Water: The promise of hope and renewal

I was watching Yann Arthus-Bertrand's documentary, "Home" last Sunday with the fiancé (I have to get used to not saying boyfriend!) and was particularly moved by the part of the film which talked about the earth's water cycle.

"The Earth's water cycle is a process of constant renewal.

Waterfalls, water vapor, clouds, rain, springs, rivers, seas, oceans, glaciers... The cycle is never broken.

There's always the same quantity of water on Earth.

All the successive species on Earth have drunk the same water.

The astonishing matter that is water.

One of the most unstable of all.

It takes a liquid form as running water, gaseous as vapor, or solid as ice.

In Siberia, the frozen surfaces of the lakes in winter contain the trace of the forces that water deploys when it freezes.

Lighter than water, the ice floats.

It forms a protective mantle against the cold, under which life can go on.

The engine of life is linkage.

Everything is linked.

Nothing is self-sufficient.

Water and air are inseparable, united in life and for our life on Earth.

Sharing is everything.

Our Earth relies on a balance, in which every being has a role to play and exists only through the existence of another being.

A subtle, fragile harmony that is easily shattered."

As Malaysia faces an onslaught of drought coupled with haze due to forest fires, and having gone two weeks without water at home, I was struck by how much we take this simple privilege of running water for granted. In the past week, my eczema and sinuses have flared up all over again, leaving me desperate for rain to come again soon. The word "drought" seems far too primitive for a modernised, connected city like Kuala Lumpur - and yet if I pause long enough from my high-speed urban lifestyle it hits me that the lack of water is in fact an everyday reality for so many other countries. In fact, those who have less of it probably know how to value it more and use it more efficiently.

For me, lack of water is an inconvenience - maybe even a pain. For others, it's a matter of life an death. Almost 770 million people around the world do not have safe, clean water to drink. 2.5 billion people don’t have access to a proper toilet. And every day, 1,400 children die from diseases directly linked to unsafe water or a lack of basic sanitation facilities.

The news that this water rationing will continue for another whole month and that our dams are just slightly above 40% water levels (below 40% is considered critical) almost seem straight out of a novel or a newspaper archive. With choices and conveniences just a click away, it seems so out of place that our modern, high-tech society can be brought to a halt by the absence of something so simple and often overlooked as water.

But nature humbles us in that way. Be it snowstorms, thunderstorms, sandstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, hail, drought, famine, epidemics - nature puts us in our place and reminds us where we stand in the grand scheme of things. It shows us that our self-centered perspectives of the world are merely illusions and we are so, so fragile. So connected to the earth in billions of intricate ways, most of which we have only the faintest idea of. And when we don't care for the environment around us like we should, we pay the price.

Forest fires are not natural. Vanishing rainforests are not natural. Rivers that stop flowing into the sea are not natural. Depleting mineral and precious metal reserves are not natural. They are the result of greed, self-centredness and arrogance, each generation before thinking they were the center of the universe, that resources were unlimited, without ever stopping to think there might not be any left for the generations to come. It breaks my heart to think about all the diverse species of flora and fauna that have been wiped off the face of the earth completely - whichever theory you subscribe to, either species that were so painstakingly and artfully crafted by a master craftsman, or species that fought long and hard to change, grow, adapt and survive in order to become what they were.

Sometimes I wonder how we can undo the damage we've done. What can a few hippie tree huggers with a bunch of signed petitions and slogans do to change the way businesses operate for economic profit or to change the tide of endless consumerism, the quest for more and more material wealth? Thinking about it all makes one feel very, very small in the scale of things.

But water teaches me the important lesson that life is a cycle of renewal. And renewal simply means restoring things back to their original, untainted state. With every sunrise, new season and every rainfall, comes the promise and hope of final, and ultimate renewal. A day when all the damage we've wreaked on the world will be erased once and for all, and we will see life as it always should have been from the start. In seasons like this, my soul aches and longs for that day to come. 

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears"

The week Alex that told me he had asked my parents blessing to marry me - was the week I flipped out and considered calling the relationship quits. In fact, I asked for a one-week break from all forms of communication so I could think things through without distraction. Call it cold feet, commitment phobia or whatever you may, that week was one of the main turning points of the relationship... the point at which I knew in my heart that I had made a decision and there was no turning back.

This was in January... and fast forward two months later, when he finally proposed last weekend, my "Yes" seemed like the most natural thing in the world to say. Because I'd already taken a long, hard look at whether this relationship was something I could see myself devoting myself to for the rest of my life.

I've always wondered how it felt like to 'just know' that you're ready to spend the rest of your life with one person. I'd never ever felt that way in any of my previous relationships. There was always something that didn't quite fit, that didn't add up. In my logical, pragmatic mind the best thing, when in doubt, was always to let go and move on. Preserving my freedom was important to me, and the whole notion of 'settling down' didn't quite sit well with my perspective that a relationship should be an adventure that opens you up to more of life's possibilities, instead of narrowing your options down.

