Chris is a friend that I met in Primary school, along with Richard, and later Yaosheng. Being the mischievous little rascals of the top class, we formed a strange bond that grew with many reprimands, punishments, detentions and torn exercise books.
I remember a "Zhou Lao Shi" who taught me Chinese vulgar language the very first day of school. The first words I added to my extremely limited mother tongue vocabulary was "ta ma de" and "huang ba dan". Chris and Richard can still remember the terrible verbal abuse we suffered those days. Ah, the ability of teachers to strike terror and fear into students those days. Students are way too pampered today. During my internship at CHIJ STC, in order to get two female students to put their legs down from the table, I had to make a caustic remark about their leg hair. It worked brilliantly. My own creativity amazes me, but I don't think it'll last too long if it becomes an everyday thing.
Anyway, after PSLE, we all went our different ways. Yaosheng, the ever-brilliant student, went to RI as expected. Richard and myself settled for Catholic High, which wasn't too bad a SEP school, and Chris went to Victoria.
We all turned out pretty well. At least I think so. Till I read Chris' last post.
I've hardly regretted any moment of my life. Not even the broken hearts, soured friendships, fat-boy days and crushed exam slips. But my dear friend here has found out that the last 7 years was a broken waste of his time. He regrets.
For some of you reading this post, I've lost my temper at you pretty often. Nicholas, Jason, RJ, just to name a few. You know why? Because I don't want you to end up like that. In Primary school, all four of us guys, Yaosheng, Chris, Richard and myself; we were the brightest, most charismatic kids. In addition, Yaosheng has determination, Richard has innocence, Chris has wittiness, I have creativity. In terms of results, we weren't always the cream of the crop, but any outside observer would have realized that the 4 of us weren't going to be ordinary people. We were destined for greatness right from the start.
But look what happened. Things change. Sometimes we meet with bad influences, we hit a crossroad, we knock into an obstacle, we backslide. If we don't pick ourselves up, if life loses its meaning, if living loses its flavor, we find that we start to live with regret.
I don't want to live with regret. Nor do I want the people around me to live in regret. I don't want my parents to regret ever having me, so I push myself to be the most dilligent son ever. I don't want my friends to regret knowing me, so I push myself to be the most honest friend they could ever have. I don't want my brothers to regret not coming to me with their problems, so I make sure I'm available if they ever have to talk. I don't want the girls who had once made the decision to love me to ever regret doing so, and so I made an effort to be the ideal boyfriend.
And I haven't look back and regretted anything since. I want my life to be a testimony of how complete obedience to God's commands, taking initiative to please Him, honoring the people who deserve to be honored, and submitting to the authority God has placed (with a measure of discernment according to the Word) can be rewarding.
I don't get irritated by everyone. If I deem someone to be absolutely hopeless save only by the intervention of God, I see no point in losing my cool and investing more than the necessary amount of emotion into the relationship. But for some people, as I see them wasting their life away, a certain ache arises in my heart, and I either become naggy or sarcastic in order to get my point across.
Don't live life with regrets. Make sure at the end of the day, you can look back and say, "If I could do go back into time, I'll do everything the same way that I've had done."
I'm sorry if you're not happy with my recent attitude with you. But let's just say, I don't regret doing what I've been doing. To me, a true friend is one who counsels and corrects in love. I treat it as my loss should I reject someone who notices my faults and points them out to me. Why should I do any less for someone who matters to me?
Hush. Listen. Screw the broken heart within me. Forget the permanent scars in my soul. Don't even bring up the reasons for the tears we shed for one another. If I could love you all over again, I would. And with every inch of my being. -Valentino Casanova
The only things I regret... are the things I didn't do. -Joe Karbo
Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it - I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while - Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. -Paul (2 Cor 7:8-9)
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