Reflection

Why do I wanna change the world?

Earlier this week, while exchanging messages with a friend, he asked me:

Out of curiosity, how did you get started with volunteering? I believe that’s a story I’m yet to hear.

And just yesterday, I came across @StaceyMonk‘s story of his little brother, Joshua and her journey to becoming a social change leader, and I wept. So, I thought I would share my story.

In some ways, my story is not too far different from Stacey’s. I was your typical, slightly rebellious kid growing up. We were poor but I was incredibly resilient and stubborn in nature. Due to my families’ financial struggle, we were brought up in a modest and humble environment. Some of those values still stay with me until today – e.g. my best friends, like @SarahMoran, know that I cannot bear seeing food being wasted. When I was young, we have 3 meals and 3 meals only – there were never more or enough to spare.

My “journey” (for lack of better words, as wanky/uncool as that sounds) started about 7 years ago. I received a call after a 3-day vacation, to inform me that my closest mate died in a drowning accident. It tore my life apart and I wrote about it here. Even up until today, I can still remember those days rather vividly.

For 3 months, I was living in transition. Neither here nor there, neither alive nor dead. I was in a space where my perception of the world and life was displaced and I was questioning everything about life, including the essence of life and being alive.

Those much needed 3 months helped me to drill to the core of life.

That at the centre of living is an empty space. It’s the influences of external things around us, coupled with our own judgments and decisions that our beliefs, values and purpose of life were made of – in a way, our sense of identity and purpose. If we strip all these away from anyone, we end up with nothing but a mere breathing, walking living being with unimaginable capabilities. And I did just that and discover for myself, if I get to live again, what would I like to fill my empty vessel with.

My cultural values of community and sharing gave me a strong appreciation for community building and understanding for connectedness and the social reform. My own personal experiences shape the other, and it is through these experiences that I came to my passion.

The death of Ryan pushed me to do many things I otherwise wouldn’t have done. One of them was organising a visit to the School for the Blind back in Borneo, Malaysia. Armed with chocolates, candies and ice-cream, 6 of my best friends and I visited the school. We sang, we chatted and we had lunch with the kids. There are two things I learned during the visit.

The first one was to accept and appreciate what I have, work hard for what I don’t have and make peace with what I could not have. During a conversation with a 10-year old girl, with her head turned facing out the window, probably hoping she could see what was outside, she told me that her wish was to be able to differentiate the colour of the rainbow – to understand what’s red, what’s blue and what are the other colours that they learned in words.

The second lesson I learned came just when we were about to leave. A group of kids cried as we left, and at 17, I couldn’t really understand that. A letter from the Principal a few days later clarified to me. To us, doing this was an experiment – it was my experiment. To these kids, its a change and integration and acceptance by the “normal” society – us. To them, we bring them something fresh and different, but what struck me the most was.. some of these kids came from rural areas and it was their first time eating chocolate and ice-cream. My jaw dropped, eyes wide-opened and could not believe what I read.

That was the beginning of a very special journey for me. From there, I organised various big and small charity events. Visiting and distributing gifts at the Old Folk’s Home taught me to appreciate the people who have shaped me to become who I am today, which includes my parents, families, neighbors and friends around me. Working at the Down Syndrome Centre was a challenge but really pushed me to work on my patience and understanding ways of appreciating individuality. And to appreciate that every child is capable, if only given the opportunity, inspiration, motivation and resources.

In many ways, Ryan’s death has made me do many, many things I otherwise wouldn’t have done. Up until today, I still get a bunch of negative emotions talking about his death, but I count myself lucky to have incredible friends and family who inspire me to always push myself out of my comfort zone. To understand nothingness, and in @JackHeath‘s words, “keep my heart warm and head cool”.

“Inability to accept the mystic experience is an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilisation equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit – to the ‘conquest’ of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature.” – Allan Watts