The Bub in the Belly

As Christmas draws near, I tend to think a lot about charity. Perhaps it's all the gift-giving. Perhaps it's because there are more donation boxes around town and more charitable initiatives at this time of year. Perhaps it's all the commercialism which sends me searching for meaning in the season.

Richard and I try to do our part all year round and step it up a notch at Christmas. We usually donate items - sometimes we pay for new items, sometimes we give our used items. Occasionally, we volunteer and participate in charity events. We also like to support vendors who tie up with charitable causes. We do donate money outright sometimes, provided we can see and trust where the money is going to end up, otherwise we don't find it very meaningful or gratifying. Richard refuses to donate blood though - in that case, he'd rather give money!

I have to say though, that I do believe that charity begins at home. It is only when all is well at home that I think outside our family. Once we have what we need and we are happy and healthy, then we can think about giving back.

I must say also that I have come across people who do nothing at all because they say that the money donated may not end up at the right place, or they want to do something "big" because otherwise "it won't make much difference". While I understand those reasons, I don't agree that they are obstacles. Of course, charity work is not top priority for most people (including me), but it's actually not that hard or inconvenient to give back and to spread a little joy. There are so many ways to help and giving money is not the only option. And doing something big is great but if you can't, then doing something small is still great. Helping one person may not make much difference in the overall scheme of things, but it sure makes a difference to that one person.

The way I look at it, it is a matter of what values I hold. And now that Ryan is here, it is also a matter of what values I hope to teach him.

The first and most obvious is about having compassion for others. It constantly baffles me how human beings can be so horrible to each other. Quite apart from all the crimes that are committed everyday, we can be incredibly inconsiderate, unfriendly and downright mean to our fellow man. Sometimes when I look at Ryan playing happily with other children, I wonder when and how we stopped playing with each other and started fighting instead.

Next, is a sense of social consciousness. To me, this life is not just about me and my family getting what we want and what we need. I enjoy my life, not only because of what I've done or how hard I've worked, but also because of the contribution of many people, most of them whom I do not know. I am safe on the roads because other drivers drive safely. I can sleep well at night because my neighbour is not hosting a rowdy party at 3 in the morning. I can sit down to a clean table at the food court because the person before me cleared his tray. I can still see live tigers because people care enough to protect them from extinction. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren will still get to enjoy nature because people make the effort to recycle and to preserve what we have.

So, I hope Ryan will understand that he enjoys privileges which others do not and that the more he has, the more he should give back to society. I hope he will always be humble enough to recognise that there is no such thing as being entitled. Everything we have is God-given and the best way to give glory is to pass on the goodwill that we have received.

I also want to show Ryan that we should give unconditionally, without expecting reward, without being petty. I don't ever want him to think, "What's in it for me?" and I hope he will find more joy in giving than in receiving.

Most important of all, I believe that we need to take positive action and actually do good things. Too many times, we think that it is enough to simply refrain from doing bad things, or we wait for others to do what we ourselves could have done. I hope Ryan will never be like that. I want him to have the initiative and the bravery to make things happen, instead of being someone who complains about the way things are. I hope he will be willing to step up, to shoulder responsibility and to be accountable.

As I write this, I am reminded of a song that I used to sing to Ryan when he was a newborn. I sang to him a lot and there were just so many children's songs I could take. So, to keep myself from getting bored, I would sing all sorts of songs. One of my favourites was, and still is, Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror:

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

He says it much better (and much more poetically) than I. There's not a lot of authority that's better than the King of Pop!

For me, the hardest part about Project N is not packing up our stuff. The hardest part is leaving behind the stuff which we can't bring with us.

I keep everything. EVERYTHING. Old photographs, old journals, old greeting cards, every letter and every gift I have ever received, old school T-shirts, every soft toy. When I watch a play or a stage musical, I always buy a souvenir programme as a keepsake. Every year, when my university hostel put on its annual musical and sold commemorative T-shirts, I would buy two - one to wear and one to keep. 

