I Found Someone I Didn't Quite Realize I Lost

I didn't know that I had changed so much over less than two years in NUS. Myself.

Was reading this blog post because I dug it out when Simon and Tirza mentioned the song I posted once. That was around 1.5 years ago.

I knew there were quite a lot of things I didn't like about myself back then. But now when I looked back, I see I took some things for granted. I thought I would always be optimistic, and unaffected by the cares of this world. I thought I would always wholeheartedly rely on God to take care of me. I thought I would always hold true to the values I felt were to be held on to.

Apparently, too much concern over how I have been doing academically have been causing me to let go of things. And it is qutie painful to realize that I have allowed this rat race to shape me so much.

The race itself is not a bad thing. It opened up my mind to see how much I could learn and humbled me before others. If others moan about mediocrity, all I wanted to be was just 'another average student', instead of one trying to catch up with the average student. It made me see and feel how I never really felt before back in my younger days - inferior.

But the desire to catch up and pull myself back up had caused me to burn bridges, and burn myself too. I know my CAP is not worth all of this. But somehow I couldn't stop.

Somehow I wish I had the courage to love, serve, and have passion for other things again, rather than letting my CAP cast a shadow over everything I do in my university life. It is very sad.

I wish I would just be able to learn without thinking too much about the results. Play the piano as much as I want without thinking about how it eats up my study hours. Blog freely instead of moan about how hard I've been studying - it's so pointless doing so. And spend more time with my friends, and other people, instead of wondering how long each outing and each talk will take, and again, whether it will cut my study time short.

I know that there are expectations for me to work hard, but I wonder if they would even exist if they knew that I'd become someone like this. And worse of all, the highest and most pressing expectations come from myself.

I read so many blogs about studies nowadays and how burdened people are about them. And I don't want to become just another one of them. God has a plan for me out there. And I just need to take that step of faith to trust.

Right now I had just forced myself to sleep off the effects of caffeine wakefulness, and so that my tired eyes could get a rest after working overnight. I'm going to force myself to slog again through the night. It is the same routine, before and after this blog post.

But perhaps, I could add in some peace, with the reminder that God is taking care of me, and I'm not just another average Joe, riding against the waves of academic excellence, to find yet another 9-5 job. I'm supposed to live a life God has planned for me, and not live it after I graduate. I should live it out now. And I know that life is not being a slave to mugging, which I have already made myself to be.

“There is fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains.

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;

And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.

Wash all my sins away, wash all my sins away.

And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power

’Til all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more.

Be saved to sin no more, be saved to sin no more.

’Til all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be ’til I die.

And shall be ’til I die, and shall be ’til I die.

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be ’til I die.

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave,

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.

I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save, I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.

Redeeming love has been my theme. Why should I bond myself in chains when I have already been set free.

Thank God for this reminder of freedom.