Every Monday is now, “I’m staying home all day to catch up on my readings and be productive” day.
Oh Summer, you’re so unpleasant.
Summer semester has begun. Sanity has gone out the window.
Photo: I needed to relieve stress so I used a couple of my mum’s plants as models.
- Camera: Canon EOS 600D
- Aperture: f/3.5
- Exposure: 1/30th
- Focal Length: 28mm
I’m in a vulnerable spot right now.
We’re creatures of habit- when we do something over and over again, in the same manner, we get used to it and to do anything otherwise would feel, well, strange.
Some say love is a habit. Others insist that long-term relationships stem from habits- we’ve gotten so used to a person’s existence in our lives, to have it in any other way would hurt more than we think we can deal.
Love may be a habit, but what is a habit? What makes up a habit? Do we just acquire particular styles of doing things out of the blue? Or is there consideration on our part, a rationale as to why we choose to do things in a preferred order?
The past (almost) 4 years with my boyfriend have brought me to many places. Some so terrifying, others of pure ecstasy. But no matter where life brought us, we emerged loving each other even more than we did before. Would habit have pulled us through to the other side? I don’t think so. I believe that many conscious decisions, cycles of thoughts, together with the raw emotion that is love, kept us safe from the destructive forces of the world and of our imperfect minds.
Love for me, isn’t a habit. It requires thoughts and decisions- to choose to be together, to choose to love each other, to choose to stay strong for this love that we were blessed with. It takes every inch of my being to love and be loved.
And there’s nothing I can be more thankful for. To have people loving me, embracing me regardless of how flawed I am. To know that these people are consciously aware and choosing to love me. More so, to be able, to have the capacity to love, to set myself aside, to open my heart and love.
Love is not a dream or a habit. It is a four-letter word that speaks more depth than we expect.
We roam this world, wondering and questioning our identities and the mysteries of life. We yearn to know that there is something, someone, greater than us out there. We wander, we get lost, we find ourselves again. We throw tantrums, we laugh, we cry, we grow. We spend our lives pursuing what others deem to be valuable. We tell ourselves that maturity is the ultimate goal for growth. But things are never enough; we are never enough.
We’re irrational and we’re logical. We’re afraid yet we stand strong. We yearn for rest but we never stop moving.
We don’t know exactly who we are and what we’re made of. We spend our whole lives figuring it out.
We are like children, we never outgrew who we were when we came to this world.
And then we wonder why we call ourselves, “the children of God” or label our environment, “Mother Nature”.
We need to be nurtured and cared for. We never grow, we’re reliant, we only learned how to keep in control.
Three more weeks. Three more weeks and I’d be able to finally breathe easy.
(via hawtvintage)
Source: flickr.com
Originally from Pretty Reckless
This is rather personal; if you’re going to get offended, don’t read. I mean it.
“You want me to get to know YOUR God and about Christianity? Have you ever tried getting to know MY God?”
If you know me personally, you’d probably know I decided to make Jesus my personal saviour about 4 years ago. Not that long ago but it’s not news either. So many of you may wonder along these lines: “Why? What made you ‘switch sides’? What religious sect did you belong to previously? What does your family think? Don’t you think you’re very selfish? Do you feel as though you’re abandoning your roots?” These are not questions that I dreamt of, they are questions that have been posed to me in these past 4 years. There are probably more to add to the list but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.
The thought in my head that occurs most often is, “Are believers of other religions asked the same question(s)? Or is it only because Christianity is considered a Western religion? (I’m from Asia)” I’m not sure of the answer and I haven’t sought to find it yet. But clearly that’s not my point. The point of this post is to address the many matters that strike me hard at the core of my being.
In order to know why I’ve decided to become a Christian, you’ll need to listen to my story and how I ended up here. If you don’t have the patience or are just looking to stick stereotypical “Christian” labels on me, I’m not going to share. If you will spare me the time, I will also give you my time to listen to your story as well. If you don’t know zilch and are uninterested to do so, move along.
To address some of the questions that I’m most often asked, I will give you the following answers:
- I don’t believe in “switching sides”; this is what my heart desires and I know it to be true.
- I did not have a religion that I belonged to per say previously but my family is generally Buddhist.
- My family members have been relatively accepting of my decision and have thankfully always given me religious freedom since I was a kid. (They are more concerned for what’s good for me than anything else, which brings me to the next point…)
- If being able to choose which religion I want to belong to is being selfish, then does that make my parents people who have brought me up to be selfish? I think not. They have given me the freedom to choose because they love me and they want the best for me, in this case, the freedom of choice. They have taught me since young that I am a free-thinker (despite regular trips to temples to pray and they only mean well) and that I should only pick a religion when I am older, wiser and more ready to make such decisions. My decision to become a Christian has involved discussions with my family and they have been there every step of the way.
- I don’t feel that I’m abandoning my roots. I still uphold the values that I have been taught (which, thankfully, are all very rational and practical ones) and I still respect my elders as much as I did before, probably even more.
- I did not blindly choose to follow Christ. As I have mentioned, I have gone through things that have brought me here. If you’re interested to know, ask and I’d be more than willing to share.
