It's the first day of CNY, there's some lion dancing happening outside my house and I just went visitng with a few of my cousins (collected quite a fair bit of hongbaos too)

But admist all the festivities, all the jokes and laughter amongst the "kids" as we go visiting, Chinese New Year is a good time to spend reflecting. CNY is a "second-chance" new year, it's like if we don't exactly start the actual new year right, CNY is a new beginning for us once more. So here are a few thoughts on a few things I find important.

Somehow, no matter how many new beginnings, we always need even newer ones, don't we? There's a certain excitement in knowing that it's a whole brand new start, to say that "From today on, we will be productive", but yet as time passes by we always need to say that. There's always a need for constant renewal I realized, a constant reminder that each day should be productive.

Productive. I understand from the viewpoint that every day should be lived well because time is so precious. Oh, how many times have we heard that - don't waste time, time is precious. It's not that I have anything against it, I can fully embrace that life is short and in a matter of a blinking of an eye, time flies. Yes, I've experienced it before, and I'm still experiencing it. To think that my days in Primary School don't seem too far away and yet I am entering into NS next year, that's a scary thought. So it's true, life is short, time is precious and definitely limited.

But my reservations about so obsessed in "being productive" is how narrowly we define "productive". From the viewpoint that we don't want to waste time and make our moments count and make as many great memories and experiences as possible, the standard definition of "productive" is quite a paradox really. Studying so hard for the A levels until almost all my time is consumed by it, does it really make our moments count? Is it really that great a memory?

As I was catching up with my old English teacher (on Facebook, ironically termed as a "wasting-time platform), I was talking all about my H3s and whatever nots. She wasn't surprised, I haven't changed very much since Sec 4, and I thank her for her encouragements:

Haha I'm not surprised that you're doing a lot and running yourself to the ground as always:) You always push yourself all the way:) all the best! You can do it, as u always have.

But one thing that struck me more than all the encouraging words were words of advice, from someone who has been through everything and looks back at her own memories and the "moments" she created with whatever time she had back then:

Don't forget to have fun, you'll remember the fun bits much more than the studying part:)

To a certain extent, we do remember our studying part. We may reminiscence about it with our friends, "oh don't you remember how much we studied back in JC, that we went home every day first thing we do take out our books and just study?" Sure, nice memory. But more than that, my conversations in just remembering our past went more like that: "Oh don't you remember how screwed up we were? How much fun we used to have?"

So, what's my point: Studying is not important? Definitely not, A levels are important and it would be ironic to tell you that it isn't because I'm definitely going to study for my A levels. But perhaps, heyy, if you're going to study, why not drag a few friends along with you? Sure there'll be times where you guys get distracted and start making jokes laughing about, but you'll remember and enjoy those times so much more than couping yourself up at home to study.

But more than that, start exploring everything. Life is short, just try out new stuff yknow, it's fun to learn new things once in a while. Of course, new good things, don't try things like smoking, drugs or whatnot. I'm talking about expanding your portfolio, take on new responsibilities, challenge yourself to the maximum, because it isn't that exciting to sit in front of the computer playing Neopets as it is playing the real game of life.

Heyy, and please, please for all those of you out there who'd rather study than spend time with friends: Don't think that playing and coming home late at night from all the social activities is a waste of time - no it isn't. Maybe waiting on the bus alone is - heyy, by all means, take out some stuff to study. Maybe we are studying an ineffective way - change that and study with a technique that gets you more output from whatever input you have. Use those times to study, and you realize you have so much more time than you think. You don't need to sacrifice your social life, nor do you need to have less fun just because you are "studying".

At the end of the day, we can look back and we realize - heyy, all the opportunities I had to just have so much fun, just go out with friends for supper and do all kinds of stuff together, I missed it all. Is it that worth it? It's not mutually exclusive, it's possible to get good grades and have a social life. But not if you're "studying" by redoing your TYS even though you know the whole book inside out - the marginal benefits of that is so much less than the marginal cost anyway.

Relax, give a bit of time for yourselves. But all that being said, there's something else even more important that we shouldn't sacrifice studying for. And that's our spiritual walk.

Matt 6:33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteouness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

The way to be "productive" in our studying may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but it really is to seek God first. Spend some of your time studying to pray instead, because wisdom and intelligence are blessings that come from the Lord. We go through life climbing up a ladder, but many a times when we reach the top of the ladder we realize that we wanted to be on the other ladder instead.

Sometimes what we do, is like a rat race. Sure, you can be the winner rat, but at the end of the day, you're still a rat. All you've won is a rat race. To give a modern example, sometimes we want to be the winner neopets player, get millions or billions of neopoints. Haha, we work so hard for it, at the end of the day, it's just all neopets. You'd rather spend that effort earning real money, money that actually counts rather than neopoints.. -.-

That's just an analogy, real money isn't our focus. But when we focus on the ministry, we achieve this: We win every race. The race of studying and whatnot, it's given to you because you focused on your spiritual walk first. And the race of growing in the Lord, yeap, you've got that too. Everything falls into place.

When we try to focus on everything else and make our lives so self-centered, everything falls apart. When we just focus on God, everything falls into place.

Wow, that's quite a long rambling about thoughts on productivity. Now, thoughts on other matters: