The Expectance of Perfection

When we expect the best out of ourselves, we do have the tendency to expect the best from other people as well. Isn’t it a normal expectation? After all, one who do things perfectly all the time will want other people to deliver the same perfect result. Wouldn’t it be insane if people start asking you to do things shabbily?

The concept of perfection is etched in human heart because we are created by the perfect God. Created in the image of God, we as human, have the understanding of perfection. Pure. 100%. Flawless. Faultless.

That is perfection.

But even as we desire this perfection, often it is expected from other people instead of from ourselves. We expect our demands to carried out in a perfect manner, done in a perfect way, and finished in the perfect time.

If you start nodding your head and say, “That sounds like my boss,” you’re not alone. In fact, most of us are driven by people who expect perfection from us. Our teachers, our parents, our friends, or our spouses. Add into that list your neighbors, your colleagues, and your siblings. Oh, and don’t forget your pets. They do tend to ask you to treat them perfectly =P

But well, along in that list - and IMHO, should be put on top of that particular list - is ourselves. This makes sense because we are expecting the rest in the list to treat us perfectly also. Would we not complain when our boss demands us to do more work? Would we not be annoyed when our neighbor is noisy? Are we not expecting them to be in their perfect behavior then?

Before pointing the finger to expect perfection from other people, we should first realize that we are not perfect beings and that we should demand that perfection from ourselves first before expecting it from others. My earlier post (The pursuit of perfection) have mentioned that we need to demand a high standard from ourselves because God expects us to be perfect in conduct, words, thoughts, emotion, and ratio. But should we expect that from other people?  I guess most of us will agree when I say no.

Does it sound like a paradox to you? To expect perfection from ourselves but not from others?  =)

Let us realize that perfection is demanded by God and should not be demanded from human. The perfection we are expected to do is perfection in front of Him and not in front of human. Let everyone pursue that perfection with such a zeal that both God (who examines the unseen) and human (who examines the seen) find us to do our best. When we demand perfection, let us first point the finger to ourself.

And what of our noisy neighbor?

Just throw a smile and realize that they are human, and in the end the way they conduct themselves will be judged by the Lord of Host Himself. We are not fit to sit on the throne of the judge that He alone is fit to take =)

The Power of Conformity

Have you ever wondered why people feel the need to stand on the same ground with others? The feeling of isolation will come when you stand out from the rest. Like birds of a feather, we tend to flock together with the stubbornness of a mule; refusing to be a different kind of person in the crowd.

We call that conformity.

I was thinking about this as I was speaking to my Singaporean friend with broken English (read : Singlish =P). The thing is, my accent used to be a nice, clean American accent which sounded great and I was considerably fluent. But, without realizing it, the 4 years I spent in Singapore have changed my accent (to my horror!) into Singlish!

I have slipped into Singlish without a full realization of what I was doing. The moment I realized this (2 days ago, when someone mentioned that my accent was so Singlish that he mistook me for a Singaporean), I tried to changed it back to American accent again. And I succeeded, for a degree.

The funny thing is, suddenly people couldn’t understand me =P It’s a bit funny since I spoke with quite a decent accent and not in Singlish (which has many mistakes in pronunciation). An FYP student in the lab actually thought that I had said moody-meter instead to multimeter (duh ^^”), although to me the difference of the two is quite obvious.

It’s rather worrying that we are all being conformed into our surrounding without even realizing it. Often, we are shaped by our surrounding and we, sinful human that we are, compromise our integrity to “get along” better with others. Often, the small things that we all do in order to be accepted in the circle is the one that tells how strong our determination is to stand to our values.

“Relax the rules la. No one will know.”
“Don’t be such a strict person.”

And if rational reasons fail, there is always emotional “blackmail” :

“Come on. Do it for me if you are the kind person that you say you are.”
“You are my friend. Why won’t you cover me up for the sake of our friendship?”

In the end, of course the choice is in the our hands. The final choice to compromise or not lies in us and us only. People can tempt you, influence you, coerce you, but in the end, we are the one who say yes or no.

May we all have the courage to do what is right. As the saying goes :
To know the right thing to do is knowledge. To do the right thing, is wisdom.

 

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless ~Proverbs 14:16~

The Pursuit of Perfection

I didn’t think I’d call myself a selfish person. True, I might be self absorbed at times, but I rarely put myself above others’ needs. Since I am the eldest child, my parents taught me to always think about my siblings first. It has been an ingrained habit of mine to put other people before me.

But then it dawned on me that we see our selfishness in a biased way. How do we draw the line between a selfish and a selfless person? How do we define selfishness? Do saving my own family in the expense of others’ families considered selfish? How do we draw the line? Are the people who help others considered selfless? How about those who do it with complaints in their hearts?

