About Christianity

what was your ambition when you were a kid? not during the age when every kid's ambition is to be like his/her father/mother. during the time when you knew what you were doing. was it a doctor? artist? or maybe you wanted to write the best story, or even maybe become the world richest person.

hmm... actually this post... should it even be here? i don't think it is about christianity. yet i don't want to put it at the random blog. it is still from my reflections though.

what are you doing now? maybe you are an office worker. maybe you are doing something you didn't like. when we grow up, i realize that gradually, we are unable to hold on to that dream we once had. maybe for some, it is because our thinking changed. for most of us, i guess it is because our circumstances don't allow it.

do you actually know why i name my website as no-more-fairytales? the reason is very simple. it can be taken literally. when we were young we believed in fairytales. that if we work hard enough, our wishes will come true. that if we are good people, we will live a good life. there were heroes, and the witches always get defeated. as i grew up, i realized that fairytales are there only for one reason: to give hope to the little children, even if it is a false hope. children must have hope. depression and giving up, these are the only things allowed to adults.

somewhere along our lives, most of us gave up our dreams. and because we have to let go of them and take up other things, we slowly forget our dreams. maybe, you slog through life everyday, doing what you don't like. i know people who are complaining about their jobs and how much they wanted to quit. i know people who screamed wih frustration because the things they study are not what they like.

then maybe you get lost. because you have no more goal. i rephrase... because most of us have no more goals that we are after from the bottom of our hearts. our dreams have turned from childhood ambition to short-lived task goals to meet our needs. maybe you gave up being an artist to take up accounting, so that you can have a brighter future. maybe, you forgot about your wish to become a musician, so that you can become an engineer and have a stable job.

you know, when we do this, we usually suffer a little bit. i know this kind of feeling very well. because i am like that too. i never liked the sciences and mathematics. i had always liked the arts. but for the sake of future i gave up all of them. instead of geography i took up chemistry. instead of linguistics i took up mathematics.

slowly you will begin to feel trapped. what exactly are you doing? you know the logical answer. you need to do it for your future, for your family (because your kids are depending on you)... etc. but, maybe that is not what you really want. you are doing something you need to do instead of something you want to do?

finally you drag your feet at life everyday. you become totally lost. maybe it happens for just a little while. or maybe a few months? if it gets serious, this happens for a few years.

what can you do? i don't really know the sure formula to it. but i think, if you can, then remember your childhood dream. or maybe, remember what you had really wanted to do. if there were no restrictions, and you could do what you wanted, what would you want to do?

maybe it is impossible in real life to achieve your goals. but at least, you can do something about it. you have things you need to do, and you do them. this is respectable. but doing things you need to do doesn't mean you cannot do the things you like to do.

in your own little free time, you can try doing the things you like. in your 1 hour of rest time you can write a story, or you can draw. in your 2 hours of break, you can read medical books if you like it, or pretend you are a lawyer. hmm pretend? yea, that is a good idea too.

all humans need motivation. do a little something you like here and there, and you can also provide yourself with a little motivation.

you have no time? i think for most of the people, the excuse of having no time is simply crap. i have seen how people manage their time. i know people who work hold a full-time job, study for a degree at night (and did well for it), come up with time to spend with their girl/boyfriends, go out with their other friends and have enough time for rest. we are humans with 24 hours a day. it depends how you manage it. i know this is true, because, i am one of them. and i know it can be done.

remember your dream again. don't forget it anymore. maybe, this will be the single thing that will help you to move further along the road of life.

'i often carry the feeling of going forwards, looking out at the outside world from here (top of a building)... for that dream i could never fulfill... for freedom, i made many sacrifices... ... ...' - this is a line you might find familiar, because as usual, it is taken from a story.

i don't know why, but recently, as you can tell from my blog posts, i keep on thinking about unachievable things, about unobtainable (is there such an English word?) things. i guessed it got to be my topic of interests for this short period. i have no idea how long it would last though. or maybe it is due to the stories i read and the story i am writing, and when combined these ideas get stuck into my head.