You might say all that is fine and normal. After all, everyone keeps old photographs and autograph books and sentimental stuff like that.

But that's not all of my treasure.

I kept every credit card bill and bank statement that I have ever received. Every phone bill, even the bills for the phone numbers we no longer use. All our expired credit cards and old bank account books. Shopping bags. Red packets with zodiac animals that won't be relevant for another 12 years. Magazines that are nearly ten years old. Earrings which have lost their partner. Buttons which came from goodness knows which blouse. Cups (including the ugly ones). Stationery that I never use, including notepaper that is turning yellow with age. Empty boxes which are too pretty to throw away. Old spectacles, watches and wallets. Old mobile phones.

I know it's ok to keep some treasured items but I also realise that this sort of "collecting" can get out of hand. Most of the time, I just keep stuff until it becomes irretrievably irrelevant or useless, which may take years. Then when it comes time to trim the pile of irrelevant/useless stuff, it is too much, too intimidating and too pressurising. So we chicken out and we leave it. And it grows. Essentially, I have an ongoing battle between wanting to hang on to my stuff and wanting to get rid of it.

I had a morbid thought the other day. A friend's relative had passed away and I had this picture of my friend sorting through the relative's belongings, deciding what to do with all of it. And then I thought, what if someone had to sort through my stuff? Oh my. I certainly do not want to wish such a task upon my son. It would be a terrible burden.

I know, I know. I'm supposed to de-clutter, to simplify. I'm not supposed to let myself be bogged down by stuff. I need to clear the decks, make space for the new and get some good chi flowing, instead of allowing myself to grow old, stale and irrelevant. 

I recently read this article on Apartment Therapy, one of my favourite interior design blogs, and the author put the issue so well.

"...we all still harbor a little voice in our heads that wants us to hold on to stuff "because we might need it."

Don't believe it.

It's that ancient caveman survival voice, and it's not going to help you now. Now, we run the greater risk of suffocating our life under an accumulation of small and large possessions (and their attendant upkeep) that no longer serve us in our daily lives.
The secret to dealing with clutter and changing your life is to realize that 1) you don't need as much stuff (you are no longer a Caveman, after all), and 2) that by having less you are opening your life up, lightening it and creating an environment that will allow you to flourish and reach your greatest potential. It's not just about letting go, it's about realizing how much more life you can have.

One of my greatest sources of inspiration is Karen Kingston, who wrote Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui. She helped me see something as simple as collecting books (a great source of clutter) totally differently. While books are great resources and markers of experience, we all tend to hold on to more than we actually use. And many of us hold on tightly! In order to declutter them, we need to realize that books are collections of memories and OLD THOUGHTS, not new ones. As she says, "Holding onto old books doesn't allow you to create space for new ideas and ways of thinking to come into your life."

I would even take this further. Holding onto ANYTHING that doesn't have a working role in your home won't allow you to create new space for ANYTHING new to come into your life — things, jobs, people, opportunities, etc. Even as we bring new things in, we need to bring old things out. In this way, we ensure a vital life flow in our lives."

It reads like what I wrote last Monday, about how letting go of the old lets you be free to get hold of better things, about how change can be a good thing.

Every once in a while, I do look around and try to do some spring-cleaning, throw out stuff, give away stuff. Not a lot though and it doesn't make much difference to the clutter. It isn't that much of a problem in our present big house. I suppose clutter looks less like clutter where there's lots of space for it. Unfortunately, we are moving to a smaller place and we can't bring everything with us. So we are going to have to go through the painful process of pruning.

In truth, I am really looking forward to a massive garbage day. As I grow older, the "wanting to get rid of it" feeling is stronger. I am more inclined to let go of stuff now. I guess with more life experience, I now have a better idea of what's important to me and I can do without all the rest. I know that, however attached I am to my stuff, I will feel much better once I am rid of (some of) it. It's that nice light feeling you get after you have tidied up, cleaned up and thrown out the garbage. It will also give us a fresh start to the next exciting phase of our life.