You see, we have the tendencies in our hearts to think that we are good enough. Somehow other people have ugly hearts. We? We are simply good enough. Not a bad person. Never kill people. That is considered a good enough person. But is that the standard? Who set the bar between good and bad? Selfish and unselfish? Us?

When I reflect this on myself, the answer is quite obvious. Human can not set the line. To be perfect is to be perfect in the eye of God =) God and God alone see the true ugliness in our heart. He alone see and know the desire of our heart. The perfection He asks is the perfection in deeds, words, thoughts, and desires. To be pure in front of God is to be pure in emotion and ratio. And there is no way this is possible if the Holy Spirit does not work in us.

Thank you, Lord, for reminding me this. That perfection in Your eyes is set by Your standard, and we as sinners need Your grace every hour. Thank you for reminding me to pursue Your perfection. May You give me the grace to go through the trials… as I go in my journey in pursuit of Perfection.

 

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
~Matthew 5:48~

The Green Green Grass of Home

I was walking down the road yesterday when I thought about the green grass along it. It gave me a serene feeling to see the greeneries around me : potted plants, trees, and the green green grass. There is thankfulness that I can still enjoy these blessings every morning.

Anyway, it gave me a drive to write something about the environment. But of course with all the hype people are getting from the global warming frenzy, I don’t think giving you tips on how to do your part in saving the environment will do much. What I will do instead, is to share with you all the part that I do. Hopefully this can inspire you that start doing your part too ^^

1. Less plastic bags.

Yes, it is the one campaigned all over Singapore nowadays. Since plastic is not degradable, the only way to take care of thrown plastic bags is to incinerate them, resulting in air pollution, CO2, and other poisonous gases.

I find that the easiest way to reduce your plastic bag usage is to shop for your groceries more often. I usually buy simple groceries like apples, jam, and bread. If I do my groceries once a week, I’ll definitely need at least one plastic bag to carry all my groceries home. But if I go for groceries shopping more often, I can buy 1-2 items per visit and I don’t need a plastic bag for it since I can put it inside my bag.

The benefits? Less plastic bags to throw away and you can queue at the express lane =) Of course I still need plastic bags for big items that I can’t carry. But the main thing is that with this trick, I use less plastic bag for myself.

2. No Air Conditioning

I think Air-Con is the silliest technology ever used by humans. We set the temperature to 18 degrees only to crawl below a thick blanket. During office hour, we wear jackets and cardigans to fight the numbing cold of the blasting air con in our offices. It’s silly -_- The next time you go to sleep, try it without air con. I’ve done so for 4 years and I’m still alive. Living without air con won’t kill someone. Trust me.

Benefits of course include savings from not buying an air con for your homes and lower utilities bills. If you are renting a place, a good bet is that your rent will be lower if you have no air con in the place.

3. Less paper

This is quite easy. I just make sure that I don’t do any mistake when I print or copy something. Other things like putting more things on a sheet of paper so I don’t need lots of it is also great. I also used wasted paper to write down my groceries list and notes. The next best thing is to share the newspaper (since we throw it away at the end of the day, might as well share it) and to read the documents online.

Benefits? Less mudslide because we have more trees and hopefully a more regular change of season. Not to mention less money on printing, copying, and binding.

4. Use public transport, or even better, walk or cycle =D

In Singapore, I think this bus and MRT are quite the obvious choice since we have a great transport system. But really, if it is not that far, it makes more sense to walk or cycle than to ride on a bus.

Benefits? Less transport money if you walk or cycle. Less parking expenses if you drive a bike or car. Not to mention less headache when you can’t find a parking slot =P

I guess that basically outlines what I do to help the environment. Of course it lowers my own expenditure here and there, but the spirit of excellence to obey the cultural mandate is also there =)

Will you do your part?

And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man]; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth. ~Genesis 1:28 (Amplified Bible)~

Fare you well and until we meet again

Today is the day the our congregation will remember as the day our beloved paster leave us. After 1.5 years fighting with cancer, our pastor, Amin Tjung, returned to our Father’s house at 8.30 this morning. His illness had made him very thin indeed and he looked very frail when I visited the hospital after I heard the news.

Of course there was sadness. But there are also deliverance and consolation in knowing that he is currently with our Father. The part he played was over. The race was finished and he had indeed reached the finish line.

A lot of things could be said of our dear pastor, but what I truly find remarkable in him is his fighting spirit and his unquenchable desire to serve God. Until the end, he continuously serve the congregation, despite all the pain he must had felt. Even in sickness, he brought people to God. During cancer therapy session, it was common for him to comfort those undergoing the same treatment. Kind. Compassionate. Giving thanks in every situation. And above all, a faithful servant until the end.

