Humility

I hate bullies. Just yesterday, it was reported on Straits Times that a third-year NUS student, Ms Keira Chen was flamed online by many netizens because of an article she wrote in an online student newspaper.

Now, some of the comments (insults) she received on the USP Facebook Group were vicious and personal. For instance, someone commented that 'she wasn't the brightest crayon in the box'. Another said something like 'Keira Chen, YOU ARE VEH STUPID AND YOU SEEM SO PROUD OF IT'.

I'm disgusted and appalled at many of the comments made. It shows a total lack of humility. Bullies think (or try to think) that they are like 10 times better than their victims. And since they are better, they have the right to scold, abuse and make fun of their victims.

Okay, not all of us here are bullies of any kind. But in any case, I think in order for us to be a life-long learner and succeed in life, we ought to have the character of humility.

To me, a person with humility is someone who accepts diversity and considers others better than himself.

Everyone has his own talents and strengths, experiences in life, values, perspectives, etc. We are all so diverse and that's what makes this world interesting and colourful. Even as a teacher, I find that there are many things I can learn from my students.

For instance, I have this student in my school who had an horrific accident last December. He was seriously injured and was hospitalized for a few months. When he first returned to school, he was on a wheelchair and could not walk on his own. A couple of months later, this student went on to clinch the top spot in the National Schools' Sailing Competition (B Division byte class)! (You can find an article on him here.)

I am amazed at what my student had done - such resilience and courage, all in the face of adversity. I feel that I have a lot to learn from him.

Hence, my bottom line is this: don't look down on anyone or make nasty remarks about anyone. Everyone - EVERYONE has something you can learn from.

Integrity (who I am when nobody's looking..)

Before I say anything about integrity, please understand that I am not there yet, in all the values mentioned. I'm still pretty much work-in-progress and I just want to share some insights on these values, based on my own personal experiences.

Let me begin with a story.. 10 years ago, when I first got my driving license, I did something that was shameful and till date, it still pricks my conscience. I was involved in a 'hit and run' incident. (Ok, I didn't kill or injure anyone, in case you're wondering..) I was trying to park my car and I hit a pick-up. I made the worst decision possible - that is to drive off. I was afraid of the consequences and since no one saw the incident, I might as well...

My act came out of fear and total lack of integrity. Though in a sense, I got away scot-free, this whole incident replayed itself in my head many times. Even now, I could still remember how it all happened.

Upon reflection, I realized that many times, we need to make choices in life. And usually, the choice that is more difficult to make, that would be the choice of character.

The above incident taught me a good lesson. From then on, I decide to always make choices of character. I want to be consistent about who I am on the outside (which everybody sees) and who I am on the inside (which few or on one would see).

A person with no integrity, no matter how talented, just a hypocrite. Once someone finds out his true character (or lack of), he would be deemed as untrustworthy. And once you break the trust in any relationships, it would take a long time to heal.

To sum it up, people would trust a person who has integrity.

Let me end of this post with a more positive story. A few years after that incident, my uni course-mates and I had to take this quiz in a lecture theatre. It was supposed to be a closed-book quiz and there was only 1 supervising lecturer. You can guess.. many of the students actually discussed answers with one another during the quiz and some even took out notes and referred to them.

I made a decision not to do any of the above. I did the whole quiz on my own without cheating. Whatever results that I got out of that quiz truly belonged to me. 

The Last Lesson

Last Thursday, I had my last Science lessons with all my classes in my current school. Instead of just doing the usual teaching, I shared with my students some things that really matter to me. This was kind of inspired by Randy Pausch, who did the famous 'Last Lecture'.

Basically, I shared briefly about values and life lessons that meant a lot to me personally. I hope that my students would not make the mistakes that I did.

