I love myself because I am cheerful and passionate about everything I do. I learnt this during last summer on July 21, 2007. Last summer, I had just moved back to Hong Kong after living five years in Malaysia, and my mum told me to join a training camp in mid-July, coached by her. So I joined it and one of the experiential game turned my life around.
It was a game called “Life Boat,” and in it, we had to decide who was going to get on and live. I don’t want to describe the whole game here so I just share my feelings. As we were voting for those who could survive, I found myself thinking about why I should live. And in the end, I spared my life. It was not because I don’t love others, but because I loved myself.
That was the first time I started to realize that I really do have to love myself. In society nowadays, people often confuse themselves with selfishness and self-love. In fact, it is true that we must learn how to love ourselves before we can love one another. In my opinion, self-love is not something we discover in our journey of life. I think that we have already had self-love when we were babies, but during our childhood, one way or another, we lose the sense of it. So when we get older, we have to find the love that is for ourselves.
So that is why I cry when I love to, I smile and laugh and dance and sing when I love to. I am true to myself and no matter what others tell me, I love myself for who I am.
There are many things that cannot be learnt by just studying alone. Some of these are learnt from experiences in life. To this day, there’s an experience inside me that I will never forget.
It all started as an ordinary visit to my friend’s house. When I was seven, and I was curious about the house because it is so big. As I passed through the garden to enter the front door to look at it, I noticed something was staring at me. It was a wolfhound. It stared at me with intense eyes, looking at me as if I was not welcomed.
After visiting, I skipped down the stairs and left the garden. I didn’t notice the dog was following me.
Suddenly, the dog was biting as if he had never bitten before. My right leg was caught. I tried to fling him off, but it was futile. I didn’t know what to do, but pain came to me fast. So I started walking, taking little steps. But the dog didn’t seem to give up. Finally, I collapsed onto the ground while the dog still biting hard. I didn’t cry, I only heard myself calling for help and uncle heard me.
After that, I couldn’t recall much, I remembered that my uncle freed me and drove me to the hospital. I remembered seeing lots of blood as a doctor dressing my wounds. The next day, I watched the dog being dragged away to be killed for biting me. I had forgiven the dog already, I understood that it was out of sheer self-protection. I explained that to my mom, but she didn’t seem to understand. I couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t be killed if I bit someone else.
I was young then, as it was recalled. I realized the situation that happened in society all along. It is animal cruelty. Animals are not treated fairly because they are sick and old. Some of them are even brutally treated as if they are trash. I don’t have any pets, but I have learned to respect and love these animals. I hope that in the future, the situation will be better.
I have to learn from my own mistakes. I always tell myself ‘don’t be so stubborn,’ learn from my previous incidents and may my mistakes be my lessons in continuing my life. If I commit the same mistakes again and again, I’m stupid enough to understand what’s going on. There’s a wisdom behind my mistakes. One is enough, two is too much and if it happened thrice in my life, well, what can I say? I’m already stupid, so I make myself more stupid than ever.
Mistakes can be one of the ways to modify my own behaviour, but if I didn’t learn from it. Changes are my life becomes more complicated to begin with. “People are like tea bags – you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are.” In fact, I am not only able in managing time in studying, but also I have my own principles in daily life. I am able to be punctual because every day I will give myself a time to sleep. I think being punctual is easy if and only if you can make a habit of sleeping early and getting up early.
I remember that when I was small, I had an appointment with my friend. Because I was late, my friend ignored me forever. I had learnt a lesson and determined to be a punctual person to prevent being late again. In fact time management is a suitable arrangement in daily life. Nevertheless, we should not focus too much on time management sometimes. Then we can have a wonderful life!