Farewell, our pastor. We will miss you dearly, but we will remember you often lest we forget that our own fight is not over yet. Until that day when God called us to part from the earth, may we all be able to say “I have fought the good fight and I have finished the race”.

Till then. Until we meet again.

So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ ~Luke 17:10~

Morning Rain

It was raining heavily yesterday morning when I went off to work. I had gazed at the sky longingly, hoping for it to stop, at least until I can walk to the MRT station. Sad to say that it didn’t happen. Halfway through the journey to Jurong East MRT, I was soaking wet head to toe -_-”

Anyway, an interesting thing happen along the way.

I was walking through a path near the drain when out of the blue I saw a COCKROACH swimming (thankfully!) away from me. I know lots of girls detest cockroaches. Screaming is normal when they happen to encounter one. Fainting is another common reaction that can happen. Me? I just wait for the cockroach to pass, swimming merrily its own way =P

Now, you might be wondering what this has got to do with a blog entry. Just for clarification, I don’t enjoy cockroaches. I am still, ladies and gentlemen, quite sane. But back to the cockroach issue, what I want to share with you guys is this :

Have you ever wondered why cockroaches EXIST?

I do wonder about it. The thing is, cockroaches are regarded as vile creatures. They are pretty much useless in the food chain. And they are, in short, disgusting.

So back to the question. Why do they exist? (Other than as an indication that you need to clean up your filthy homes!) Why did God create them? Why didn’t they extinct during the Great Flood? Why didn’t God just blast them away the way He did with Sodom and Gomorrah?

There’s no absolute answer from human, of course. God and God alone hold the answers to these kinds of questions. But if you are curious, do look through the entry about cockroach in Wikipedia, and tell me what you think. There are several interesting fact you can find out about this creature, including the fact that the smallest cockroach can be as tiny as 3 mm. They can also survive without food for a month. It is also amazing to find out that it can hold its breath for as long as 45 minutes and that it can slow down its heart rate. They beat human flat when it comes to resilience. Why don’t we have these kinds of abilities, I wonder…

In short, I still think it’s a useless creature. However, I see that even the creatures we deemed useless were still created magnificently by God.

Moral of the story? Nature reflects the glory of God. The big and the small are created in such a magnificent way. We can only be awed when we look at the wonder of His works. Look at the things around you and be astounded by the way God has created you, your family, your surrounding, and the nature. In the end, all glory is for God and God alone. Praise God!

Left - Right - Left - Right BRAIN!

I know it’s a weird title, but heck, this is my blog. When you’re the owner of the blog, you have the freedom to rant whatever you want right? =P

Anyway, I came across this site that offers a free brain test (no, not CT scan!). This site test your right and left brain hemispheres and you can get a glimpse of how your brain works. It’s fun to compare your result to other people too, especially your friends. You get to know why certain people think the way they do ^_~

I think mine is pretty accurate ^_^ Although the fact that I use my left brain more means I am a logical, instead of emotional, person. And thus people who say I have quite a masculine side are true. Drats -__-

Why don’t you try this out and post the result as comment in my blog. I’d like to know your scores too ^^

Brain Lateralization Test Results

Right Brain (42%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain. Left Brain (56%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What’s Up?

Well, in short, busy, I guess. Things had been very hectic this couple of days, with me moving out of NTU and work starting to keep my hands full. I’ve been collapsing dead on my bed for the past week or so. Today I was so tired that I couldn’t even manage to count 5 times 5 *duh -_-”*

Anyways, other than that, life is fantastic. A lot of things had been happening in my life. I’m excited to move out of NTU because now I officially live independently. Hall life in NTU is better, IMHO, since we got people to clean all the public places such as toilets, kitchen, and the corridors. No more of that now. I officially have to wash my own kitchen and bathroom =P Makes me nostalgic of all those time back in Jakarta when my maid took a Hari Raya holiday and I had to help my mom to clean the house.

And since I’m talking about cleaning, let’s talk about the cleaning lady/aunties/uncles.

You see, I’ve been cleaning my own office for days. I did a lot of things, including sweeping, dusting, and arranging the furniture. It’s a though job. I was sweating, I got dust on my clothes, and I walked home with aching muscles. But the thing is, I never thought that this job of mine is going to teach me a thing or two about humility. Here’s why :

1. Cleaning for yourself and cleaning for other people are two very different things. If you clean your own space, that’s for your own benefit and it reflects good on you (who likes dirty persons anyway, yeah?). When you clean for other people, you are actually serving them in the sense you are doing something that they should have done themselves. But hey, the thing is, when was the last time you thank a cleaner? Cleaning is such a thankless job, you know. People who cleans up the office hardly gets noticed. For all the cleaning jobs I have done so far, no thanks has ever been said. Cleaners never gets the appreciation they deserve.