- Lastly, I am open to learning more about other religions. I know quite a fair bit about Buddhism since I grew up in a Buddhist family and I’m also learning more about it from my mum. If others are willing to share with me about their religions- their beliefs, practices and more, I’d be extremely happy to listen.
Being Christian has not drawn me away from my family; in fact, it has brought us closer. Probably because of the internal conflict that I feel, being the sole Christian in the family, or because they feel uneasy, knowing that there is now a Christian in the family, I have since made conscious efforts to get to know my family better, to spend more time with them, to talk to them about random musings or just some thoughts, and to remind them that I’m still the same person…or well, hopefully better.
I do not evangelise at home but I do share interesting thoughts or teachings that I have come upon, just as a conversation topic. This allows them to air their views and also for everyone to get to know each other better as well. However, I will admit that I do wish for them to one day be able to see how wonderful life has been for me since I accepted Christ.
I don’t want to be labelled with those stereotypical labels because they are really not who I am. I want to let people see the real me but sometimes I do feel weak in my attempts because the judgments are overpowering.
All I ask is for everyone to not judge people based on their religions or anything else even. There are always extremists in every religion and these are the people that others remember just because we’re wired to remember bad incidents more than good ones (I will cite (a) study(s) if I get around to finding one/more). So please, love a little more…a little, really, really goes a long way.
Oooh look, new glasses! (I’m so lame, I know.)
Spring semester’s almost over, thank goodness. One more month till I can be free but until then, I’d need to stay focused and be more efficient when it comes to completing work. Research paper and literature review, here I come!!
Oh yeah, I’d be flying over to Melbourne in May for ten days to spend time with the boyfriend and all! Yeah, I’m pretty stoked. First time travelling alone, it’s kind of exciting and nerve-wrecking all at the same time. I reckon the latter’s due to my dad’s incessant nagging. (Hahaha, love you, dad.)
That’s about it for now. Time to get back to my assignments.
See ya!
Plans.
So far, I’ve launched my personal online business, The Nail Bar, mainly selling nail polish. It’s slowly taking off, so I’m hoping for the best. I’m considering providing more services in the near future. I wouldn’t mind some support and publicity. Heh heh.
School has started for three months now and I just need to deal with one more before I can finally catch my breath.
The boyfriend’s gone back to Melbourne to continue his second year of degree studies. I’m planning to fly over and pester him some time in the coming months.
I’m considering taking up a part-time job to fund my trip to Melbourne, and more. Also to learn how to manage my finances- there are quite a few things I need to start saving up for.
Kicking off my second official round of weight-loss plans to get healthy tomorrow. My routines, not only workouts, have been pretty messed up. So I need to adjust my sleeping hours, the time I go to bed and wake up, how I handle workloads, responsibilities, as well as to settle on a exercise routine which comprises of 1-hour workouts, 3 times a week. Or more, if I feel like it. Of course, I’m hoping to lose another 5 kilos but that’s just going to be the end product of fixing how I live my life and treat my body.
Yup. Till then, I’d still be posting sporadically. Random musings, thoughts, rants and whatnot. If you’re following me and you’re a personal friend, hello and I hope I’ve met up with you in the past 3-4 months. Otherwise, we should probably do something about that, aye? If you don’t know me personally and have been following this blog for a while, welcome, thank you and I hope you’ve been duly entertained despite my inconsistency.
Love you all.
What have you achieved thus far?
With all that supposed righteous anger…with all the thoughts of wanting to be closer to God, to be like Him..to love others better..have you done that? It’s has all been fluff, hasn’t it? All talk, relying on your own efforts, thinking that everything will be all right.
So what have you achieved now? You’ve successfully turned a great night into a horrible one. Why? Because you decided that it would be okay to speak with a foot in your mouth. You’ve upset the love of your life because of how you spoke. Those words accused him of infidelity, you fool! How could you phrase things like that? Why in the world would you phrase things like that? What happened to being loving, gentle and patient? One stupid text and it all went out the window and into the gallows.
Why? Why have you spoken so much of wanting to be loving but haven’t done enough to get there? Why have you not touched your Bible and read His Word to know more about Him? Why did you let each day go by, thinking that you’d do it tomorrow? There is no tomorrow, you nincompoop; there is only today and today is when things should change.
You wanted so many things for the people around you- for them to know Him, to be more like Him, to rejoice in Him. But what about yourself? What practical measures have you taken? Nothing! All you did was pray over and over again that you may have resolute and strength to be like Him. But how can you be like Him if you don’t even know enough about Him? How can you mirror His image? How can you reflect His Glory? How can others look at you and decide that they want to follow Him because of the change in your life?
You horrible human being. You need to change. You need to take steps towards Him. And stop doing silly things and hurting the people around you. You need to open your eyes and see what He sees. You need to learn to forsake your selfish and prideful nature and humble yourself before Him. Seek Him, before anything else. Because who else should you turn to but the creator Himself?
Stop being a fool. Be wise and learn to be mature. And to do so, you need to turn to Him.
