NO SACRIFICE, NO RELATIONSHIP…

Tonight was supposed to be a romantic celebration that I had planned out. But I realized that in order to make that happened, I had to sacrifice the biggest requests of all times in my life ever thrown at me.

Myself.

Throughout the years I have told many people to be themselves and that others should love you for who you are and not what they want you to be. I’ve also told people not to pretend to be someone else especially when it concerns your heart. However, for the past 5 years, I realize that you can never ever or can’t compromise in relationship. There is no compromise in love. Only sacrifice.

Some may say that mutual sacrifice is equivalent to a compromise, that's not without realizing that in order for two lives to come together, some things that make you as an individual as who you are, would have to go. To throw away the things that makes up some part of myself for something more. That itself is a huge sacrifice.

It’s not easy to give in to her when you disagree of her actions in your heart.

It’s not easy to say ‘Sure Why Not, Go Ahead” when you wish she stayed back and cuddled you instead.

It’s not easy spending your wealth to make her happy when you barely can make it through the month.

It’s not easy losing a planned quality time to someone else who had abused it on a selfish and silly deed inflicted upon himself.

Yet… for the sake of seeing the smile on her face or hear words of gratitude like ‘Thanks Dear, You’re The Best’…suddenly… sacrificing seems like the right thing to do. I guess sacrifice is a part of a relationship we cannot do without. I guess we can’t satisfy both needs but only for the one we love. It’s always going to be a Win Lose situation when situation favours the need of the one you love.

It’s hard to put my wants aside and do what needs to be done for a future to be built for two. Too often I take the easy way out to avoid the coming hardship, believing that it's always for the better, never realising that it's just convenient for myself, never for the other, never for one another. It's a mistake I always make in the hopes that something good will come out of it, but I realize it never does. My desires for a short moment would end up blinding me of a heartbreak to come.

So we make that sacrifice. Giving up who we are so that the other can do what they do best. Stepping outside your comfort zone to an unknown for the sake of love. While there was a time when fear would stop me from taking those steps, I guess that time would have to go now. Even if that fear is still there, even if that journey lies buried in hardship, I guess I will have to make those sacrifices. Just for her to never stop smiling and to always hear her say ‘I Love You Dear’… in order for her to reach for the endless sky.

There is no compromise. There is only what we're willing to give up for a future we are willing to see happen. Even if it’s sacrificing oneself that defines who you are in the first place. After all, such is love. A knife's edge of enduring pain and eternal bliss.

HAVING RADICAL FAITH…

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Many Christians I know say, “I have faith that God can do all things” but do they really?  It’s easy for a person to say they have faith in the Lord when everything is going well or when one believes God for very little.  As for me, I believe God is calling me to a new level and that new level requires a new level of faith – radical faith.

When you say, “God is the same God yesterday and today”, what does this mean to you?  Do you believe God is more than able to separate a body of water just as He did for Moses for YOU?  Do you believe God can stop rain from falling for 3 and a half years just for YOU?

When I say I believe God is the same yesterday and today, it means I believe God is able to do these things and exceedingly more. Am I saying that you should have the same measure of faith I have?  No. Why? Because just as God is strengthening and developing my faith in Him, I know He’s doing the same with many others. I’ll be the first to say I have a LONG way to go spiritually and need a lot of strengthening and sharpening when it comes to faith.

However, I am saying that as a Christian, I need to have the type of faith that believes God for radical things, even if it goes against nature. I can pray for anything and if I have faith, I will receive it (Matthew 21:22). So now the question is, “Are you believing God for the impossible” “Are you believing God for radical things”?

The more I run my company, the more I realize how radical God is in my life. One moment there’s no business sales at all, next moment we’re running here and there trying to manage them like a headless chicken.

My fellow readers, start believing God to do the impossible.  Start asking God for things that naturally doesn’t make any sense. BELIEVE GOD FOR THINGS THAT’S CRAZY AND IMPOSSIBLE IN THE NATURAL REALM. If God can turn water into wine…how much more are you (being his child) able to ask God for these things and He does it.

Just the other day, I attended a launch and I bumped into CYRIL, the famous illusionists and I asked him a question. “How are you able to constantly come up with crazy-radical-just don’t make sense kinda magic tricks?” His answer, “Just believe Donovan”.

God wants to increase and sharpen your faith. Ask Him for it.

SOLITARY BLANKET…

I feel as if I am stuck in a limbo.

Unable to move in any direction until the matter has been settled. Unable to share my concerns with anyone even if they are willing to listen. Unable to walk away from my fears and worries until it consumes me being in its entirety.

