A Life that Matters

Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master’s chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone, gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad, as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights. Superfluous wealth can only buy superfluities. Money is not required to buy any necessary of the soul.

- Henry David Thoreau

I would think that there is only one primary reason why you are on this page, to find out more about me and how I think. Thus, this will be as what I am thinking with few bars held, I appreciate your interest in me. I imagine that there is a certain and specific kind of person who is interested in knowing more about another people’s life, the kind who is able to love people and listen to them, a leader amongst the crowd. Sometimes, we give and other times, we receive. Leaders do both while most only do the latter.

Thank you for giving me your kind attention and I welcome you to my little world to receive part of my parcel of life which we are about to share. My courteous reader, come on, take my hand and let’s start the journey my friend, shall we? *Smiles*

 

My name is Maynas Eric Chua and I am not a perfect person.

Ever since what must been the most devastating event in my life during late 2007 which involved a failed relationship and their betrayal, people whom I most trusted for years, I left Australia back to my homeland, Singapore. It would be easy to blame those who were involved that it was all their fault, but no, I do accept that everything that happens and happened in our life are a result of our accumulated doings, and whatever happened, good or undesirable, are also part of our responsibilities. We are overall, always responsible for everything that happened and will happen in our lives, whether within our control or not.

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Perhaps it is as what Bly mentioned in his story, “Iron John”, that for a man to be made whole, there has to be something that rips him open, a wound that allows his soul to enter.

I would think that many of us will feel that we have been encountered some really tough events in life, so how can we know which one is that almost fatal wound?

It will be obvious and only we, ourselves, will know when such an event has occurred. That event which can be pinpointed to be said to have ended a phase of life, because we know that future chapters in your life would have been reluctantly altered and not going to be the same as before. What that event is, will always be unique to each of us and only we can decide how to dealt with it. To give up, let go or stay strong and move forward to thrive.

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I would think that only when we truly grasp the full responsibility of how we live our own lives, we might be always searching for something or someone to blame instead of accepting we are responsible for our circumstances. There will always be choices in how we choose to live our one life and I would think that life is mainly about figuring out how to make the best choices that we can which are true to our own principles and values, as much as we can. Even though sometimes we do mess up, sometimes severely, however, to err is but human nature. Still, it’s not an excuse to live through life blindly.

Billions of people have come and went before us, their success and failure leaves clues, some obvious while some require some thinking to decipher the messages left behind in their lives for us to learn from.

Don’t blame others, but accept the blame given to you if it is rightfully yours to take. The point is to improve and try your best not to make the same mistake again. The point is to live your life as fully as you can, with the best of your ability and keep on improving your abilities.

That is your sole responsibility in life, to live the best that you can be through a truthful validation of yourself, how you really want to live your life and not just go along with the flow of the automated life cultures of the mass might pressure us to follow.

 

 

Life hasn’t been the same since I decided to find out the meaning of my life.

I would think that it was brilliantly quoted by the wise ones of the past who said “the meaning of life is the meaning that we choose to give it.” No two persons in the world live the same life and wants exactly the same things, not even the neighbour who lives next door, not even our relatives, siblings or spouses. We may desire to have some of the same things in life but they are never specifically and exactly the same.

As humans, we desire to be unique from others through looks, clothes, activities and most things in life. Most of us would find it hard to accept living as ants which all look and behave basically in the same manner as the next. An easy way to explain our humanly behaviour is that we instinctively want to stand out from the rest and to be noticed as potential mates for the opposite gender, to mate, have offsprings and ensure the survival of our species and bloodline. These natural instincts and behaviour would seem to be have been encoded into our DNA.

However, natural instincts are just but natural instincts. We, as thinking beings, have developed the ability to think beyond abstract concept, deep inside our thoughts, most of us are not satisfied just living a life to reproduce and to survive, many of us desire for a meaning of life. Why we live our lives the way we do and how can we live this only life we have the best that we can and in a way, make it a life that matters, one life which changes something in the world in which we live in and improve it for those around us, ourselves and the world.

