I was invited by My Paper to submit another article after the one that was published on 5 Mar…the deadline was 31 Mar and yes, of course I submitted my ‘draft’ on 31 Mar. To my utter surprise, Esther emailed me at 8.55pm on 1 Apr and told me that they’re taking the ‘draft’ and it would be out the next day i.e. today.
I was like “WHAT!”
It was already 2am when I read her email (after 1003fm). I didn’t even have a chance to contact her lol.
Err..it was only a draft…..
Honestly I can’t work in the news; it’s too much for my heart. I almost thought it might be an April fool’s joke.
Btw, my initial title for this article is “Fear? Just paint”. 
Will post my original article (pre length-edit) later on..
Edit: To all who have emailed me or left comments for me here, thank you so much for dropping a note. Here is the original:
BTW – Fear? Just paint.
After sending my father off at the airport just the other night, my mum and some relatives decided to grab some food and drinks. I did not know the way to the café then, and it had seemed to be such a long walk. Strangely, I gained a new perspective out of it.
The journey always feels longer when you are travelling towards a destination using a path you have never taken before. All the unfamiliar scenery that passes you by will make you look at them, perhaps a split second more. You will absorb as much as possible whatever that comes your way because you’re wary of danger, of getting lost, or simply the fear of what lies ahead.
However, when you reach the destination, and decide to go back to where you came from, the journey seems shorter, and you may not even pay as much attention to the scenery which you had witnessed earlier. This time round, you may only pay attention to the few landmarks or eye-catching things you had remembered to lead you back.
Life is such, isn’t it?
At times it seems so difficult to move forward because we are simply so scared of what lies ahead. The journey to the unknown is often so much more difficult than a simple act of reflection.
Each time we put in our sweat working it out for what seems like endless days and nights to conquer major exams like ‘A’ or ‘O’ levels or tertiary exams, we only remember a few scenes of mugging at the library or study places, and maybe a tiny weeny bit of hardship upon reflection.
We are all so used to having the government set the paths for us (PSLE, ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, and the stipulated exams in Polytechnics or Universities), some of us may feel lost when suddenly we have full control of what we can do with our lives. When there are no more goals set by others to reach, some of us lose sight of what we want because we were simply not trained to think about what we really like to pursue in life.
Isn’t it such a wonderful thing to be able to think, choose, and plan (unlike animals or plants in this living Earth)? So why not indulge in this privilege?
We can choose to use black/red/blue/yellow/neon green etc crayons to paint our canvas of life with circles, dots, stripes, patterns or other unique designs to call our own. We are the ones holding the crayon, and we can have colourful lives if we choose to. We know it cannot be with the use of a pencil because actions are not erasable, but that is where it is interesting.
The whole picture is colourful just because you have used many different types of colours – even black (which initially might have been a mistake) could bring out the best of the other colours in the whole picture. We all know the marks left behind by an erased pencil trace are ugly, so don’t adopt the pencil attitude. Don’t leave an eraser for ‘what if’. If you like something, believe in it, choose it, plan for it, do it and make your portrait colourful.
Many years from now, when we have flashbacks on our lives, hopefully we will see streams and streaks of exciting colours to call our own.
