Don't Waste Your Life

And with the band's completion of the song Zombie, we decided to go off. The conversation was just about to get deeper and more interesting, and I felt like I didn't want the conversation to end. And hence I walked him to the bus-stop where we talked until his bus came.

I wondered how I should make my way back to City Hall, and felt perhaps a long walk alone on a cool night would be therapeutic.

'I realise that e best part of our conversations tend to occur as we're about to part in the solace of the stillness of night, when somehow we wind down our defences and share about the inner sanctuary of our hearts..'

I looked around me, and proceeded to walk.
Peering into the Louis Vuitton shop and wondering why people bother to spend their money on it. Passing by Coffee Club and realising that there were tonnes of people there. Journeying past Istana Park, Orchard Rd Presbyterian Church, Chijmes.

Each of them places I see practically week-in-week-out, but each seemed to take on a different flavour scented by the night sky and stillness.

It's true. For whom do I labour, and to what end?

The melding of the sacred and the commercial.

And then the cravings came. Like Rebecca says, they came in mid-thought, mid-stride, and u reach out a hand, seemingly to grasp for the air that was choking me up. And then I realised that an empty clutch forms a fist, not a fist of fury, but a fist formed out of the effort to suppress and push away the cravings. We each have a need to hold on to something. But when there is nothing to hold, we can choose the fist of fury or the fist of strained acceptance.

'A lighter way is to say how all of us have that need to have people to walk with you. Nice to know you're walking that journey too. Hope the walk for you may be a alone but not lonesome one.'

Oh at that point, how I wished for that. What a contrast my evening was to the partying happening elsewhere. And finally, as I reached for the room door, my forehead and hair wet with perspeiration, I entered into the welcoming embrace of the cold air-conditioning. Silence.

Called McDonalds for a McChicken meal to be delivered to my room, took a shower and watched some TV. But in my mind, his words kept ringing. 'How do you tahan the things you hear at work?' It's true, my peers are burning out. I think I'm still okay, but I'm quite sure I've heard more horror stories than the average 1 year old social worker. Not just hearing, but having to actually handle it.

As I soaked in the bathtub, that question kept ringing in my mind as I searched for an answer. Looked at my heart, and it looked familiar yet strange. It felt.. like I was really a tourist peering around the recesses of my own heart. And like the tourist, I could only find a description but did not have enough insight to explain what I was describing.

And with that, my consciousness drifted off into the darkness of the night.

I was woken up by the light shining into my room. It was pleasant. With no source of cheap breakfast in the middle of town at 8am, I sourced out a KFC Twister (which is essentially some flatbread filled with scrambled eggs, cheese, tomatoes, mayo and popcorn chicken leftover from the previous day) and a big cup of Ya Kun coffee. Sitting in silence, I stared out at the window with my very delicious breakfast. Oh, and a book detailing how God shapes us through the events of our lives. Interesting that I had just finished the chapter 'Your Calling Matters'.

It was in this silent breakfast that more introspection came. In that silence, I paid close attention to the taste of my food and the aroma of my coffee.

Perhaps what keeps me going is the fact that I am somehow gifted with the ability to perceive the beauty of the human-ness of the people I interact with. No matter how screwed they are, how messed up their lives are, I somehow am able to sense in my being the humanity. I believe God is a God who creates the concept of beauty, and then proceeded to burn this beauty onto every human's heart.

And with that, I had completed a brief vacation on my own into myself. A break from the hustle of outside life, and a break from the noises of the world. It piqued my interest, and it all felt so familiar and comfortable, and yet so foreign.

I felt.. like I was really a tourist.