People like to ask me, why do I do what I do?
Why do I choose a life that has "no life."
The feeling I get whenever people ask me that is somewhat sour-sweet.
But believe me, it's nothing like our all-time favourite sweet and sour pork side dish.

Good question!
Because it's a question I continue to mull over once in awhile.

I do know what my commitments are costing me.
Ofcourse I do, cos it hurts.
I feel the pinch when I stay up late to finish up my duties,
I feel the pinch when my average waking time this holiday is 7.30am,
I feel the pinch when I have to miss family dinners and only half-enjoy them even when I'm there.
I feel the pinch when I spend the first few hours of Christmas doing work, and singing carols alone to fill up the silence of blissfully sleeping people.

One day as I was snoozing on my favourite pool-ball bean bag,
it dawned upon me, how rare, and therefore precious such moments have become to me.
And I realise they used to be a taken-for-granted thing.
It felt like I had been drinking bitter tea for so long, a sip of water tasted like sweet honey to me.
School used to end at 1.35pm for me,
I'd go home and TV my entire afternoon away.
Now, that kind of lifestyle seems to belong to someone else from another planet altogether.

I still feel the unexplained pang of excitment when I happen to glance at my clock at 1.35pm now and then.
They say humans are creatures of habit, I guess the magic of 1.35pm has been permanently etched into my sub-conciousness.

The actual post- 1.35pm enjoyment however, have long become history.

Why then?
Surely I miss those days?
Why live such a hard life, when life can go easy for a student?
Why have bittergourd and pickles for breakfast when cereal and milo awaits you?
In a strange way, the answer is delicately and vaguely related to the BIGger, more worrying, and increasingly pressing question of all our lives.

What do I want to do with my life?
How do I want to live my life?

Call it growing up,
call it coming to terms with existence.
I call it the inevitable question of life, that is incidentally the pivotal question that decides your life altogether!
And these questions have been bugging me for awhile now - at first a gentle knock on my door, but gradually turning into loud and rude raps that are harder to ignore.

I guess I'm just looking for myself.
That makes me lost. Nah, I prefer to call it "looking for the me," so that's what we'll call it.

My answer to the question today may apply only to the Yi Ling of today,
since she realises the world is a very fluid place.
So for the here and now, the belief is in a spirit of excellence.

It's called the "best-foot-forward" policy.
Or the "I will do everything to my utmost" plan.
To put it simply, what kind of a question is that?
How to live my life?
Is that a question? What a silly question that is!
Will anyone be fulfilled living a life akin to a half-filled glass of water?
What is anything you do unless the product, born of your hands, is something you can lay claim to in the full confidence that it is indeed the utmost labour and therefore rightful pride of body, mind and spirit?

We are all created for great things.
Beautiful things beyond our wildest imagination.
That is the truth.
Because the word of God tells us that.
There is nothing "maybe," nothing "possibly," about it.
We are all, without exception, fearfully and beautifully made, for great things.
Who else but ourselves, hold this greatness back, trap it within us so that it remains gargling piteously, perhaps never unleashed, perhaps never revealed.
Laying undiscovered by the master himself.

While I live, I want to make my life worth the living.

How sad are our lives if we live for ourselves, and only ourselves.
If our lifes are like sparklers, we are but humble little sticks that occasionally burst into a wondeful display of light and colours at the tickling of a flame.
How sad it is if a sparkler sparkles on its own - it's light and colour alone in the darkness, it's chuckle of cackling sparks singing alone in the silence.
That's how our lifes shall be if we live for ourselves and ourselves alone. Each man a lonesome little sparkler.
Wouldn't it be that much more magical if one sparkler would give the "kiss of life" to surrounding sparklers so that they can all leapt up in a joyful chorus of light and colour and life?
How beautiful fireworks are, and aren't fireworks simply sparklers in coordination?

So why do I do what I do?
Why do I choose to work on a Research Module?
Why do I choose to slave for orientation 1?
Why do I choose to be the Yi Ling I am today?

Because I love life.

Because I am excited about the "kiss of life"

Because I realise I live once and only once.

That's all I need to know to get out of bed at 7.30am in the morning,
all I need to know to miss my favourite TV programmes,
and all I need to know to smile about the "no life" that I have.

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,

but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and 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 were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

It is not just in some;

it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine,

we consciously give

other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

Merry Christmas to you who are created for great things.
Go out there and be the salt and the light of our world!