Here it goes (I amended some stuff below after listening to Dr John Maxwell earlier today):

1. Integrity (it's about who I am when nobody's looking)
2. Humility (appreciate diversity and consider others better than myself)
3. Resilience (it is okay to fail - no big deal)
4. Run my own race (excel and not compete)
5. Have a purpose in life and be passionate about it!
6. Be others-centred (the world seriously doesn't revolve around me)

Over the next few blog posts, I would share more about the above-mentioned things!

Is it the rich, and not the clever that succeeds?

Last week, a student from my school asked Mr Heng (Minister of Education) if today in Singapore, it is the rich and not the clever that succeeds. He felt that many of his friends who were more well-off attended tuition / enrichment classes outside of school. He didn't, mainly because his family didn't have so much resources. (I thought that was a very good question..)

Mr Heng's reply was that basically the government needs to ensure that there is social mobility in Singapore. Even students that come from humble background should have the chance to do well in school, obtain scholarships and get good jobs.

I do not think that it is easy for the government to regulate tuition or enrichment classes. If the parents are wealthy enough to send their kids for these classes, so be it. This is the same as pre-schools. Well-to-do parents can afford to send their kids to expensive centres that cost more than $2000 a month, whereas some send their kids to PCF. 

It is true that some kids have may have a headstart because of their family background. It is also true that in this sense, life is unfair. There is really no point in lamenting about this. We just have to accept it and move on. 

I think that inspiring and cultivating the right values and character in a child is more important than all those expensive classes. And this, every family can do it - be it you are wealthy or not. I have so many friends who didn't come from wealthy families and yet are doing reasonably well in life. This can be said the same for many of my students too.  

After all, my opinion is that character lasts - not knowledge, mental capacity or talents. 

Winning Isn't Everything

How time passes. I have been the teacher I/C of Raffles Basketball for nearly 5 years. I was just asking myself this question recently - when was I proudest of Raffles Basketball as teacher I/C?

Yes, I was proud of our team when we won C Div National's 3rd in 2008. And of course, all the South Zone titles that we have won over the years - I'm proud of that too.

But the memory that I really cherish is not any of those.

It was 2011. National's round 2. Our B boys have lost our first game to Jurong Sec by 14 points. We won our second game. Still, if we want to make it to National semi-finals, we have to win our last game by 10 points or more. The only catch is, we have to defeat Dunman Sec - East Zone Runners-up, and highly rated (and yes, eventual 2011 B Boys National champions). And we have to do it without our key player - CC who dislocated his shoulder.

The game started with Dunman Sec completely outclassing and dominating Raffles. Our players couldn't find our shots and their players couldn't stop scoring. At one point, Dunman Sec was leading by around 30 points. Many people - perhaps even myself - thought that was it.

Then gradually, things began to change in the 3rd and 4th quarter. Our players did not gave up. They clawed back into the game by hustling for every single loose ball, playing tight defense and shooting the ball really well.

Finally, with 5 seconds left, the scoreline was leveled at 46-46! Our point guard BK stood at the free-throw line and missed two free throws, perhaps hoping to go into extra-time so that we have a chance to beat Dunman Sec by a larger margin. Alas! We couldn't get the rebound, and we accidentally fouled their star player who calmly put in the two free-throws.

Yes, we lost the game 46-48. But I dare say that was the proudest game for me as teacher I/C. Why? Because our players fought relentlessly and demonstrated resilience despite the overwhelming odds. They stood up tall as a team and showed everyone what Raffles is all about.

Every player contributed and gave his best. This kind of experience for the boys can never be taught nor imparted. They have to go through it firsthand themselves. And this is probably more important than winning the championship. In my opinion, that's what school sports should be all about.

Well, I particularly like it when the Dunman Sec coach told me what he thought about our basketball team - "RI 象一只打不死的蟑螂，真难搞！" (Translated: RI Basketball is like a cockroach that is really hard to kill!) Somehow, that gave me immense satisfaction.

