Jars of Thoughts

I am so glad to be alive.

As I was thrown off the motorbike, the first thought that came into my mind was “Oh shit”. In that short few seconds after, I felt like a human rag doll. I was helpless in my predicament and thought for sure that this was to be the end of me. I didn’t have time to contemplate about anything when it happened, even death, as the force of the collision threw me across the traffic and landed me in an open drain by the side of the road. There was no dramatic “entire life past me by” moment. Only a simple acknowledgement and resignation of what’s to come.

A complete and utter shit of a situation was what I was in.

The wind was knocked out of my chest when I landed in the drain. I remembered an immense pain ricocheting across my body as I laid in a foetal position on the muddy dirt in the cemented ditch. I remembered seeing the sky above me, a beautiful evening hue dotted with spots of white clouds.

The next few moments happened in a blur. Locals gathered and a couple of them came up to check on me, asking me questions in Balinese which I couldn’t understand at all. I recalled feeling all sorts of sore and pain as they tried to move me. My shirt was bloodied by the bone-deep wounds on my hip. My legs were covered in blood as well. I was slowly and very painfully lifted out of the drain and placed onto the back of a pick up truck, presumedly belonging to one of the kind locals. In broken English, someone told me I was to be transported to the hospital. I whispered a thank you to that man, a tear finally escaping from the corner of my eye. I was thankful to be alive, and thankful to the strangers who wasted no time in coming to my aid.

To cut a long story short, I was delivered to a private hospital’s A&E like a scene out of “ER”, stretcher, blood and all. Due to the language barrier and lack of insurance documents on me (although I did have insurance), it took more than 10 hours after I arrived before I got onto the operating table. An emotional affair ensues when my worried parents arrived the very next day to find me all bruised but thankfully stitched up (and despite the seriousness of the accident, I got away with only flesh wounds – no broken bones or internal bleeding). Two days later and under the insistence of my parents, I was flown back for further assessment and treatment in Singapore.

Never would I have imagined myself going through something like this, but here I am with all the scars to prove it. I have always lived each day like it’s my last but this close encounter with death has totally taken it to a whole new level. Should I be more afraid now to venture out into the world again because of this accident? I think not. Traumatic? Not if I can help it. Ugly scars? New stories to tell.

Indeed, many lessons have been learnt in this experience of mine (e.g. faith in humanity restored from all the kind samaritans who jumped to my rescue) but fear is definitely not one of them. In fact, it has probably given me more courage to seek out further and to live out my life fuller than ever before. After all, as our dear Kelly Clarkson sang in her song, “What doesn’t kill you (literally) makes you stronger.”

So here’s to a richer life with richer experiences, and to many more exciting adventures ahead. And might I say I can’t wait to get back on the “road” again (pun-intended). =)

#jarsofthoughts

I appreciate people who can think on their feet and are confident about who they are. I like it when they are not afraid to work hard for what they want in life and is relentless in wanting to become who they want to be in different aspects of their lives.

I love to see honesty, humility and kindness in them as well, knowing that they are confident that they have a place in this world without needing to try too hard. They react intuitively, genuinely, emotionally and intellectually to everything around them. They see past themselves are aware of the environment around them.

I love that they can take the leaps of faith in life while keeping their heads well above the water. Not just treading, but swimming. Succeeding, not in the conventional sense, but by their own standards and life goals.

Bear in mind, These aren’t expectations but simply a state of being. So if you are in my close circle of friends (and you know who you are), I just want to say that I am extremely proud to call you my friend, and I am superbly thankful to you for being such an inspiration to me. I love you, but only because you loved yourself first.

Stay awesome!

Being in your twenties is hard. You are expected to act like an adult and make something of yourself before you hit your thirties, when you are still very much a kid at heart from your teenage years not so long ago.

What’s good though, is that you still have the drive and imagination of your younger years and none of the world-wearied, keep-it-safe, been-there-done-that mentality.

Spend your time more on questioning rather than answering, and make the most of your time exploring rather than settling. Be adventurous and entertain possibilities and second chances. You should be are experimental, daring and hopeful because you are in your best self to make changes rather than settle for the second best things in life. You are your own man or woman.

Make it work.

Yesterday was the first time in a year that I cried my balls out for no apparent reason.