Here's to de-cluttering!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about change. There are going to be a lot of changes for our little family in the upcoming months.  A new home next month, a new job for Richard in January, a new routine for Tiger, and some lifestyle changes that come with the new home, the new job and the new routine for the pets.

Judging by the massive number of self-help books that teach you how to change your life for the better, I suppose there are lots of people out there looking for change. Me? Change is the last thing I want sometimes. Still, change is unstoppable, however unwelcome it is. So, our approach is to go with the flow and trust that everything will work out, and it always does.

The most painful change that we've suffered was a miscarriage a few years ago. We were devastated and we mourned and cried for our loss. After some time, we healed and we continued to open our hearts to the idea of having a family. Now we have Ryan, our gift and our blessing.

It is not always easy but I like to think that Richard and I are people who see the glass as "half-full" and not "half-empty". So when change hits us, we don't spend a lot of time complaining or whining. We don't continue to cling on to what has been lost, instead we are optimistic about what lies in store for us. It's like playing poker. When you are dealt a bad hand, you do the best you can with it and after that, you forget it and move on to the next hand and stay focused on a winning outcome.

Then there are times when, instead of change being forced upon us, we are lucky enough to be given a choice whether to make a change or not. It can be a hard decision because we may have to forgo things which we enjoy or leave behind things which we love. I think that many people, including me on occasion, reject the opportunity to make changes, no matter what the self-help books say. Those were the times when I felt that my life was perfect, I had everything I wanted and I didn't need anything else. I didn't want to step out of my comfort zone, I didn't want to leave what was familiar.

For example, when we moved out from our Cairnhill apartment, we thought that we'd miss being able to stroll down to Orchard Road for shopping or to Newton Circus for supper. We definitely enjoyed living there and it was appropriate for our lifestyle at the time - working ourselves to the bone during the day, clubbing and pubbing late into the night, shopping at all the designer labels, being close to the "hip and the happening". We wouldn't have changed a thing, we were so happy.

After we moved, we realised that, ironically, we had handicapped ourselves when we were living in Cairnhill. Living in such a convenient location, we never felt the need to venture very far and we didn't feel the need to try new things because everything was just a few minutes away or just a short walk down the road. We thought that we had everything we needed nearby but we were just short-sighted. In reality, we had made our world very small and limited and prevented ourselves from gaining new insights and experiences.

Once we moved away to a "less convenient" location, we made more effort to explore new places and do new activities. We started spending more time in parks and at the beach. We also spent more time at home, reading, cooking, crafting, gardening, tending to our hobbies and hanging out with our pets. We had lots of new and different experiences and lots more fun.

That's why sometimes when I'm faced with a choice, I like to think that it's God's way of telling me that there're some goodies waiting for me, but I have to let go of what I'm holding before I can grab onto and receive His blessings.

Apart from expanding our world, our relocation and our resulting change in lifestyle also prepared us mentally for parenthood. So when Ryan eventually came along, we didn't feel like we had to "give up" our old life because we had already outgrown it. There was no point being within walking distance to the malls along Orchard Road or being able to walk out for a midnight movie or for a late night supper or being able to walk home from Zouk because we weren't interested in those things anymore. Instead, we wanted to spend the time cuddling with Ryan in bed, reading books to him at home, cycling along the beach, having a homecooked meal and chasing bubbles in the park.

So it's true that, when we move out of River Valley and out of our landed home, our pets won't be able to just walk in and out of the house and we won't be able to park our cars right outside our front door. We will miss those little conveniences. But there's little else that we will miss. There're so many more goodies waiting for us. We're going to have a swimming pool. We're going to be close to the beach. New restaurants to try, new places to explore. It's going to be wonderful and we can hardly wait.

The tree outside our house changing its leaves for the season (the building in the background is the condominium opposite our house which was recently constructed)