I suppose, the lack of people's attention towards what I do has become a blessing. I don't have many people who would care to be curious enough to ask what is really wrong. For the most part, people's inability to see the worst side of things has kept the right questions at bay. It's not to say that the occasional advices to simply "chill out" or “relax la, take it easy” have been helpful either. It's hard enough to keep my mind off things when the tools for escaping this reality for even a moment have become the source of all the problems.

So I do whatever I can for that small ounce of comfort in the night. It's not enough that the rules have changed, but so has my world. Three weeks ago, if you had told me it would come to this, I wouldn't have believed you, but it has and I wasn't prepared for the storm that is to come.

Right now, what I need the most are the people who would be willing to stand by me, in darkness, in truth and in the face of it all. Yet what I really have is the only person in the world who has become a part of my world. Even in that, lies the cruel irony that we have to be divided by time, space and distance.

When you have no one left to turn to in the cold night, sometimes it's best to wear the solitary blanket, if not to keep warm, then at least to shut your eyes from all the nightmares that will eventually get you.

It's the only comfort I can think of.

MANIPULATING RESPONSIBILITIES……

Responsibilities come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you're an older brother watching over your younger kid or a breadwinner that supports your family, duty and obligation is one of those things that will not disappear no matter how much you try and run away from.

When you cross over that fine line between being a kid and being an adult, it isn't the amount of things you're responsible for that defines your level of maturity, it is often how committed you are to fulfilling your what you're asked to do that shows what kind of a person you are. As a general rule, most people will try and skimp out on as much responsibility as possible without looking like they are lazy. If given a chance, most people rather have their work done by others than doing it themselves.

For people resourceful enough to know what they are looking for, this gives them the opportunity to use situations like this as leverage in the workplace. You can use situations like this to gain access or information to things that aren't usually shared around the water cooler. If that doesn't work, at worse they can owe you a favour, which isn't always reliable, but can often come in handy when you least expect it. At the end of the day, a smart person can use this to put one leg up in whatever they are trying to accomplish. It makes you look better and people know you as the go-to guy whenever they need things done, something that's kinda handy when they are looking to see who gets the next promotion.

Of course, there is always a catch. Never bite off more than you can swallow. If you take on too much work, you're more liable to miss deadlines or fail them completely, looking like a failure and weakening your power base. So it's one of those things you have to know how to balance with skill. Do too little and you don't stand out from the people you work with. Do too much and you're just setting yourself up to be everyone's scapegoat.

It's the little things like this that make the difference between someone who spends the rest of their life working the same 9-5 job each day and someone who will eventually sit by the beach sipping mojitos and still be earning money. At least that's what I'd like to think. Regardless of where I am, it's always worked its magic.

That's the closest thing to saying that its never failed me yet.

LOVE UNTO DEATH, DO YOU NEVER PART…

I recently came across an article about a couple that's been married for 54 years and choosing to die together by assisted suicide. While what's known of the circumstances that prompted their choice to a certain extend ‘did make’ some sense to someone like me (he was becoming almost blind and deaf while she was diagnosed with terminal cancer), pro-life critics would argue otherwise.

Somehow, I find this final act between two people, who have been together for so long, hands held until the very end, emotionally touching. It's different from young people today who have made suicide pacts for reasons that often include disagreement with parents, being dumped by the other half or had a troublesome life. As opposed to those that would end their lives early for the sake of their youthful love, this couple lived their lives through the years, together, before choosing to end it together for reasons, which I can only ASSUME, are because they are so intertwined in each others lives that they cannot bear to be apart from one another especially in their physical condition. If they were going to go anyway, why not make it together rather than without the person you have lived and loved throughout the years?

While critics would say that relationships that lead to choices like this are unhealthy, I don't see how choosing to die together after living for so long, an unhealthy relationship. Maybe if people did a Romeo and Juliet in terms of age and circumstance, then even I would agree that there is something amiss there. Yet at the core of this passing exist the simple idea that in life, you can find someone you connect with so much who shares the same sentiment, in all its eccentricities and quirks.

Someone who complements and completes you in ways that would give both of you decades of endless surprise and discovery and never for once tired of it. If I were to lose someone after spending decades together, sharing the moments throughout as we always do even now, I wouldn't know how life could ever be as wonderful and beautiful again.

Maybe, it is understandable that acts like this which contradict the norm will always be labeled as inappropriate, but when it comes to relationships and what we do for it, maybe "normal" has never been the answer for one that works so beautifully. If you consider how most ‘normal relationships’ chance upon breaking up so often, then what's there to lose by being unconventional when you know it is who you both are and it works best for both of you?

As long as you enjoyed your company for as long as you lived, for as much as you lived, then that is all there is to it regardless of how it was lived…or ended. I understand that now. Sometimes, I wish that the rest of the world can share in that understanding too.