Actually Doing Something

When I think back about it, it's amazing - not used in a good context here - how fear actually developed in my psyche from a young age. Of course, for this I place the blame totally on the Singaporean government for promoting meritocracy.

Meritocracy, as found on the internet merriam-webster dictionary is defined as :-

1 : a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

2 : leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria

There's nothing bad about meritocracy inherently. It was just the botched execution of a good sounding idea that messed me up. To rank students and schools in almost every aspect just smacks to me of eliticism. To be able to claim that 'oh, I was 15th in my school year' - is that really important? To suddenly see a friend as not a friend but a fellow competitor that you have to overcome. That is the harsh reality of what it turned out to be. I could no longer trust the people I went to school with because someday, as it turned out to be, they would stab me in the back.

Anyway, digressing off the point. Fear.

Due to the pressure placed upon students to perform well, we had to take our papers back to our parents for them to be signed. If we did well, nice and good. If we didn't that's where the problems started. I vividly remembered asking my friends so many times to check my results for me because I was afraid of getting scolded and beaten back home. Verbally demeaned and lowered to nothing more than a disgrace to the family or worse.

And now, many years on, in looking back, I realized my fear of moving ahead has stemmed from that single root. Everytime I've wanted to move ahead, or try something new, or ask for something, I've almost immediately assumed rejection or a negative answer. Such to the extent that I almost never did anything I wanted in my heart to do. It didn't fit with the *plan*. It wasn't the path the country prescribed that we should follow.

Everything was psychological, not physical. But, recently I've come to realize. Screw fear. Just do it, deal with the perceived fear *problem* later. If it even comes at all. Most times, there are more ways to a solution than I expect or see. Most times, I'm probably fixated on one particular solution which I think is good, but God has something much much better if I would get my eyes actually off my perspective of a solution. So what if I get a negative, something will turn up that's much better as long as I not worry, look, ask and trust that it will come.
No is never the end of the world. It's just the path to something better ahead.

If the only way I can encourage myself is to keep writing then that's what I'll do.

I remember going to my computer afraid and clicked on my facebook account and saw this verse pop up. It shot straight to my heart, more than medicine could ever do.

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.