impossible dreams. say, you want to be the richest man on earth. or maybe the most powerful man on earth. how about the prettiest woman ever alive? or the most intelligent person to walk the earth (King Soloman already took that spot. settle for number 2!)

i have the habit of telling myself to know my own limits. somewhere in the past, i found myself gradually getting less and less interested in doing the impossible. well, not impossible, the less possible as you might say. there were goals we made many sacrifices on the way as we travel towards it. but because we are humans, there are things that we cannot control.

is it stupid? chasing after the impossible dreams. chasing after a goal you know you can never obtain. stupid, right? but from what i see, all humans are somehow like that. not that extreme, maybe. but definately something like that.

ok let's say something we are all familiar with, both students and working adults.

students, we all aim to score. nobody study to fail. ok i am assuming we are all mature students who study for ourselves and not because your parents want you to. and that you are mature enough to know what you are doing and what is right for you.

in most scoring systems, they don't go by absolute scores to compute your grades. they go by the bell-curve. a certain percentage will get A, some B, the rest C,D,E,F. familiar? should be, since most of us undergo this system. say, we are at the bottom. we are not intelligent people like the scholars. ok let's start.

have you ever have this feeling that you can't study? no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you study, you just cannot compete against others. in a competitive society, failures are not tolerated. people can say failure is the mother of success. but if it were up to us, we would rather succeed without failing. sometimes we felt like giving up. studying is so hard, so difficult, so stressful...etc.

but we cannot give up like that. why? in our society education is compulsory. not everyone can be the world's richest man even when he drops out of university. we try. and even when we know it is near impossible, we try our hardest to score our best so that our GPA (grade point average) could be higher and pull us higher and to a better spot in the bell-curve. even when we feel like giving up, we just cannot bring ourselves to do it.

what about working adults? we want to get rich right? buy a big house, big car. in our society, people ask how big is your apartment, what car are you driving, what jewelry are you wearing, what handbags are you using. we try and try, fight for promotion, work overtime. work like dogs, work like slaves, all for money. hoping to get rich, yet at the same time we will be always be an average worker in the world.

money flow in, but like a hole money flow out. kids' education, housing loan, parents' medical bills, daily expenses. money don't fall from the sky. just as the boss gives us money, we need to pay out the money also. we work and work, aiming for a dream we cannot get. why? who doesn't want a better life? of course it is good to have ambition, but it is another to make too many sacrifices.

just like the guy who stood at the top of the building (look at the head of this post), we made many sacrifices for impossible, or near impossible dreams.

for studies, we sacrificed our 'life' sometimes. our play time, our rest time, our gathering with friends. we don't spend time with family anymore. our quiet time is cut short. maybe we don't go church anymore.

for work, we sacrificed time with family and children. we sacrificed our health due to stress. our time...etc

like what i said in one of my previous posts, sacrifices are not reversible. for this impossible dream, how much more are we going to throw into the pit? i am not living in a war zone, so i don't have the 'impossible' dream to get a good life elsewhere. i don't live in an abusive family, so i don't have the 'impossible' dream of having a happy family. because i have a normal life, the less fortunate, when you see this post, may think i am a hypocrite. because, even if it is impossible, you want to try. because there are cases when if you don't even grab hold of that impossible hope and throw in what you have, there is no more meaning in life. because if you don't work for that impossible happiness you won't know what to do. is that right?

i used to have impossible dreams too. dreams i threw in a lot, and get nothing out of it. unlike the law of equivalent trade, we don't usually get something for the things we throw in. so what do i have to say?

for those of us who have a more blessed life, be content with what you have. there are things you can never get. be content, and enjoy the things God gives you. for those who are less fortunate, you have a God, don't you? ask Him for help. i don't know when that help will come. but asking for help will give you something more practical than throwing your bets into that never-ending pit of impossible dream. it is not to say you give up trying. God will lead you, and along the way, you try, with Him, with His help.

one day, when you look back at your life, just as he looked down from the top of the building, i hope you don't have a face full of sorrow that says you sacrificed too much for the impossible dream.

in case you are wondering, the law of equivalent trade is a story concept from 'fullmetal alchemist' which states that for everything you gain, something of an equal value must be sacrificed.