By Terry Lee

I used to perceive Chinese New Year (CNY) as a time to make up for lost sleep. Having mapped out my life purpose, these days I regard CNY as the opportunity to live up to being me. Here are the reasons why this is so:

A time to take a respite from my entrepreneurial overdrive
Too much of a good thing cannot be that good, as we know. While I do not apologise for my leaning towards career, I do accede that distance makes the heart grow fonder. At CNY, I take the natural course. Let rituals and customs take the driver seat. I relish in chilling out. Chilling out does not seem too remote to me anyway. We have harboured the dream of being a beach bum some time in our life. Why not live it up for a few days a year to begin with? 

A time to be a family man for a longer stretch
It is not as if I forget my role as father, husband, son and brother at other times. It is just that with half my time away from home, social media is about the best I could do while clearing immigration, catching the fast rail, moving from one meeting to the other, or just before hitting the sack. At CNY, I drive around a lot more. Driving my family around makes me a willing captive. Since I am captive, I might as well be proactive in catching up on my family members' lives. I have come to realise that active listening is a joy, a nice departure from doing the talking all by myself. After all, this is the family that I was born in; this is my family and blood ties never dies.

A time to be the friend that I was
Almost without fail, CNY has been a time to catch up with friends. How much more palatable it is to catch up on old times at a joyous occasion like CNY than at wakes upon the sudden demise of a dear friend. At my age, the more we meet (or don’t), the less we will. “见一面，少一面”. We all have CNY to thank for bringing old friends' tireless chatter into the same room. 

A time to enjoy the community
I have been the ever-absent Neighbourhood Committee member. My fellow members might have thought that I exist in WhatsApp only. This CNY, I am glad to make an appearance at a community event. Although I am hardly distinguishable from the crowd, I make the effort to be part of the action. And I can see that the first step is leading to the second, and the third. No man is an island. The community makes me feel alive when I am back from my travels. It makes me feel assured of my family's safety when I am away. 

 A time to thank God
God works in wondrous ways. He lets us be so different, yet so similar at CNY. We eat the same snacks, hear the same songs and laugh over the same old photographs of CNY gatherings past. This is a time to feel especially spiritual. We are spiritual beings after all. 

I know CNY will be behind us soon, leaving the raucous lo-hei behind as I hop from airports to airports and meetings to meetings. May I suggest that we keep the memory of CNY beating in our hearts every day as we go about our lives and living out our life purpose, so that deep in us there will be constant longings to: 

1. Be the best face for Singapore
I hear good things about Singapore outside of Singapore ever so often and every time I will smile proudly. I shall tell a story about Singapore every time I hear good things about our nation and I shall tell two stories if I hear a bad remark about us. 

 2. Be the surest help to our family and friends
People may outgrow one another but family and friends are for life. Even as our lives run out, the memories of our family and friends stay with us. Cherish them in every airport we fly to; think of where they could be; say a prayer for them. For our lives would not have been complete without them. 

3. Be the change we want to see in the world. 
Let every CNY be a reminder, and a milestone. 

Happy Year of the Ram, everyone! Happy scaling new heights!

By Choon Jin (CJ)

It is a reflective season for me these couple of weeks.

I recently lost an aunt to leukemia.  She was my nanny when I was young and was someone that I was close to. However over the years, I began to see less and less of her other than Chinese New Year and the occasional visit. Naturally when she passed on, I asked myself if I should have visited her more in the hospital, if I should have brought her out for meals more, if I should have planned a holiday with her and the list of goes on.

The death of a loved one always reminds me that life is too short to be lived with regrets and we have to be intentional in all that we do. I am sure most of us would agree that we want to live a life of meaning and without regrets, although in reality it is so much more difficult than it sounds.

What then is a life of meaning and intent?

To me it means being able to articulate a clear life purpose of why we do what we do and to actually do the things that matter to us as much as we can. Sadly, this thinking about our life purpose does not come as naturally as it should and I dare say most of us think about it probably only in three situations. The first one is when we lose a loved one like I did last week and the second is when we ourselves are faced with perhaps a terminal illness that causes us to think about the life that we would like to lead with the limited time on hand.  The final situation was what had happened to me some seven years ago in which some people would call it the mid-life or quarter life crisis. It was when life was not too bad but not too great either; life is sort of just rolling along but somehow not quite “it”.