I would think some people might find it offensive when others say that there are many people who are living ordinary and normal lives, not truly living their lives to the best of their ability but just merely going through the journey of living. If someone said that to me, yes, I might find it offensive too. But if we do think about it, living an average life is what the majority of people in the world are doing AND that is exactly what living things are supposed to do. To live, reproduce and expire.

 

Is a Human merely a Mayfly who just lives longer?

If there are any doubts, just look at the mayfly, it only lives for 30 minutes to one day depending on their species and their primary function as an adult is to reproduce, then expire. If we take a look around the world of the living, that is pretty much what every other living thing in the world is doing, the only difference is that most of them live much longer. Does that include us Humans as well?

Most likely, it was supposed to be that way. A number of people might disagree that no one should live an ordinary and unremarkable life, simply going through the motion of living as how the majority lived before or since, but if they take a moment and reflect back upon themselves at what they having been doing throughout their live and predict their own futures, most might have to painfully admit that they themselves, have been pretty unremarkable in their lives so far and don’t really have much of a chance to create a remarkable life in the near future or further. Most of us are likely to be in this group by the end of our lives.

However, it is not that some lives in the world do not matter, all our lives do matter in a sense. This perspective is not easy to grip and is of course, highly debatable.

There are times when someone who is able to explain what we think but couldn’t really put in words what we have thought of, and when it happens, it leaves us in awe. I was too, when I read the brilliant thought that J put into words. I am not one of the best writers in the world and neither do I claim to be one, but I could recognize the brilliance in a quality thought when I see one and this was one of them, my friend J, brilliantly mentioned:

“…all of our lives matter, but sometimes we don’t feel that way. We doubt ourselves and question our purpose and whether or not we have anything useful to offer anyone much less the world.

We fear that we do not, and that others see only our weaknesses. Because of this fear we sometimes hide our own light so that others are not blinded by it. We bring a shame factor to a gift that is given to us from our creator. We do not wish others to be so overwhelmed with our brilliance as to be afraid to shine themselves. We are afraid that our light will cast a shadow upon theirs. When we do this, we not only are underestimating the people who surround us, but we are also denying ourselves our God given right to shine! Ego and fear, they’ll get you every time!” - J

 

Defining “A Life That Matters” through a Mayfly’s Life

Many of us have already realized that the greatest battles in our lives, are not going to be those which involves an enemy or competitor who wants to compete with you. The greatest battles, as the wise said, are always within ourselves, between ourselves. I would think that everyone who is adequate both mentally and physically, without being excellent in either, are all capable of being remarkable in their lives. Remarkable as in its meaning, something to remark and mentioning about.

An ordinary Mayfly’s life is nothing worth remarking about by other Mayflies, it comes and goes without much impact and it doesn’t really matter. How then, can the Mayfly’s life be remarkable? Perhaps, for 10 minutes of it’s 30 minutes lifespan, one Mayfly decides to do something that has never been done before, a little dance in flight consisting of various entertaining moves and as a result, cheered up the lives of the other Mayflies within the community, that’s something pretty remarkable, don’t you think so?

How about the Mayfly who decided to use most of the time of its life to distract the frogs and lead them away from where the other Mayflies are, even if the other Mayflies do not know about what that certain Mayfly did to save them, wouldn’t it still be a remarkable deed to have happened? Even if that heroic act was not recognized, but to the Mayfly who did it, it would be something that they find remarkable in their own lives which even though no one else knows, it itself knows and that is enough for them to know that their lives mattered.

The above cases are common in the Human world as well, people who seek to create new methods to improve the lives of other people as in the first Mayfly’s case, and people who devoted much of the time in their lives to help other people live better lives but are pretty much left unnoticed and unappreciated, such as the case of the second Mayfly.

To me, and I would think that by most people’s standards, these would seem to be quite remarkable ways of living a life and could be termed as “A Life Which Mattered.” The life which is invested into improving other people’s lives and the life which is remarkable in its own right helping others live better lives without being noticed or appreciated because the part that mattered is in doing, not showing.

However, these are not exactly the ways I would like to create my own life which I hope to be remarkable and how I intend to make it one that matters.

