About Christianity

'i dont want to be like that, i want to be different from others,' i remembered telling my parents that when i was a child. ever since i had memory, kokutou azaka loves the word 'unique'. although there is no difference from being bound, i cannot bring myself not to like that word. i don't know why, i just don't want to be like the others, living a normal life. waking up naturally, going through life naturally, going to sleep naturally, i despised all these. i am the only me, so i must be different from others.

the child harboring this thought in her heart, because she has no idea what is special, so she always thought being special means being better than everyone else. i kept as secret those knowledge i forced myself to learn, and through that, became more special than my peers. i don't want to be a genius, nor do i want to be taken as a good student, because that is not special at all. what i must achieve, is a kind of 'difference' even words cannot describe. it did not matter if i am not the first, nor did it matter if i am the weakest.

i just wanted to be a special being. because of that, i threw away many things, and slowly detached myself from the surroundings. i used the knowledge i got to harm, to detach and to scare those who came near me. the results satisfied me, so i began to throw away even more things, and other than the teachers and friends, even my parents got distant from me. i finally achieved solitariness.

still being a child, i could not tell that was a mistake. because that made me comfortable, whether it was good or bad, i never thought about it. if i continued this, i would become a different person, different from others, unable to live with them...a person who exist to hurt others.

but i realized, that was something that made me lose out. not because some righteous partner or prince charming came to persuade me, it is unwittingly, naturally, i began to regret missing out the more interesting things.

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the above is an exerpt (i had taken out the less important parts) from a story book. it told of the history of a teenager when she was a child, how she tried too quickly to be special, to mature and to grow up. sorry though, if i put in the whole excerpt so you get the whole story, this post will be too long.

in a way, that is sad right? trying too hard to be different, and giving up the more important things, things that only children of her age could enjoy, things that she could never enjoy again. time could not turn back, and she could only regret them from the present.

are we like that? this post might be a little similar with the previous post i made about 'sacrifice'. how many times did we rush forwards in life, trying so hard to be someone we are not, trying so hard to be someone we will be if we wait, only to realize too late that we had missed out the more important things?

have anyone of you neglected your family? maybe your relationship with God? maybe the time when you can enjoy the peak of your youth? or maybe the innocence of a child you once were entitled to enjoy? or maybe, the stupidity of a teenager which we were all privileged.

'our life is not like a story you said.' maybe that's what you want to say to me. bills to pay, family to support, loans to pay off....everything needs money. if you don't work hard, maybe you would end up being in a bad situation. a little advice though, there are things that are luxury goods that you don't need to spend on.

anyway, back to the main point. we only live life once, and every stage of our lives is meaningful. being normal is not a sin. being special is not a must-achieve-goal. if we use this current stage of our lives to do something not of our age range, in the end, we might end up like kokutou azaka, regretting what cannot be undone.

again, i say these things on the blog, and yet i do something that does not fit my age range. talk about being stupid, just after making a post about stupidity.

well i guess most of you would more or less have learnt something from the above story, and would not need to read this post. but since i like to write, i shall cook up more advices that i myself don't do.

what azaka missed out was not only the life of a child, and the innoncence of a child. it was friends. deliberately harming people, pushing people away, she became alone, just like what she wanted. but what is life without friends? i might have said before, humans can live without friends, but you would have no joy, and no sadness. because there is nothing for you to be happy about, and nothing for you to be sad about. although, that is in itself a form of sadness.

in our walk of life, how many friends did we sacrificed? how many people had we harmed? maybe we don't need these people. maybe we can survive without them. but, is that really a good thing? like azaka, using the knowledge you get to harm people, is that really a good thing? like azaka, being a person who exists to harm people, if that is the case, then your life is really sadder than those whom you have harmed.

like azaka, often we do things that we think is comfortable for us, and did not consider whether it is right or wrong. like azaka, one day, we will regret if we continue to do this. like her, we will regret yet unable to do anything. we cannot turn back time. we cannot undo the things we did. like azaka, you can only dream about it. you had that feeling before? i am sure you have. that is the kind of feeling that can sink you into mild depression, that can make your eyes seemed tired, that can make your heart feel as if nothing else mattered anymore.

what i want to say today is actually simply this - in your rush or your goal to get things done, to achieve the state you want, be it riches or social status, enjoy this life God gives you. there is a time for everything. if today you missed this time, it will be tomorrow soon. you will never get back today. so, as you rush through your life, do take time to stop and enjoy life. enjoy the friends and people around you. enjoy nature. enjoy your relationship with God.

and now, after all this, i have to rush off. you see, i never do what i said....

whatever you do, don't be like kokutou azaka...

