A New Chapter (Part 2)

I actually meant to finish this post before I left America, but one thing led to another and now I found myself back in my home, here in Singapore, after a 5 weeks trip in Australia (hopefully I'd get to blog about that soon as well).

Now that I've been hanging around the house for the past few days, getting used to the weather, listening to (and trying to speak like) Singlish, adjusting to the crowds in MRT and shopping malls and setting up job interviews, I can't help but feel a bit out of place, and anxious. It feels almost like that last few days before I left Singapore for America, when I was nervous and excited about the new life overseas. This is indeed a new chapter of my life and I'm glad that the past 26 years have been time well-spent. But this new chapter is gonna be quite different from all the previous chapters; it used to be all about building up the potential, that's pretty much all I was trying to do. Study hard, get in a good school, build a solid foundation. But from now on, it'd be about meeting the potentials, or delivering on the "promises". I reckon this second half is gonna be a much tougher ride than the first half.

Thing is, I love day-dreaming, and I dream big. It's easy, however, to have over-sized ambitions when reality is still eons away. Yet when I look at the great men I truly admire (Steve Jobs for one), they've proven that a person can indeed achieve great things in his/her lifetime. So it is possible, these guys have done it before...I know I want to do great things; I want to play a significant role in making this world a better place to live in. But am I prepared? Will I settle for a comfortable living wage, or will I take on the risk necessary to go after my dreams?



Feeling abit disillusioned, I turned to YouTube for some inspiration and found this clip of Steve Jobs' speech at the 2005 Stanford graduation class. I've watched it before but now what he's saying really hits home for me, especially his story on "connecting the dots". Indeed I've painted many dots in the past 26 years. Some are in music, some are in sciences, some are in my travel experiences, others are in relationships. I know that I've been a very very lucky guy so far, I've been blessed with so many opportunities in the past. But can I connect these dots and make something great out of this "potential-realization" stage of my life? Well, I take comfort in what Steve said in his speech:

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference."

So I'd trust in all the dots that I've painted in the past, and that someday I'd connect them to make great contribution to this world. So, Michael, keep the dream alive man!