Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Thrust and Trust

Today I submitted some documents to Stansfield. I thought about what I'd been through these last years. All the triumphs, the happy, the sad, and the down and out.

I say this whenever people ask me how I feel about my next step in education, university. I feel terrified and nervous, yet excited. Sometimes I have negative thoughts; all the what-ifs. Like any other local kid, I grow up in the fast-paced, chaotic and kiasu environment that is Singapore. So fast that so many things happen in a split-second, sometimes you don't even realise it. We demand more. We want fast, we want accurate, we settle for nothing less than excellence. The chaos comes in here. People who get confused, they can't move fast enough and have no clue about what's happening. Kiasuism, a term that can only be coined by Singaporeans. We don't want to be left behind. We want to be first. First in queue, in rankings, in class, in the world. I think this is the result of the Government's constant effort of encouraging its people to do well in everything and the idealogy of "The early bird catches the worm." It makes us improve, but it also backfires in a sense.

From my clearer memories when I grew older, I remember that when I entered secondary school, the teachers always told us not to play around because our "O"s would come sooner than expected. Even before my "O" levels, we had to face being split into different classes according to our academic performance. The first two years were fine. But we all had to split up for the third year. I played a lot. I certainly didn't study as much. That was the period when I knew the final exams were looming. You could tell because many third, fourth and fifth year students stayed back late to do group study.

I recall I would walk past them and feel strangely calm. It was like my brain was numbed from all the panic and stress. Of course the real panic only came a couple months before the "O"s. But right then, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. There was the constant talk of the poly courses available and the JCs to choose. The school arranged career seminars and I went for some poly open houses. But I was so unsure. It felt like I was going to be thrown out into the "real" world, away from my sheltered life and comfort zone. The worst feeling was, what if I had no place to go?

Then, I felt lost. Everyone around had their goals, what they wanted to do in life, or at least which course they wanted. I couldn't decide what I wanted to do in life. I was only 16. How can you ask a kid what they wanted to do from now till say 60? It felt insane. I was worried and everyone had expectations for me.

But today, I have a different mindset. Today I know that I can trust Him. And He has a plan for me. I'm not worried, I don't think of what I will do in future. My life is in His hands. I believe I am in Stansfield because it is his plan. I know that He will provide for me in future. He will guide me and prosper me. If He can provide for and clothe the flowers in the fields in their magnificent colours, how much more can he do for me?