Okay, it wasn’t really nothing but it started off with me not knowing what the hell I was sobbing about. I was all ready to head out for a party, hair, clothes, shoes and all. All of a sudden, a huge wave of unexplainable dread and sadness took me over like a tropical flash flood. Caught off guard, my tears started to fall uncontrollably and try as I might, I couldn’t stop it. I was sobbing so hard like a baby in the middle of my room. Instinctively, I closed my doors so my parents wouldn’t hear me. I was an absolute mess, a contrast from my gathered-up self seconds ago. My mind tried to make sense of it all, as my physical need to cry overtook my body. What is up with me?

Ever seems I came back, I was experiencing a growing emptiness in my heart. I felt lost. I thought it was because I wasn’t able to adapt back to the life here. I thought it was because I found new love for other lands and people overseas. I thought I was too good for this place. I thought, I thought and I thought… I gave myself countless reasons to validate my inability to be happy here. As i did so, the size of the void in my heart grew. I slowly changed. A shadow, of a shadow of my former self. I became more insecure, fearful, whiny and complacent. I was also indulging in unhealthy distractions to try to fill up the void that I was unknowingly creating. I was going down the rabbit hole filled with my own lies and excuses.

And it hit me while I was sobbing away. If I really am a true traveler of the world as I like to be known for, shouldn’t adapting and assimilating into changing cultures be part of the game, my own country included? I was lying to myself. I was running away. Beneath the glammed-up image of a seemingly cool vagabond gamely exploring the world whenever and wherever he feels like it, I was a scared little boy inside, running away from home, away from reality. All the arsenal I’ve been building while traveling for so long came to naught when I got back home. I was preparing for the wrong battle all these while.

Perhaps I did discovered something important while traveling. Perhaps it was life-changing. Perhaps, even all-inspiring. But I realised discovery does not equate to understanding. And I wasn’t able to fully understand the beauty of all that I have learnt and experienced while traveling because there is still a clot to my heart. A clot I haven’t removed before I left Singapore.

I was still hurting from my previous relationship. Not to be mistaken that I haven’t gotten over the person in question. I have. But I haven’t gotten over the break up itself. I was still hurting, over the lost of all my hopes and dreams, invariably tied to the relationship that I was in. So much was invested into it. I was ready to settle down. I was ready to make it the rest of my life. I was ready to die with it. When it all ended, I shut down. I thought I moved on but what I really did was lock it up somewhere deep in my heart under the guise of faux-bravado. It has been simmering over the whole year of 2014 and had finally reached to a boil last night.

As my last tear finally fell and the streams on my face has turned to stains, I knew what I had to do. It is time for me to step out into the light again.

“Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness…”

As with any places that one may visit, it is with the people that you meet along the way that makes it unforgettable. While I can take the pictures of the beautiful places I have been to and bring them back home, it is the friends that I make in this journey that helps me to stay connected to this great, big and amazing world I am currently trekking on.

Japan took my breath away.

Seeing Mt Fuji was amazing, having a 10 days meditation retreat in the mountains of Kyoto was amazing, walking down the colourful streets of Tokyo was amazing, sitting on warm toilet seats was amazing, seeing the beautiful temples with histories dating back to hundreds of years was amazing, barbecuing meat on the rooftop in the cold was amazing, seeing snowflakes falling down from the sky for the very first time in my life was amazing, but none of those can compare to the people whom I have met and befriended. The people, were priceless.

A country known for its amazingly accommodating and helpful people, making friends was as simple as offering a smile to a perfect stranger. Literally. I am so thankful for the people that I have been so blessed to know in my one month there. The love, kindness and compassion that flows so unconditionally from them has not only restored my faith in mankind, it has also inspired and taught me how to truly live my life the right way. Without all the complications that are thrown at us on a daily basis, I have learnt how to love simply because it should come naturally FROM us, not out of any obligations or influences that is AROUND us. I have learnt how to see things with my HEART and not just with my MIND. I have learnt how to take in and enjoy the PRESENT, and not be bogged down by my PAST and worry excessively about my FUTURE.

While the physical bag I am carrying on this journey may be heavy, the spiritual fruits I have collected so far has brought a surreal lightness to my feet, urging me to run and continue on this great big adventure, thirsting for more and more amazing encounters to come, more and more lessons to be learnt.

Thank you my new friends, and may we see each other again soon.

Completed my 10 days meditation retreat at a meditation center located up in Hinokiyama, one of the many beautiful snowcapped mountains framing a beautiful countryside scenery in the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan. And as promised, here’s my update of what happened!

The meditation retreat, a “Vipasanna” meditation course to be exact, teaches an untainted form of meditation directly passed down by Buddha, the very same one that helped him achieve enlightenment, around 2500 years ago. “Vipasanna”, a word in Sanskrit, literally means “insights into the true nature of reality”. Sounds very deep doesn’t it? I thought so too, but read on.