In a bid to find “it”, I did the unthinkable of leaving my job at the age of 32 years old so that I can have the time and space to think about why I was doing what I was doing. Why was I working in the work that I did? What would I do for work so that it would be meaningful to me? Did I treat my family and friends the way that I wanted to? After much thinking and reflecting, reading books, talking to people and attending seminars and talks, I decided that what I really wanted to do is to impact lives around me by doing training and coaching. Meaningful work for me would then be to start a training business.

I am thankful that all went well and today I am still doing work that I find meaningful. Work is just a part of life but out of that came the crafting of my personal purpose statement from which I begin to be intentional in all that I did with my time so that I could try my very best to live life with no regrets.

So should I have done more for my aunt?

Perhaps I should have but I also know that I did the best I could in the last days of a person dear to me. Feelings of regrets are not something that we can avoid in life. However, living a life with intent and meaning can help us manage these feelings because we know that we have thought through clearly how we want to spend our time each day. 

Have you thought about what matters for your life?

By Richard


If you, like me grew up in a kampong in Yio Chu Kang Road in the 1970s, it is very likely that you would have spent your evenings watching some Chinese TV serial produced in Taiwan or Hong Kong. You’d be the oddball in school if you actually watched English-language programmes that were not cartoons.

It wasn’t until I was 13 or so that I was introduced to my first English-language programme, the American comedy Happy Days, featuring Henry Winkler as Fonzie, the world’s favorite heartthrob and Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham, the nerdy teenager and Fonzie wannabe. I watched the show every evening. In fact, if you look carefully at my signature, you will see that my name is spelt as Richie Cunningham.

Somewhere in season 5, an Orkan named Mork was introduced. Played by Robin Williams, the character was so well-liked that it led to a spinoff of a very successful sitcom named Mork and Mindy. Mork and Mindy became such a hit among my group of friends that we would greet each other in school with the Orkan greetings “Nanoo, Nanoo” accompanied by the Orkan handshake.

On August 11, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead in his home in Marin County, Northern California, apparently as a result of suicide. I received this shocking piece of news by way of a text message from my son, Zech, who also counts Robin Williams as his favorite actor. I spent the rest of the day in a state of shock, wondering what could have caused such a talented, successful actor to resort to take his own life. Williams spent the bulk of his career bringing laughter to the lives of millions. Yet in his own private world, things must have gone quite wrong, for him to fall into depression and eventually do the unthinkable.

In a study done by Carleton University (Ottawa), more than 6,000 respondents indicated their agreement or disagreement with statements such as, “Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of them.” After fourteen years, those whose results showed a stronger sense of direction and purpose had far better health outcomes and seemed to outlive their less-focused counterparts. The author of the analysis, psychology professor, Patrick Hill, indicated that purpose-driven participants faced a “15 percent lower risk of death”,  a difference that persisted even after factors such as age, gender, marital status and other indicators of emotional well-being were taken into consideration.

And I surmise, from Ben Shapiro’s blog Truth Revolt, that having a clear sense of purpose in our lives can be the BIG differentiator between life and death, literally. Shapiro writes: 

          If the Carleton study is right in suggesting that a sense of purpose can help to keep you alive 
          and healthy, then it’s reasonable to assume that the absence of such focus may leave you more 
          vulnerable to despair, loneliness, self-pity, suicide and other pathologies. In this context, even
          the nation’s most stubbornly secular observers in academia and media ought to take note that 
          a sense of personal direction doesn’t arise most commonly from a commitment to social change
          or artistic expression – the late Robin Williams scored well on such accounts.

Wildly successful and talented as an actor, Robin Williams must be one of the most well-liked persons in Hollywood and beloved by his viewers too. At the peak of his career in the 1970s, he made US$40,000 a week! Sadly, he did not find his answers in fame, popularity or fortune – the three things highly sought after by many people.

How I wish he could have found his answers and continued making a difference to his audience and fans all over the world.

And food for thought for all of us would be : what would our answers to life be?

For Ben Shapiro's blog post, please see: 
http://www.truthrevolt.org/commentary/medved-robin-williams-sense-purpose-and-medias-religious-blind-spot

By Richard 

“A small dot appeared in the cloudless blue sky above the Dutch city of Eindhoven, gradually getting larger as the first plane carrying victims of last week's Malaysia Airlines disaster came in to land.

On it were 16 bodies, carried aboard the Hercules C-130 which just a few hours earlier had set off from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Then came a second plane, an Australian Boeing C-17, which touched down carrying a further 24 corpses.” 
 -The Telegraph (July 24, 2014)

What did you think of this morning when you got out of bed?