 

Mayfly E’s Life which Mattered

There is a third kind of Mayfly who lives its life differently. Let’s code this Mayfly, E. Mayfly E’s first 5 minutes of his life is spent like any other Mayfly, just buzzing around in his life trying to avoid being tongue lashed by the army of frogs hidden in ambush all around them and trying to find a suitable mate to reproduce with. However, after witnessing the vast numbers of his fellow Mayflies getting eaten up by frogs, he decided to do what no other Mayfly he knew was did before, Mayfly E was determined to find out how to have a systematic approach to avoid getting eaten up by frogs and to help the community thrive. The other Mayflies laughed at him because it seemed impossible to do but that didn’t stop Mayfly E from doing what he recognized is an important thing to do for the community and what will give his own life an unique meaning which he will be proud of.

So Mayfly E invested the next 10 minutes of its adult life finding out from the elder Mayflies near expiration about how a Mayfly’s life pattern is like, what are the things to take note of, where the frogs are, what areas are the best for the Mayfly community to thrive because of ideal environments and few predators, all the while taking notes as he asks questions and getting answers. Not only that, Mayfly E asked other species of insects as well and with his accumulated knowledge, he went on to spend the next 10 minutes of his life teaching the other Mayflies, young or old about what he knew.

Although half of the Mayflies were not interested in what Mayfly E told them and were more interested in finding the best mate from among the crowd, the other half realized that what Mayfly E had to say and teach was important to the Mayfly community and the knowledge will not only enable them to survive the attacks from the frogs and thrive, they also learnt that they could instill meaning into their lives and provide more value for the community as well as a deeper sense of self respect for themselves. They were not just Mayflies who reproduce and died off, they wanted to be Mayflies who also have lives that mattered because of what they did during their lives to help themselves, others and future generations!

Mayfly E then invested the rest of his 5 remaining minutes of life enjoying the company of his friends and family, just doing what Mayflies do, live a life.

Perhaps for the next future generations, Mayfly E’s life will be mentioned and recognized as the “One” who started the movement for self-consciousness and finding methods that worked to thrive in life, it comes as a bonus but not really what Mayfly E was thinking of whence he lived. Mayfly E just wanted to live a life that mattered, to his friends and family, to the community but more importantly, to himself that he has managed to live a successful and fruitful life which is remarkable and has deeper meaning to it.

 

 

I Hope to Create a Life that Matters

Through Mayfly E’s story, I would think amongst the people who read it, they might recognize that that’s basically the dreams of many a people in regards to how they would have wanted to live their lives. Ironically, not many will choose it although they would want it. Perhaps because they don’t know many other people in the world before or since who lived their lives that way, the road less travelled. For me, I chose this path willingly and yes, I am as scared and insecure like the rest of the world who chose to do something strangely unfamiliar to the common crowd.

Through my research in life, I recognized that the feeling of making change to the world and living a life with meaning is pretty much a common phenomenon in the human race for people in their mid twenties where they crave for a deeper meaning and understanding of life. I was born in 1982 and this is the year 2009. A few years ago, I have kept on searching for the answer to the question, “How can I create a life that matters?” The answer I was seeking wasn’t very clear and definitive until in early 2009, that I had the answer all along right under my nose but I did not realize it.

The answer was simply “with people.” I can create a life that matters with people, together with people, we can do great things together. The efforts of one man alone is severely limited and restricted, as they say “No matter how talented you are, one person alone cannot change the world.”

Thus, I would think that I am kind of like a Mayfly E in its third stage of his adult life and now is the time to spread the word, grow together, share the knowledge, create a life that matters and help others who wish to, create a life that matters too. We will also choose to live the example of Mayfly E’s life, not to become an extreme altruist but to be recognized for doing remarkable things, to inspire others to do the same as they see the rewards in ways that helped others and also for self fulfilment mentally, spiritually and economically.

Thank you my courteous reader for reading this and I hoped you enjoyed it as much as it is my pleasure to put this in words for you. My words will end here but our deeds shall continue forward, so let’s move forward together and do our best to create lives that matter, shall we? *Smiles*