A car crash took
away three loved ones, her parents and brother.
Ms
Yeo was on a holiday with family in Arizona and a tragic road accident, when
the car swerved off to the opposite lane (which then collided into an oncoming
van), resulted in the lost of four lives; that is, three from Ms Yeo's side and
the driver of the van, who was from Spain.
Altogether, five people were
injured, including Ms Yeo, who had undergone surgery of her spine and is now in
stable condition.
Ms Yeo is a first-year
undergraduate from NTU's Wee Kim Wee School of Commnication and Information.
While a life is a life,
regardless of background and status, one of the lost was Ms Yeo's brother,
Justin, who was a SAF scholar. He was then studying in University of Berkeley
and his family went over to join him for a end-year holiday.
What's more, Justin was
"among the top A level graduates in Dunman High School in 2013, and
received a SAF Merit Scholarship in 2015."
He had also invented an app
"that lets users easily notify friends when they have reached their
intended destination, without having to send out text messages."
Further, Justin "recently
joined an entrepreneurship fraternity" and his future was undoubtedly
bright before the tragedy happened last Friday.
It is also reported that Ms Yeo's
father was a renovation contractor but he had to cease working due to a stroke,
and her mother, an administrative worker, became the sole breadwinner.
Lesson? I note that friends of
Justin and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have declined to comment, citing
respect for Ms Yeo's privacy.
Personally, I can't imagine the
emotional pain Ms Yeo has to go through during such time. The loss is not only
sudden and unexpected, it is also personal and immeasurable. It reports that
her relatives have travelled over to be by her side.
On my part, any commentary I have
is strictly related to my own life, and nothing more.
Such event tends to compel you to
do some soul-searching, and it is timely for me considering that I have come to
the end of one year and soon, the beginning of another.
Whether I admit it or not, or
whether I am conscious of it or not, such tragedy forces me to think about the
meaning of my own life. It forces me to question the many assumptions upon
which I have defined what is meaningful to and for me in my own mortal journey.
While I have nothing to say about
the tragedy, fully respecting Ms Yeo's privacy, and hoping for her recovery and
praying for resilience, I have much to say about how I have been living my life
thus far.
For indeed, an unexamined life is
not worth living.
But what is scarier still is to
examine your own life, and then walk away not knowing what's wrong with it (or
worse, being lulled into a delusion that you are good as you are).
I guess Socrates would have been
even more appalled by that than to live an unexamined life.
For one is about ignorance, and
the other is about self-deception. And nothing is more lamentable than to spend
your whole life pursuing a misguided belief (because you think is right).
So, for starters, I hope to spend
the remainder of the year re-examining the automatic assumptions I have ridden
upon that I thought have given my life meaning.
Three areas come to mind.
1) Work. This has to be a means
to an end, and the end is not just restricted to providing for the family,
paying the bills.
Since work will occupy a major
part of my life, the time spent ought to justify the person I am becoming or
will become at the end of the day.
Not everyone loves his/her job,
and most does it to pay the bills. But, a reexamination in this area will
compel me to see beyond the paying of bills.
I admit that I may not have the
same passion daily for my work, but at least, I must sustain the passion to
trust that what I am doing is making a difference in the life of another,
however small.
Be it a doctor, an engineer or a
cleaner, our commitment to the work may result in a life saved, a sturdier
bridge or a safe and clean floor.
Either ways, we are making a
difference. In other words. between saving a life and maintaining a clean
environment, the difference is always felt.
And the meaning I get from my
work should make me reach out beyond myself to touch lives. This brings me to
the second area.
2) Self. This again has to be a
means to an end. The last thing I want to become at the end of the day is to
allow myself to be an end in itself by making use of other people to serve that
end.
And instead of making a
difference in other people's life, I demand that they first make a difference
in mine.
Everything then becomes
transactional whereby I am obsessed with the cost of the sacrifice at the
expense of the priceless transformation such a selfless sacrifice promises.
Living a meaningful life
therefore requires me to reexamine what makes me happy, that is, to live to
serve myself or others. If it is the former, then the happiness is empty and
very much self-deceiving. If the latter, the happiness is enduring and deeply
fulfilling. This brings me to my last lesson.
And...
3) Relationship. Ultimately, you
become a better person not by focusing on yourself, but on others. And concerning
building relationship, this has to be an end in itself.
Now, I am not advocating
self-neglect here, but self-denial (when it counts). And I understand that I
can never deepen a relationship or advance it by always looking to be no. 1
(unless of course, I am involved in a relationship of one - myself).
I think the greatest threat to a
marriage after some years is to think that you deserve better.
A marriage can withstand a lot if
both parties are prepared to work at it for the long haul. But it is internally
doomed when one feels that the other spouse is just not good enough, not
compatible anymore, or not looking after one's interest.
When the self becomes the end in
itself, the world becomes a resource mine (so to speak) to be exploited and
extracted for one's personal expansion or enrichment.
Sooner or later, a life like that
leaves a trail of barrenness and destruction behind.
But
when a life moves out of itself, committing to being a means to serve another,
the land he leaves behind is always lush, fertile and fruitful where everything
he plants through love, hope and faithfulness grows into abundance and that
will always be his enduring legacy. Cheerz.
