Making Time For People

My Typical Weekday

Get up
Meals
Work
8 hours
Brain dead
Go home
Shower
Bed

No-life architecture student. I clock in the hours out of obligation, not enjoyment. I've been saying "No" and "Sorry" more often this year. No, I can't make it to your graduation, sorry. No, can't join you for dinner, I'm working. Don't disrupt my flow. Sorry.

I like to believe that friends understand I'm busy, especially when it's final year. Of course they understand. But after a while the friendship becomes defined by "No" and "Sorry", instead of "I'll be there". What kind of friendship is that? And when something comes up, they will say, "Don't ask Aaron, he's busy, he won't make it".

Don't abandon the people whom you call your friends. Make the effort to MAKE time for them. Work is not an excuse. I sacrificed social life for work and still I get mediocre results. The worst feeling in the world is to get bad grades and feel alone.

We are created to enjoy relationship with each other. I need to start by making time for my Best Friend. The One who gave me His life so I could live in Him and for Him. AND to minister to the people He has entrusted to my care.

Life after the presidency

What's life like after serving as president of OCF? FREEDOM! No more early saturday mornings, no more having to tolerate judgement and gossip from people outside the committee. No more sleeping 5 hours every night for 3 months. No more having to put up a front of being in control when my whole world was crashing to the ground. Life was fantastic as a leader. I remember this one week last semester when my cousin got hepatitis A. Then I became very sick. My appetite was replaced with vomiting and nausea. I had an assignment due the next day. On friday, the numbers in OCF suddenly dropped. I prayed and cried out to God, "Why?" And then I had a financial disagreement with a certain someone, and was threatened to court. Life was an action movie, the only thing was that I lost the remote.

But God has been faithful. Through the blur of misfortune and circumstance, He brought newcomers who were eager to serve in OCF. Prayers were answered as those earnestly seeking eventually accepted Him as their Lord and Saviour. There were young members who grew and stepped up to serve. OCF bonded well and got to know each other better. I'm amazed at how God uses our sicknesses, late nights, tiredness, prayer meetings and assignments to accomplish His purposes. We can be amazingly talented, organized or intelligent but sometimes God allows us to fail in order to demonstrate Who's in control. In losing the remote, I found the Owner.

I need to stop believing in myself. That I can do things better. That there will come a time when I will be control. That I will be able to solve my problems. I need to believe in the One who knew me even before I was born. I want to know His plans to give me a bright future. How do I live under His Control? It's hard to let go. But I know that to not let go is to set myself up for the same failures, inadequacies and disappointments that unfold when I lean on my own understanding. Do I trust Him? I have my whole life to work out what it means to say "Yes".

Thoughts about my beloved country

1. The prevailing race should not fear meritocracy unless they suffer from inferiority complex. The current situation (quotas and all) is no different to apartheid in which our own leaders stood up against but have been imposing on their own people by calling it a different name.

2. When you have ordinary citizens coming up with better ideas than the government on how to run the country, then you have a problem.

3. In trying to justify their behaviour, the government has to come up with even more ridiculous excuses.

4. As a foreign investor, I will not do business in a country that arrests people without trial or reason because I could end up like one of them. Well, some people say that even 'democratic, westernised' countries like Uncle Sam do the same thing. Do not forget that those actions have been criticised and successfully challenged in Uncle Sam's courts of law without fear of repression.

5. There is little ethical value in trying to topple a government through defections. It makes you no different than those who are in power.