'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.

in the years you spent on earth, how many sacrifices have you made? countless i guess. be it big or small, we all make sacrifices. from the small ones, we sacrifice our play time for the supposedly beneficial studies and the exams. for having more waking hours we sacrifice more sleeping time.

big ones? maybe for her family a mother might sacrifice her career (hey that is a big sacrifice...) and stay at home whole day like a person is under house arrest. or like an older sibling who went out to work to support the family because both parents are dead. our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed himself on the cross to save the world.

there are many other sacrifices we make as we go on with our lives. as we grow older, since i am speaking from the point of a very young adult, having passed my 21st birthday uneventfully (grumpy? no...i hope) 3 months ago, we find the sacrifices we have to make get bigger and bigger.

of all the sacrifices we made, how many of them actually achieved its purpose? don't get it? maybe i explain with an example i am too familiar with. i love to play games. but when exams come, i stopped playing. i studied. but when i study, i don't really concentrate. i have a very short concentration span. and i get distracted easily. in the end, i spent more time slacking away, doing nothing. now, is my sacrifice on computer gaming useful? apparently not.

if we magnify to bigger things, we might see that we are also making big, unneccessary sacrifices. in the office, we are all used to politics. backstabbing - one of the most favored techniques of all times, is a sure way to sacrfice your friends and colleagues. people do that to climb up. people do that to get out of trouble. but if we do that, are we guaranteed a place above? maybe, maybe not.

there was this fictional story about this man who climbed up the ladder of the mafia organization very fast. along the way, he sacrificed many people, including his best friend. why did he want to be at the top? because according to him, he don't want to be poor and helpless, as he experienced as a child. at the top, he finally realized, that although he was poor when he was younger, he had his friends. those were the times that made him really happy. in the end, he realized that bonds were worth more than money.

but like that story, there are sacrifices that cannot be taken back. in fact, sacrifices cannot be reversed. that is why they are called sacrifices. we all have a goal, i hope. and as we go towards that goal, sacrifices are inevitable. big or small, we still have to make a choice. for some, they can betray friends. for some, they can offer their time and energy, their youth. for others, they can sacrifice every single thing they have.

if we just imagine ourselves at the goal, what do we want? or maybe, the correct way to phrase it would be, 'why do i want to be there?' keeping this question in your mind would help you not make the wrong sacrifices. you would not want to reach there only to find that everything is meaningless because of the things you gave up. have you ever looked back and said, 'how i wish time could reverse and i could be there once more...'? yes, you do. i know. i often think of such impossible wishes too.

why do we think that? because we have regrets. we made the wrong decisions. am i wrong? what is done cannot be undone. if today you have to make a decision, the most probable thought you would have would be how costly it is. you would not think of whether it would be meaningful to reach to your goal. you would not even think if you reach the goal finally, would this sacrifice you are about to make render the whole process meaningless?

many times we focused too much on the goal, and we forgot about the original purpose of getting to the goal. if my goal is to be rich so i can live a happy life, then would sacrificing all your friends for that make you happy? if my goal is to score in the exams, would sacrificing my computer game time for slacking achieve my purpose?

to be content. if we are to be content with the things we have, life would be much easier. of course, i am again speaking as a person who lived a blessed life. i do not live in war zones, i do not starve. i have a home. i have a family. i could not say i am very happy. but i can say i am blessed.

we only have say 70 years, 80 years of life. don't waste it on pointless goals. sometimes being content can actually lead to a happier life. some people, in a bid to get to their goal, lost more than what they had started with.

if there is a goal which we should attain at all cost, i guessed it is to follow Christ and get to heaven one day. because that reward is eternal. using temporary things we sacrificed we gained eternal things. well, so much talk about sacrifices. i kept on repeating that word. at 0100H, my brain is non-functioning.

my blogging desires compelled me to blog. and after this, i am going to complete my drawing which i had started doing earlier today. i know i am a goner tomorrow with only less than 5 hours of sleep.