A Resilient & Generous Spirit

Yesterday, I visited Madam Choy as part of CNY visitations, together with some of my cell youths, as well as my wife and Isaac. I witnessed for myself first-hand the meaning of a resilient and generous spirit.

You see, Madam Choy is blind and yet, she has to take care of her husband who suffers from dementia. On top of it, she does some kind of handicraft by making beautiful baskets from wires and beads. If this is not about being resilient, I don't know what is..

Altogether, there were about 13 of us who visited her. She insisted on giving us red packets since it's still CNY. To our suprise, she gave each of us (yes, including my wife and I) $8! That's $104 in all! To us, perhaps it's not a big sum. But I am quite sure, to her, $104 is no small sum.

She also shared with us that she gave away $1000+ to charity when someone raised some money for her. Her simply reply was that since someone helped her, she ought to help others too.

Many of us gave out of our wealth. But Madam Choy gave out of her poverty. Indeed , she's just like the widow described in Luke 21 "As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 'Truly I tell you,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.' ”

Madam Choy is truly generous and resilient. I have a lot to learn from her.

Discontentment

Over the past few months, I have been struggling with some feelings of negativity. Then I realized that the root of my unhappiness was that I was not contented.

I was not contented because I compared myself with someone else who has what I don't have.

It seems to be in our human nature to always want to compare with someone whom we perceive to be doing better. As a result, often we feel unhappy, resentful and even jealous.

When I was young, I compared myself with my friends who did exceptionally well in their studies (like those who got straight A1s). Then I started comparing myself with my friends who obtained overseas scholarships. As I get older, I compared myself against my peers who seemed to be super-high achievers in both the private industries and civil service.

What I have forgotten is that I myself have not been doing too badly either. I hope to learn from Apostle Paul, who says it plainly in Philippians 4:12 "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."

I think that for me to overcome discontentment, I need to be thankful that I have been blessed with things that many people don't have. Also, I need to trust that God would supply all that I need.

And finally, that brings me peace, joy and contentment.

Remember the Poor

Galatians 2:10 "All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along."

During this festive period, while it is not wrong for us to celebrate and have some fun here and there, I think that it is very important for us to remember the poor.

Very often, when many of us think about this phrase "remember the poor", the first thought that comes to our minds would be something like we need to donate some money, visit some homes, help out at some centres, etc. Yes, these are all things that we can and should do.

But I would like to approach this "remember the poor" from another angle.

My sister-in-law just came back from a short-term mission trip to Batam. There, her team and her met many people who lived in poor conditions. There was this particular lady that she met who had problems making ends meet. In fact, everyday she would have to walk to a far away place just to get food for her family. When my sister-in-law asked the lady what her prayer requests were. Her simple answer was "please pray that I am able to attend church every week".

She didn't ask for food, nor other material things. She only asked to be able to go church every week. My sister-in-law was deeply touched, as were I and my wife when we heard the story.

Materially, we may be far better off than this lady from Batam. But spiritually, she is probably way richer than most of us here.

When I remember the poor now, I also remember that the poor may be happier and spiritually richer than me. And I hope to love and desire Jesus as much as they do.

Every Day is part of the Journey

Lately, I've been thinking about this.. there were perhaps a number of things that I had done in my youth which I kind of regret now.

Would my life be better now if I had not made some of the wrong choices/decisions? I was initially very tempted to say 'yes'. But upon further reflection and seeking the Lord about it, somehow I realized that the answer is likely to be 'no'.

Okay, of course, the kind of wrong choices/decisions are not the fatal kind like killing someone or getting killed.

Our past experiences shape us and mold our character. We have ups and downs, highs and lows in our lives all the time. Every day has the potential to be richly filled with learning experiences, loving memories and of course, discouraging setbacks.

It is never about the setbacks that stumble us. It is the way we deal with them that is important.

Every day is part of the journey - love it. That's why I'm retaining this blog title - Loving Every Day!

Just look at Isaac - He loves every day! =D