  The apartment that was home for 2 years.

The apartment that had both happy and not so happy memories, but all good.  Where friends (and strangers) gathered, in happy camaraderie.  Birthdays, celebrations and festivals.

We’ve moved on — the apartment remains a memory now, it was just two months ago when, after the movers brought the last box down, I locked the door for the last time and handed the keys to the guard to pass to the next owner.

We’ve settled in pretty much, though for now, this place we’ve started getting used to is temporary, until the next place is ready for us.

Home is where friends and family gather.  In retrospect, I realise that I take after my father, who used to almost always have friends hanging out at his house during times when i visited.  I’m at my dad’s age now when i was 12.

Circles complete.  Dad would have been 62 now.  I wonder if he would have seen himself in me.  Never quite got there.

It’s all transient.

How two years ago we thought we’d settle down at the little apartment at the edge of the city and how now, we’re at a part of the world (ok, Singapore) we never thought we’ll live.  We’ve come some way.

Relationships have evolved — I’d like to think that we’ve all grown a little older, a little wiser but yet I know there will always be this part of me that wonders when I will ever grow up.  There were all these discrete stages that I thought would make up chapters of my life, but the lines are getting increasingly blurred.  Nothing is ever linear but everything is a lot simpler than we make it out to be.

Am I making sense?

A wave of cars pass, it’s 2:30 in the morning. I think I like the sound the cars make — it’s city noise — that brings a little bit of life to an otherwise very quiet suburban neighbourhood.

I think about the people who have become family of sorts.  What these friends mean to me and how they’ve come through for me, without question.  Friendship is not a function of time.  When the connection happens, it’s amazing. 

I used to wonder how people become friends.  Why people become friends. But friends are people life throws at us, not something we look for.  If it was meant to be, you don’t have to try very hard at all.  If it wasn’t, it’s damn tough to engage.  I used to have a highly romanticised idea of what it all meant — I’m a little more discerning now, but that still doesn’t stop me from making a fool of myself once in a while. 

For a reason, a season or a lifetime.  I’m lucky — there’ve always been people there at life-changing points.  They will come and go — we just got to make the most of each encounter.

So here we are now.  Hoping for the best of 2008 — for each new day and each new encounter.  In exchange for that little bit of who we are and memories we get in return.

Have a great 2008.

But these demons that we keep inadvertently also affects our relationships with other people, especially the people we call our friends, who sometimes stand by and feel helpless because we don’t take the hands that they offer, and worst when we detach ourselves.

We need to learn to let go of these demons. That life can be good and is as good as we make it to be and we have to believe in such. Life is real enough, and there will be new demons coming our way, so we have to throw away the old ones. And stop adopting demons.

Thoughts:
A very good friend said this to me, “We will stop living when we no longer have hopes and dreams”.

It’s possible to lose hope, when we are tired. It’s possible to stop dreaming, because we become disillusioned.

It’s also possible to decide otherwise. Everything happens for a reason. We just don’t see it most of the time because we are too busy thinking about ourselves.

Things that matter:
But at the end of the day, it’s deciding what matters most to us. What the important things are, and what the small stuff are, that we shouldn’t sweat. Things we should place value on, and things we should not worry about.

Conclusions:
It’s the difference between being able to make a positive difference with our lives, than just being nameless statistics. At the end of the day, it’s about knowing who we are, what’s really important to us and what we stand for. It’s making the things that count, count for something.

What if the trees were all we had?