2.  Beside being a thankless job, cleaning requires you to swallow your pride. The thing about cleaning is that it’s a no-brainer job. You do not such a specialized skill to do a cleaning job. All you need is a broom, a mop, or a cloth. That’s it. No need for university degree or rocket science. Which of course, paints cleaning as a job for the lowly educated or unskilled people. I was walking down the aisle today with dust covered hair (I was taking out things from storage room with 5 years of dust) and my FYP examiner walked past. And, (I’m ashamed to admit) all that I could think of is shame of me being found out such a “low-level” work. Of course I did myself a mental kick afterwards, because I think that no job should be too low for you to do. Jesus even washed the feet of His disciples. Why did a little dust like this hurt my pride? Why should I think that this kind of thing too ‘low’ for me? That’s pride speaking, loud and clear.

All in all, I realized that being humble is quite a hard thing to do. Outwardly we might not complain, but in our heart we crave the recognition and appreciation. Our souls demand that we are given a place in the pedestal. To make the matter worse, the world we live in see humility as a sign of weakness. The strong takes from the weak is the slogan we all live in heart. To submit, serve, and be humble is an alien term.

So yeah, this is a lesson learned. After this, I will thank the cleaning lady/auntie/uncle properly. And why not? They did serve me by doing their job =)

Friday Five on 29th June

For those who doesn’t know, Friday five contains trivia questions you can post and answer in your blog. It’s taken from the Friday5 site. Do drop by and have a look around I do think it’s a great way to make yourself known to people.

Guys, if you’re out of conversational topic, try asking your date these kinds of questions =P

1. What’s something you wear only on special occasions, and when was the last time?

2. What’s something you consume only on special occasions, and when was the last time?

3. Who’s someone you see only on special occasions, and when was the last time?

4. From now on, you will commemorate every year on this date something that happened to you in the past twenty-four hours! What will it be?

5. What’s a unique special occasion you share with just a few people you know?

Answer :

1. Definitely a dress. This is only worn less than 3 times a year, and only to very special occasion. The reason : I have to wear high heels! And I keep tripping on it. If I happen to make a grand entrance someday, trust me that it’s not going to be an elegant one. Most probably I’ll stun everybody speechless because I fall down tripping on my own feet =P I last wore my dress to my university prom dinner.

2. Alcoholic drink. Only for New Year and pajamas party with my best friend.

3. Walah, don’t have a special person to visit how?

4. -__-” I totally refuse to do this. I have trouble remembering birthdays. Remembering this kind of thing is futile =P I’ll forget it in minutes.

5. Hahaha. I don’t think I have one. I go to the extreme I guess. I either tell everyone or no one.

That’s it. Till another Friday then.

Rain

Singapore is known as a country with unpredictable weather. Look up and you’ll see the sun blazing through a hot day. But lo and behold, it’s raining in the middle of the blazing heat! Of course the opposite is also true. Grey clouds often hang around to do just that. Hang around. Period. On days like this, I get frustrated waiting for the rain to start falling.

Anyway, after a couple of consecutive hot days (when I took showers 3 times a day -_-) it finally rains. Weather report this afternoon did say that it’s going to rain cats and dogs and I’m thrilled to see that it finally happens!

For the benefit of those unaware, rain is one of my favorite thing.

 

Why do I love rain? I guess mainly because the air cools down when it rains. And it’s also beautiful when it rains. Earth sort of look mellowed and softer. And yeah, I like it because it’s romantic. Imagine sharing a shelter with the guy/girl you’re in love with under the pouring rain and we all melt like a puddle of goo *sigh* Not happening to me in a near future, though. No guy in sight yet =P

But hey, even if I love it, there are moments when I hate the rain. This mainly happens when I’m on my way to some place and it starts raining heavily, and I mean HEAVILY. I don’t mind a drizzle. I usually welcome one. They do say extra moisture is good for the skin. *nvm me, that’s a crazy comment =P* But when it’s raining heavily, I’m usually drenched (because I don’t carry around an umbrella) and I usually need to RUN to the nearest available shelter. Which leaves me pretty much sweating under the rain (unhealthy!)

Other than that, rain is more than welcomed, especially since it’s the dry season here in Singapore. Let it rain more. Then maybe I can save up water because I won’t have to take showers 3 times a day.