The course was actually recommended by a very good friend of mine back in Singapore, who attended a same course in Cambodia, before I left for my travels last year. Not having done anything like that before, I was intrigued and decided to sign up for the next available course (there are many Vipasanna centers around the world but I chose Japan as I thought it would be quite a romantic notion to do it over there haha) with only one expectation, to get some solid quiet time alone, away from all the hustles and bustles of my life. I also thought it would be a good challenge for myself, that is to be totally technology free for 10 days and to undertake a course-mandatory vow of silence as the icing to the cake. Little did I knew that those two things were going to be the least of the challenges I was going to face in my time there.

It took me a whole day journey by bus and train to get to the center, all the way from Tokyo. The sky was already turning into a deep dark blue by the time I stepped off the shuttle bus, and into the midst of towering and magnificent pine trees around a small cluster of quaint yet simple wooden buildings that stood right before me. A was really a picture perfect setting, totally right out of a fairy tale story. I was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of awe and anticipation bubbling inside of me. What will the next 10 days be like? I took a deep breath from the cold evening air and hoped for the best.

To cut a really long story short, the duration of my time there was mentally and physically painful. The days seemed simple. Meditations, meals and sleep. For a city boy like me, it was hell. Having to wake up at 4am and sleep at 9pm everyday, sit and meditate in a single posture for hours on end, simple vegetarian Japanese meals for the first two meals of the day (6.30am and 11am) and only fruits for dinner (5pm), it was torture to me, in every sense of the word.

The only thing I really looked forward to was the video lessons in the evenings, where the enigmatic teacher, S.N.Goenka, the man who re-popularized Vipasanna meditation back into the world in the late 80s, taught us on the technique of Vipasanna meditation in a nurturing, humorous and engaging way. I was always super attentive, back straight, and chins up. i do have to admit however, that this was partly because it was the most interesting thing that happens every day. Lol

However, as each day painstakingly rolled by, I slowly found myself changing. I didn’t realize it at first but slowly became more and more apparent.

From a person with a chip on my shoulder for the world, I was turning into someone who didn’t feel the need to change the world to be happy. I learnt the impermanence of all things that exist and to accept reality as it is. I learnt how to let go of things and move on. I learnt to be more experiential instead of blindly following things without truly understanding them. I learnt how to be truly be happy, not for the everything around me that changes with time, but by my own merits and the equanimity of my own mind and body. It was in short, life-changing.

To fully share how and what I learnt in its entirety during this time however, will simply not do this method of meditation any justice. I would seriously recommend to experience it for yourself. Don’t doubt in its authenticity. I can personally vouch for that (if you take it seriously of course). Take a leap of faith, find the time and just do it. If you think about it, you really have nothing to lose. This method, in all honesty, isn’t a Buddhist meditation, or any other religious practices in any rhyme or way. It is in essence, a universal method of understanding and loving all things around us, and most importantly, ourselves.

All In all, I feel thoroughly blessed to have gone for this course and to be able have the opportunity to take this journey of self discovery and self love this year. Have I achieved my goal? Not yet, not by a long mile. But I know I have taken the first step in this journey. The only thing I need to concern myself with now is path that lies before me, and that is all that matters.

So this is the last week on my job and I am starting to feel really overwhelmed. Excitement and fear are all melting together, creating shocks of nervous energy across my whole body. While my heart tells me I will be alright and that I can do this, my logical mind still keep sending out a flashing red alert, warning me a big change is about to happen, the biggest in my life yet. This is really happening!!!

Though I have been mentally armoring myself for this expected onslaught of emotions since a month ago, I know now that one can never really be truly prepared for this kind of thing. It feels as if a thousand butterflies are now fluttering in my stomach, making me extremely nauseous. With a little more than a month left now, I am beginning to see my “jigsaw puzzle” fitting in piece by piece with all the gathering of necessities, packing, selling, researching and saving up… and it is making this journey become more and more real each day. I find myself constantly thinking how reckless and crazy I actually am, to travel indefinitely, alone and with barely an itinerary to save myself. Thousands of thoughts started to creep up my mind to tell me why I shouldn’t do this. Thoughts of not having enough money, encountering dangers on the road, loneliness, helplessness, hunger, culture shock, falling sick…

I can barely breathe now.

I know I need to get a hold of myself, I know I owe it to myself to go. I know I need to remind myself WHY I am going. I know I need to remind myself why I am LEAVING.

Damn, this is not easy at all. Where’s my Xanax?

You can do this Jared, you can do this… You can…