When bad things happen to good people by Harold Kushner

I enjoyed this book for its honesty and for the fact that it doesn’t trivialize suffering to defend God.

“Belief in a world to come where the innocent are compensated for their suffering can help people endure the unfairness of life in this world without losing faith. But it can also be an excuse for not being troubled or outraged by injustice around us, and not using our God-given intelligence to try to do something about it. The dictate of practical wisdom for people in our situation might be to remain mindful of the possibility that our lives continue in some form after death, perhaps in a form our earthly imagination cannot conceive of. But at the same time, since we cannot know for sure, we would be well advised to take this world as seriously as we can, in case it turns out to be the only one we will ever have, and to look for meaning and justice here“.

Kushner also quoted from Joseph Heller’s book Catch-22 which I think would be a fantastic read! Here goes:

“Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include tooth decay in His divine system of creation? Why in the world did He ever create pain?”

“Pain?” Lieutenant Shiesskopf’s wife pounced upon the word victoriously. “Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers.”

“And who created the dangers?” Yossarian demanded. “Why couldn’t he have used a doorbell to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead?”

“People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads.”

“They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony, don’t they?”

feeling unequal

i had always wanted to work with this non-mainstream population. perhaps it has a lot to do with my study on ‘coming out’ in uni.

there’s a huge stigma attached to them and the illness they often battle alone.

now that i am actually working with them, i realize how tough and involving and draining it can be. the needs, the complexity, the load, the expectations, the stigma.

it makes me question all that i know and all that i have. it shakes my entire being.

questions about whether i am even cut out to be a social worker. questions about what the future holds for me to continue in this line for a while more. questions about my capacity to handle stress. questions about God. where is He in all this? it’s difficult to answer the last question now that i’ve left church. of course i know that God is not confined to a man-made institution, but a part of me wonders if things would be different if i were still in church.

would i find this work less of a struggle? i think not. maybe my question should be how to find God in this. maybe the need is to answer for myself why i am in this.

doing this work makes me realize how weak i really am. of course, i am also becoming stronger each day, it’s an up-and-down line with a very gradual upward trend.

all the struggle for the sake of becoming a more competent social worker. and yes, this is what i’m made for.

3 freaking long weeks.

yiiipppppeee! shriveled somewhat. but still alive.

well done, chiam!

:'(

Cried a fair bit lately. It scares me. Anyway, I think I should go for therapy. I always think it’s not something I’d go for. Cognitively, I can see its value and in fact, helping professionals are encouraged to go for therapy. But. I still attach stigma to it. Damn. And I am supposed to be a helping professional. But, I want to invest in my future. I want to be responsible and self-aware. And I want to be in this game for the long haul. I need to improve.

carpet-riding.

damn. it’s quite incredible how you always manage to make me feel uber happy.

i feel like crying.

i feel like crying because You’ve not forgotten my dreams. and You reminded me about it in the most random and strange way. almost like how random i can be.

and You didn’t make me feel bad for what i did/did not do. You were actually so warm and real about it. unlike the many fakos i met.

i am truly in awe. for the first time in a long while.

happy things

– knowing I’m remembered from a faraway.

– being in the know about your life.

– planning for the next trip in my mind. (Yay, I get to go to Batam in May and Bangkok in Sept for work/play!)  and I will be diving in Aug and then Cambodia in Dec.

– connecting with unusual, unlikely people.

some of the best things in life must be felt with the heart 🙂

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl

Some quotes from the book.. in which Viktor Frankl shares about his experience in the Nazi concentration camp..

“It is one the of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s concern is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.”

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

There is meaning in life, despite suffering, despite difficulties. And having seen patients and their families suffer from the impact/progression of illness, I can attest to that. It pains to see how some patients’ lives rage with difficulty after difficulty. But it is also through all that that I come to realize how resilient many of them are. Many are able to tell me “I want to continue living”, “I don’t want to die so early”, “I want to see my children grow up”. There is always meaning to be made/found.

What a privileged job I have to be able to witness all that bravery!

I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have a conclusion. But I’ll enjoy every moment of it! Thank you for being such a delightful presence in my life.

This Easter

This Easter, I feel strangely grateful to God about the life I’m living. The life I’ve been given. Not that I wasn’t grateful to God in previous Easters. But perhaps, this time round, in a more personal and non-religious manner. This must be the biggest irony of it all given that I stopped attending church last May. I feel like I’m given the chance to be real as a person and learning to appreciate life more.

The past few months have been challenging. But I am reminded that I am living my dream.. I’ve got a decent family, a great bunch of friends and a wonderful job that I am passionate about. And I know that God is in all of it and He is still watching over me. I continue to want to live a life that counts, a life that can make someone else’s life a little easier to live.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of something wonderful… 🙂

what hope looks like to me..

hope, there's hope! (Sunrise in Kollam, India)

meanwhile, gotta work like crazy.

meanwhile, i think about the things i want to do.

before i turn 30, i want to climb a mountain in taiwan.

i want to trek at milford track. i want to learn diving. i want to visit sikkim, darjeeling and nepal. i want to work in taiwan/thailand/china. any of those places are good.

meanwhile, gotta step out and gain exposure.

it’s so upstream. but meanwhile i learn to hope.