Yet there were many times I wondered if I would end up on the shelf after everyone had 'settled down'. So, afraid of being alone, I settled time and again for guys who were not too bad. Who treated me nice and were generally good people. But they didn't share the same values and dreams I had or the same thirst for independence and adventure, and it just wasn't enough.

I often wondered if I had the most unreasonable demands. I felt guilty in every relationship I got into, fearing that I would somehow never be able to match up to the other person's expectations of what an Asian girlfriend should be like. I was often told that I 'intimidate' guys, because I liked being alone too much, had way too many opinions about everything, loved adventure, hated routine or repetition, and was incredibly self-motivated and driven to make something meaningful of my life, even if it meant leaving other people behind if they didn't share the same ambitions.

But I knew I wanted a man, not a boy. Someone whom I didn't have to hide my true colors from. Who was comfortable enough in his own skin and confident enough in his own ability to handle me for who I am - headstrong, stubborn, opinionated, independent and all.

So I decided to stop dating just because I was afraid of ending up alone and unwanted. In fact, I decided to stop doing anything just because I was afraid. I wanted to stop being motivated by fear, but by hope instead. After being disappointed and having my heart broken so many times, I desperately wanted to believe that there were better days ahead. I knew that change began with me, and with not being afraid to hope for what I really wanted.

I have never been the most optimistic person. Being highly pragmatic, I've always tended to be critical, pessimistic and judgmental. I could be a master in the art of imagining worst-case scenarios. But I decided to stop using my personality as an excuse.

I chose to believe that life is what we make of it. If we choose to be positive, no matter how bad things are, we will always find a silver lining. If I choose to live in a way that is big-hearted, generous, adventurous, and on occasion, all-out crazy, then I will attract someone just like that to do life with.

Maybe it is unreasonable to expect so much out of life. Do I really deserve it anyway? Maybe not, if I chose to think that way. But I believe that we attract - and accept - the love we think we deserve. If we value ourselves, we will find ourselves surrounded by people who value us. I wanted to believe that I was worth the kind of love I hoped for.

Nelson Mandela once said, "May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." That was the perspective I held on to as I stepped away from years of unhealthy mindsets, wrong assumptions, warped perspectives towards relationships and bitterness from the past.

And as I did, I stopped being so afraid. I stopped being afraid of 'settling', or on the other end of the scale, of 'being alone' because I was too afraid to settle. I stayed open to hope. It took many tears and many nights of soul-searching, but I had to let go of stupid fears like the fear of not reaching my target of being married by 24. Like the fear that it would just be a matter of time before I start feeling suffocated again like in all my other relationships. Like the fear that if Alex really knew me for who I am, he would think twice about wanting me. Or the fear that memories and hurts from our past relationships would be carried into our current relationship.

I was gripped by fears like these when I called for the break. We had been having several heated arguments in the weeks leading up to the break, and there were times it felt like we were on completely different wavelengths. Out of fear, I retreated back into my safety zone and distanced myself emotionally, distracting myself with work. At that point in time, work seemed genuinely more rewarding than the relationship. It made no demands, asked no questions, had no expectations. It gave me results in return for effort. So simple, uncomplicated, fuss-free. So unlike relationships.

And there I discovered my biggest fear - not that he wasn't right or the relationship wasn't right - but that I wasn't right. I wasn't ready to lay down my life to submit to another person, I wasn't willing to give up my rights and my independence. I wasn't good at dealing with my own emotions - how could I possibly be able to deal with another person's heart?

So I told him I needed some time out to think the relationship through, expecting a backlash and a questioning of whether my heart was really in this relationship. I expected him to fight, to cling on and try to persuade me to talk things out instead of just disappearing for a week, to start thinking and fearing the worst. If he did, I would be able to use that as the basis for why we would never work out anyway. But he didn't.

He said, okay, go ahead. And I began to sense that finally, here was a man in tune with my heart, who knew I needed some time to sort things out. Who was not afraid of losing me if it was for the better, who held me as loosely as he held everything else in his life - as gifts loaned from God for a little while, to be cherished, but not owned. Who knew that as much as he wanted to fix things, he wasn't the right person for the job.

In that one week, I went to the One and only person who could do that job. I poured my fears out to Him - that I was not good enough, that I had commitment issues, that I didn't deserve to be loved. And as I listened to myself, all I heard was 'I', 'I', 'I'. He gently began to remind me, that the cure to all my fears was to fix my eyes not on myself, but on hope. Hope for brighter tomorrows and for grace to guide us through every disagreement. Hope that we will not only survive the tough days, but that those days will draw us even closer together. And hope that the reason we are in this together is because the potential for what we can do together is greater compared to what we can do alone.

By the end of the week, the fears stopped mattering so much. I saw enough hope in the relationship to know I want to give everything I have to make it work. I know I'll have to keep working at it, keep seeing enough hope in it, keep letting go of the fear, but for now, my "Yes" is a start. A start of saying yes to learning to be less selfish, discovering I can still be myself and go on adventures even when there's someone beside me (it's actually more fun!), and learning that where there's faith, hope and love, there's no room for fear.