Can't say "No"

"Hey, would you mind covering up for my duty on this day?"
"Was wondering, are you interested in attending this event on this day?"
"Can you come to help so-and-so to do this-and-that please?"

And the list of example requests goes on. I'm sure it would be almost quite impossible if you have never been asked for a favour or some form of help. If you really are an exception, maybe you're the king of the universe or nobody likes you at all.

I took notice of a behaviour of mine lately, that is, agreeing(kind of) to a request and later, back out. To a certain extent I might had been breaking promises albeit not wanting to do so; on the other hand I may not be that bad, just realising that I agreed to do stuff that I cannot(or did not want to) commit to. Isn't it quite a bad habit to say "sorry, no," after saying, "yes" to a person? This is really not the way I wish to live my life, because I simply do not fancy the idea of breaking promises. Had promises to me being broken in the past, I understand and hate the feelings that such unpleasant experiences bring. Thus it is only natural for me to not want to fail in fulfilling my own promises to others. Having said that, why do I still behave like this? Saying "yes" then say "sorry"!

Lacking the wisdom and courage to say, "no" to people?

1. Wisdom: Discernment in prioritizing between needs and wants. Sorry to say, some people may just be lazy while others might be in real need of help. Besides that, discernment also to look into my capacity to perform the tasks requested; my abilities, internal and external resources.
2. Courage: To let my "yes" be "yes," whereas my "no," "no".

Really hate it when I make a promise to somebody and then later regret it. Guess I'll just have to consciously and responsibly fulfill promises without chickening out in the last few minutes. Regardless of how my feelings might be, may I add. Or learn to say no.

Short Stay

I looked into her eyes, over the phone

and could not bear to answer, “no”

So the two women in my life

came in the name of holiday.

Anxious and frustrated

as I did not know

to entertain people;

For I, myself am a foreigner.

We went as the wind took us.

More important was togetherness.

Then came the time to move on;

I looked into her eyes, face-to-face

and could not bear to say goodbye.

©Joel Yap

Moving Mountains

"...if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you," said Jesus, in Matthew 17:20.

The other day I just had lunch at Subway with a few college mates, and I requested for mustard sauce in my sandwich rather than the usual- mayonnaise. In case you did not know, I always prefer mayonnaise. "Mayonnaise please," would be my reply almost every time whenever someone gave me a choice between chilli and ketchup. Big deal, so, what? Haha, sorry I couldn't resist talking about mayonnaise. It has been nearly two weeks since I last consumed mayonnaise.

Another thing which I could not resist then, whilst having lunch, was to try to figure out how my sauce was made. I found my answers soon after that day's classes ended. Mustard seeds! If you have not already known, what does a mustard seed look like, you may go ahead and make use of an online search machine; just like how I learnt about making mustard sauce.

Anyway my point in the paragraph above was just to get you to have an idea of the size of a mustard seed. No, you don't have to make me any mustard sauce. Digressing.

Having faith as small as a mustard seed? Did Jesus forgot to mention how much a mustard seed weighs? Or were the mustard seeds much heavier two millennia ago? Notice I already have three questions here, and I haven't even gotten to the part where He talked about moving mountains! Perhaps faith is so strong that the ratio of it, to how much it can achieve is that great. However, wouldn't a mustard seed be too easily blown away by the wind? The ups and downs in life, are stuff that we can never escape from experiencing. Both the earlier and latter are more than capable of shaking faith. I have seen great men fall in their success; yet strong men who give up fighting after losing just a few battles. Is faith as small as a mustard seed enough to withstand the storms life has to offer? Why did Jesus not choose a durian seed or a coconut instead? My suggestions are definitely better than the mustard seed, right?

Perhaps Jesus was trying to show us that the mountains in our way are nothing if we were less faithless. Well, throughout history, God always enjoyed shaming the powerful with the insignificant or the less-qualified. The giant from the Philistines was defeated by a young chap named David. A little pebble was all it took to bring the proud Goliath down. Thus the ratio stands. Little is enough to do much.

Imagine what we can do if we had enough faith. Faith in the right things, the right truth and the right God. Just think about how much we can achieve, had we no need to worry about how to get to our dreams, given the correct motives. Imagine having nothing to hold you back. Imagine youself with no limitations, since God is on your side. You have potential to conquer mountains after mountains, you just need faith as you can take for granted that strength will be provided. Hah! Think about that- faith to believe that strength is provided. Along with the required resources too, for the matter.

