My Work

Last night I sang at our agency’s summer BBQ.  It was one of those fun gigs where nothing’s too serious, just out having a good time while singing a couple of tunes.  I closed out the set with 古巨基’s “下次再見” (“See You Next Time”).  I liked the song from the first time I heard it, partly because it’s so rare to hear a pop song with a beautiful classical guitar arrangement.  And I was so happy to have my good friend Philip Li playing it for me last night, who did a beautiful job.

While singing that song on stage, it suddenly hit me how time has changed me.   In my younger days I insisted on hanging on to things and people forever.   I evaluated the success of every relationship by how long it was kept.  For instance, we would call a long marriage a “successful” one, and if a marriage ended after a short while, we’d say the person had a “failed” marriage.  Perhaps we got it from our childhood bedtime stories:  that people had to end up together living “happily ever after.” 

But time, and pain, have been great teachers.  And I have learned from them one of the most important truths in life: Everything, everyone changes.  Not everything is meant to last “ever after”.  Nor is that a necessary pre-requsite to live “happily”.  People drift together, people drift apart.  That’s okay.  It’s not necessary a “good” thing or a “bad” thing.  It’s just a “life” thing.  斷線風箏散失風裡…軌跡改變那有錯或對…

I have since learned that rather than worrying about how long I may stay at one place, or how long different people will stay in my life, it’s better for me to focus on today, on the moments that I can share my life with them, and make sure I generously give them the very best that I have.   As I was singing, I saw my teammates whom I now work with everyday.  What a wonderful group of people!  I was reminded how blessed and fortunate I am to have the privilege of serving them, and seeing them help people everyday.   Who knows how long this will last?  But it doesn’t matter…I have learned it is possible to live “happily” with or without “ever after”.

下次再見…till next time :-)

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Small Signs of Encouragement

October 31, 2008

Today I was scheduled to give a speech at another non-profit community service agency. This agency has a program geared to youths with troubled pasts and aims to give them a fresh start in finding a career, and I was supposed to give a “movivational speech”. All morning I was debating whether to go or not because I could barely get two words out without coughing up a lung. Finally I decided: “Okay, I’ll go give the talk, and the go stright home to rest.”

As soon as I was brought into the room, I could tell it was a tough crowd. At least when I used to speak in churches, people would “pretend” to be interested. Here, folks feel no such obligation. The indifference in the room was so real that you could almost reach out and touch it. But…strangely enough, I found myself “liking” it. It was…honest.

I talked about various things to try and find something that would capture at least a bit of interest. It was a classic case of “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”. (political sidebar: kind of like the McCain campaign these days…political sidebar over) Towards the end, I decided to look them in the eye and said, “The truth is, where you came from, what you had done, what led you here means absolutely zero now. You are in a place where you CAN start fresh. Whether this leads anywhere, is up to you.” As I said that, one of the youth gave a good slap to his friends sitting next to him who had slept through my whole talk, to try to wake him up to hear what I was saying.

I don’t know why, but that made my day. You’d think after doing this for so many years, stuff like this don’t matter anymore. But I guess I found out again that none of us ever out grow our need to be encouraged, even by the smallest gestures. I just hope I have done the same for at least a couple of them this afternoon.

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“I see God in you…”

May 2, 2008

Yesterday I did my first speaking engagement as Executive Director of my organization. I was invited to give a speech on volunteerism in Canada to a group of new immigrants. It was my first time speaking in public in almost 6 months. Before hand I was rather nervous, it was almost like a race car [...]

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The joy of helping…

March 6, 2008

A couple of days ago our organization needed to come before the municipal council to lobby on a critical decision the town was about to make. Because i am so new to the scene and am not familiar with a lot of our history, we decided that our chairperson would do the speaking and I [...]

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Protected: just walk on…

February 15, 2008

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Protected: new job, new beginning

January 31, 2008

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