Crossroads

I just finished a retreat titled Crossroads which is targeted for people between 20-35 years old to consider where they have been and where they would like to go, and to prayerfully discern the choices in their life. Despite the initial reservations that I had, I decided to take the plunge to register. I am very thankful for the courage since I am very glad that I actually attended the retreat.

I learnt a lot of things that will definitely help myself going forward.

-I am glad to know that what I am feeling and struggling with (i.e. not knowing what to do with my life) is not something abnormal. I always feel that I am weird, I am selfish, I am crazy, and so on but there are people out there who also feel what I am feeling.

-I learn to be appreciative what I have. It is kind of bad to think "misery loves company" but from the sharing of others, it gives the perspective that each of us has our own problems. Everyone is living our imperfect lives and there is no point comparing. Just an example, some have problem with a broken home, some have problem with controlling parents, and some do not have parents anymore. None of it is perfect but it gives the perspective that I should be happy with my current condition instead of having any of the other (whichever it is).

-Still about being thankful, looking back at my life journey, my life in Singapore is not as bad as I think. It is definitely not perfect but after really reflecting, I consider 50-60% of the years spent here as pretty good.

-As a perfectionist, I want myself and my life to be perfect. Instead of accepting my strengths and my weaknesses, most of the time I am emo over my weaknesses while taking my strengths for granted. I learn to accept myself as who I am, with both my strengths and weaknesses, and to make the best out of these.

There are 4 basic life impulses: to enjoy one's personhood, to grow in this personhood, to give, and to receive. Knowing this now, it makes sense now why I felt so suffocated in my previous job: I had to constantly lie to myself and others, to suppress myself, and to fake myself -all which is essentially opposite of what I treasure the most: honesty. I learnt the hard way that even with money and status, life feels empty when you have to sacrifice something that ultimately you treasure. The saying of "where your treasure is, there will your heart be" makes sense now.

Unfortunately feeling happier does not mean I am happy or find my life meaningful. I still want to die because I am satisfied with my life and there is nothing more I want. Everyday I am just wasting my life to "kill the time" until my time is up. While it is good that I am satisfied with my life, the reason for my emptiness and meaninglessness may be because I am selfish and only looking at myself. It seems that I am already satisfied with my life and I cannot make it even more "satisfying". This is a reminder for me to start looking outwards, to start doing something for others. Suddenly it came upon my mind again if I should explore my passion of teaching again.

I always thought that "discernment" means finding out if I am called to religious life. That is completely wrong. In fact, it may be wrong to think that we are fated to a particular way of life: whether single, married, or consecrated. God loves us and wants us to be happy, yet He also gives us the freedom to choose. We are confused of the options in front of us if they have pros and cons. We are confused because we have to choose the one that ultimately will make us happy. When there is a bad option, there is nothing to discern as we will not even consider that bad option in the first place. Thus to be able to exercise our freedom of choice, we have to explore to discover which option is the best.

That brings me to the next topic: girlfriend. It looks like the ideal of having one girlfriend who will eventually become a wife for a lifetime is just a dream. Haha.. I always expect that a discernment will help me find my calling and if my calling is to a married life, only then I will find a girlfriend. During retreat, Sister shared that "is married life for me?" is not a correct discernment question. It should be "is married to xxx my life calling?" instead. So yes, I need to explore being in a relationship first. Similarly for the possibility of other callings. The questions if how am I supposed to find someone when I don't even go out to socialise. Sigh...

I have been very wrong to keep praying for God to simply show me what is the best for me. In fact, by simply doing nothing/not taking action, I have indirectly made my choice to just wait and wait. Looking back, it is quite ironic to find that there are many times that I feel I should do something or join something but I pray for a "more obvious sign" before deciding. The signs never come and I end up waiting and waiting. In fact, signing up for RCIY, signing up for WYD, and signing up for this retreat are few examples where there were no signs but I just jumped to make the decision. Perhaps this is a reminder that I should just have the courage to go for the young adult group and register for the Landings. With the desire still present after few months, it is clearly a God sign right?

The biggest take home message is learning about Consciousness Examen which I should start doing daily in order to make discernment a habit in daily life. It involves 5 steps: prayer of enlightenment (to view things from God's perspective), thanksgiving, review of the day, contrition, and hopeful resolution for tomorrow. I realise that usually my daily prayers are more or less having this same formula, except for the enlightenment. However, I am just bulldozing through my prayers as formality rather than putting in thoughts.

I was worried that I would be the odd one out and the other participants would be younger people. It turned out to be the opposite: out of 9 participants, only 2 are still studying. I don't know if it is a coincidence but one common similarity for majority of us is in some parts of our lives, we have studied overseas. It seems that studying overseas somehow breaks lives sia.. Since majority of us are working now, I don't really feel left out with conversation topics such as diet and exercising. Lol. Apparently my regular exercising in a HIIT gym for almost 2 years now is considered a great feat. Well something has got to go for the time and I suppose that is why I am still single haha.. Although why am I still so fat then?

I am quite okay with the retreat place (CHOICE Retreat House) and my only complaint is the room has a damp smell. Other than that, everything is ok. The facade may look a bit old and run down but the aircon in the room is cooling and the shower in the toilet is even better than then toilet at where I am staying now. Lol. I am quite grateful for my roommate too as we were able to exchange stories of our lives. I enjoyed the home cooked meals prepared by the Sisters and I feel slimmer now from healthy eating in the past 2 days.

After the retreat today, I managed to go to gym but decided not to donate blood. There was traffic jam at Orchard and I reached the blood bank at 430pm. There were still so many people registering so it would be a long wait. Considering that the blood bank closes at 5pm, I decided not to sabo the working staff. One additional person so close to closing time means OT for them.