Looking at the potential of faith, I must say that we can be very powerful people. Yet why do some of us seem to be living such defeated lives?

Is your mustard seed moving a mountain, or is the mountain too huge? Nothing can be impossible, claim that truth today.

There was chilli in my food

On the way back from a Christian gathering at college this evening, I bought duck rice for dinner. Took away rather than to dine alone at the coffee shop. Because I wanted a bath first, and my arms were loaded. Had quite a bit of weight to carry- a guitar and notebook, so I was pretty tired, not forgetting all the walking in the drizzle as well.

Anyway it was only until I had bathed, settled myself down and gone into a more relaxed mood, when I realised there was chilli sause in my rice. How great. After a long day, you finally begin to rest. Come dinner time, you open up the food packaging to find something you dislike. I do not mean to complain at all, but couldn't the hawker just be kind enough to ask before giving his customers chilli?

On the contrary as this might seem; having written what I wrote in the above paragraph, I agree to pouring chilli sause in with the rice instead of seperating the two. Surely you must have noticed seperate packets of chilli when you take away, assuming you are buying food like rice, noodles; not fruits or cheese cakes. I am in the opinion that chilli can and should be packed together with your duck rice, chicken rice, etc. as I am always for reducing plastic usage. Too much plastic are being unnecessarily wasted in our every day lives! This is an environmental issue that must be addressed at all levels of society. If every hawker were to save that one piece of plastic that was originally for a portion of seasoning, the amount of plastic saved can definitely be substantial.

Reducing plastic usage is a plausible act of kindness to our Mother Earth, however please do ask if I want the chilli sause, can? I am not upset that the guy did not seperate chilli from the duck rice he sold; I am upset because he did not seperate mine. Usually I would return the packet of chilli wherever I buy food. Little did I expect to find the sause in my rice.

There was chilli in my food.

Of dying and living

Before dying, you learn how to live;
After dying, you live. 

Before death, how you live determines where, after dying, are you going to live.

New email

Suffering from a slight insomnia as I write. In fact, the reason I am online now is due to the frustration of my inability to fall asleep. It sucks.

So I got out of bed and in front of my home desktop. Because my blogs were on my busy mind, which was trying so hard to relax. I kept thinking, over and over again, about my Google account. You see, I sign in with my Gmail account name. killerwhale91 was the best I could think of, a few years ago. Now, for some reason, apparently, I am not satisfied with the username. Well, when I first registered for a Google account I liked whales. But looks like now I don't want my email address to be named after one. Or do I just not want people to know my age that easily?

For the sake of a peace of mind, I had to create a new Gmail and Google account. Lucky for me, I don't use Gmail much. I only use my Google account for Blogger and Youtube. So it was not such a tedious task to move everything over.

Anyway, now it is yapyapjoel@gmail.com! Not that many people are going to write to me.
Back to bed!

Of dying and marrying

Two of these once in a lifetime events mentioned as titled are independant of each other, as far as my intentions of writing here are concerned.

Why write? Maybe it's just the time of the year when so many people are getting married. Something to do with the Lunar calendar? Chinese poeple favour the number eight. And this is apparently the eighth month according to the Lunar calendar. Anyway my point is that recently, the carparks of Chinese restaurants have been packed almost everyday. I noticed whilst driving past these restaurants at which are known for hosting wedding banquets.

Besides, I hear of friends as well as friends of friends, getting married. Too bad I had not attended any wedding ceremonies lately.

Seeing and hearing of new marriages somehow gets you thinking about it. Or is it just me? When will it be my turn? Am I even supposed to get married too, or stay single? What will life be like for me as well as the community I am in then, after the wedding? Am I even ready for marriage?

Digressing. Recently there had been a few deaths that occured. And I attended one funeral followed by another memorial service, within the same week. Different persons, if you might be in need of clearer explanations.

Hearing of deaths somehow gets you thinking about it. Or is it just me? When will it be my turn? How will it happen? What will life be like for me as well as the community I am in then, after my departure? Am I even ready for death? If not, what am I doing about it?