On reflection, however, I realized that this is not always the case. My inconsistency took me by surprise. An incident last week made me wake up. I totally deserved those 2 phonecalls when I got told off. Make a decision, Wai Jia. You just have to decide, we can't decide for you.
It was about my next book, A Taste of Rainbow, due to be launched next month. Everyone was ready to send it to print, but we couldn’t do so until we knew exactly how many copies we wanted, and what we wanted to do with those copies. Would funds be raised? Where would they go? Will the books hit the public bookstores or schools? How many copies are enough? Would there be a fundraising event?
Everyone had given me their 2 cents. But over the past months, all I’d been doing was going roundtable asking each person what he/she thought was best. Oh so you think we should do this, eh? Okay, yea, sure.
Round and round we went, until someone got fed up and said to me, Make a decision, Wai Jia. You just have to decide, we can't decide for you. I think, everyone else felt the same way.
I learnt a very important lesson that day: that worse than making the wrong choice, is making no choice at all.
I realise, I was afraid. I was afraid if I decided on say, 3000 copies, there might not be enough to go around. Or that there may be copies lying around in second-hand bookstores or trash bins. I was afraid if I decided that this would purely be a public education drive to raise awareness for eating disorders and depression and there would be no fundraising, some kid out there was going to be deprived of treatment because he comes from a low-income family. I'm afraid, that if I decide to take on interviews, some young reporter out there waiting all year for a good story will treat me like fodder.
I realized, that I really was just afraid. And I wasn’t ready to make a decision of such magnitude by myself. I assumed everyone else knew better. The bottom line was, I wasn't ready to take the responsibility.
When I finally jotted my Decision down, on exactly how many copies to print, where they would go, what purpose they would serve, I cried. It was not a logical emotion. It took so much of me just to say, okay, I'm not really sure if this is the best decision but here goes. Inside my head, this loud booming voice kept echoing: Why don't these people make the decision for you? They are The Professionals. You are not. You’re just a 23-year old girl- what do you know?
I forgot, that I'm an adult now, and people see me as one. I forgot, that the advice I most often give youth about dreaming big is to believe in oneself and never to let anyone tell you that you can’t, because you can. Those were my exact words in the TV interview that day. I had been playing the sick role for so long, assuming other people knew better that I forgot, I am capable of making my own decisions too.
At one season of my life, God wanted me to learn how to trust Him, let go and surrender to life, instead of being such a control freak over everything. He wanted me to humble me to see that very often, other people had better judgement than myself. I felt Kitesong was such a success because other people took over and the project flew from the subsequent decisions they made. I hadn’t realized I had entered a new season, one where God wanted me to learn how to trust myself and Him again, and learn that I could make good, measured decisions too. Kitesong taught me about releasing, while Rainbow is teaching me about asserting.
Some people have been asking me, sometimes jokingly, how has life been different after receiving the award. To be honest, life has been completely different and yet completely the same. Perhaps most significantly, I have become acutely aware of my deficiencies, and very much encouraged and motivated to better myself because a group of people believe in me to do so. I have become acutely aware of the infinite measure of God’s grace, as I try to conceive the magnitude of His generosity to use someone as myself with an unglamorous, broken past.
I keep forgetting, that I’m an adult now, fully capable of making good decisions. I may have got an award, I may be a medical student, but somewhere deep down inside, my mind still conceives me as that little girl who can't decide where she wants to have dinner. Why don't you decide? I'm easy. As long as it's not fast food, yea, you let me know.
I’m afraid of making bad decisions, and having to take responsibility for them.
This cannot on. When I start work as a junior doctor in May, I will be making tons of decisions every day. Do I escalate this situation to my senior? Does this patient require intensive care? It's 3am, do I need to phone my consultant? What if the patient dies? But what if it’s actually non-urgent and my senior scolds me instead? I have to decide.
An incident at church last Sunday fleshed this out quite clearly to me. A pastor was talking about young people getting married. At the end, he called for all the young people who wanted to get married eventually to go upfront. Lots of my friends went. I’m usually unabashed about going upfront to make commitments to God and such, but this time, my procrastination surprised me.
I realize, that the whole idea of marriage freaks me out at this point because it would require me to make a Decision. A decision that no one else can make for me, and whose consequence I must bear. What's going to happen? Can one ever be sure of one’s choice? And they shall cleave to become one flesh.
If he's a drinker and he hits me, that will be because I chose to ignore his social drinking before we married. If he rides a motorbike and becomes paralysed after a car accident, it would be because I didn’t stop him from riding as a wife. If we exasperate each other and drive each other up the wall, it will be because… did we make the wrong choice?
Being told off over the phone that day about my indecision about Rainbow taught me a very important life lesson that day: that worse than making the wrong choice, is making no choice at all.
I eventually went upfront. Yea, I guess I do want to get married someday. Even that, was a decision in itself and took me a lot of effort.
I am learning, sometimes, you just gotta bite the bullet and trust yourself and God.
It reminded me of my hamstring injury, of how I got injured so badly mainly because I didn’t trust my body to tell me what it could or could not do. I went roundtable asking all those other people whom I thought were More Professional than me because I assumed they knew better.
Another lesson: It doesn’t matter if other people are more experienced. The main point is, YOU need to make the choice, because this is YOUR body/race/project/patient/task. This is YOUR and not their responsibility.
It’s about taking responsibility, saying okay, I screwed up but it’s okay, I can learn from it.
My elder sis was right. Jia, you gotta learn to grow up. Someday, you're gonna be all by yourself, and you're gonna be taking care of other people too. But you know what? You can do it. I know you can.
I'm just so thankful for those last words over the phone to me: I know this is new to you, and it's a good learning experience. I'm not going to leave you in the lurch. We're going to guide you along the way if you make boo-boos. But you have to make the decision about Rainbow. Okay?
So I sat down, cancelled out all the questions I had typed out for other people to answer, and made my Decision. From now on, I will make conscious efforts to make decisions every day, without asking too much of what do you think? Is this okay? I'm okay with anything, what say you?
Instead, I will pray through my decision and say, I think this. Can do?
4000 copies of Rainbow go to print today. I hope we make it in time for the press release.
Fingers crossed.
Thank you EK.
" Roll your works upon God,
commit and trust them wholly to Him;
He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will,
and so shall your plans be agreeable and succeed."
- Proverbs 16:3
(Amplified version)
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