Did you jump out of bed, excited at another brand new day and another shot at life or did you rush into another busy day, at home, at school or at work?

I would imagine so did those on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, whose lives were tragically cut short by circumstances beyond their control. Nothing we say or do will change that reality nor will it ease the pain of those loved ones they’ve left behind.
 
But even as I think what has really happened and an inner anger rises within me over this stupid game of political brinksmanship, there’s a part of me that also wonder what happened onboard the plane when the passengers realized the end is near. 
What did they do? Were there regrets over tasks unaccomplished? Were there regrets over love not expressed? Were there folks who faced death courageously because they’ve done all they could with the life they have?

In the same situation, what would I have done? What will be in my mind during those last few minutes? I thought about it long and hard and I just started crying because there is so much more I wanted to do and needed to do. The truth is I am not ready to go. Not now. 

What about you? Are you ready?

You see, the truth is, many of us only begin to think about our life purpose when life throw us a curve ball, when we are stricken with a life-threatening ailment or traumatic accident, or when our loved ones are dying. I’m sure you’ve heard of stories of those who decide to turn their life around when they discover that they are about to die.

But it doesn’t have to be so, because there’s another way. You and I can purpose in our hearts today, to live a life of intent and purpose daily, so that come what may, you know you’ve spent every day of this transient life in the best possible manner which is in accordance with your purpose, thus leaving behind no regrets!

You should watch the Youtube video Music and Life by Alan Watts. It clearly shows that it is the individual musical notes that combine to make up a beautiful melody and not the loud “gong” of the drum at the end. Similarly, it is the individual events you live each day and not the numbers (of your success, titles, bank accounts) you leave behind at the end of your life that counts towards living a purposeful life.

5 years ago, I faced my life changing moment. Faced with multiple challenges and a marriage that was falling apart, I purposed in my heart to live out God’s will in my life, in the process demonstrating that God can give us beauty for ashes. I’m still living it out daily 5 years later.

Will you think about your purpose today?

By Richard 

Dead Poet Society, Forest Gump, The Colour Purple, Roots, to Kill a Mockingbird. They are all great movies. And they all have something in common – they inspire. Whether they inspire you to be a better teacher and encourage your student to “seize the day”, or inspire you to break free of societal norms and values that are inconsistent with yours, or to raise children who know how to stand alone on good moral values.

But why do these movies inspire? May I suggest that it could be because many of us find comfort and even hope in the characters to stand up for what they believe to be the right thing to do? May I also suggest that deep down inside us is a deep-seated desire to have clarity of purpose just like the teacher, John Keating of Dead Poet Society has, and with that clarity comes the conviction to live out that purpose?

Clarity of Purpose has allowed ordinary folks to achieve extraordinary things in their lives. All that the humble nun with little resources wanted to do was to help the poor and destitute in Calcutta, and today Mother Teresa and her Missions of Charity are well known around the world and have attracted many followers and resources.

Clarity of Purpose has allowed a Singapore medical doctor to leave a comfortable life in Singapore to live for many years in Yunnan to train farmers in Southwest China in basic medical and dental care. Returning to Singapore, he continued to live a Spartan life. Choosing not to own a car or a house, he spends his weekends taking migrant workers out for outings, attend to their medical needs and help resolve disputes with their employers.

Last Sunday was movie night for my family. My firstborn Zech brought us to the cinema to watch “How to Train Your Dragon 2”. We all enjoyed the show, especially my 9 year old boy Raphael. The part which was a highlight of the movie for me was when the main character Hiccup lost his father Stoick after a battle with the evil Drago Bludvist who is out to control all the dragons for his own evil intentions. Hiccup was lost as to who he is and what he should do because he is not your typical Viking and he does not see himself walking in his father’s shoe as the Chief of Berk. It was at this moment when his long lost mother Valka reminded him of his love for the dragons and his role as son of the Chief and how his Purpose may be to lead the Vikings of Berk and to save the dragons that he so loved. Once this became clear to Hiccup, he was able to direct his energy with great clarity as to what he needed to do to save Berk and the dragons.

If you are one of the many out there who woke up this morning and dragged yourself to work dreading what lies in store for you, may I suggest that you start by discovering what your purpose is? Because it is only when you are clear as to who you are and what you’re put on earth for can you truly be motivated and engaged with your life and work.