Some Things to Think About

I'm just simply trying too hard. There is this deeply ingrained mentality to be the best overachiever in everything which I put my mind to. I have to be the best follower of Christ in the world or else I am a failure. I know this is wrong, and that eats at me even more! In many sorts, it's a catch 22. You strive to be perfect, but striving to be perfect makes you imperfect. I hate this mentality to succeed. It's like a cancer. You know you have this thing that's killing you, but you can't do anything about it. You can't will your mutated cells to turn healthy again. Radical surgery needs to happen.

Being in Taiwan has highlighted a lot of the eastern values which shape the person I have come to be, parts which I cherish and despise at the same time. Take for instance this mentality of restraint. I'm not only taking about the idea of dealing with personal matters personally and dutifully eating the bitter circumstances fed to you because of the long established traditions and values of society. I'm not only talking about being scared to screw up because when you do, you not only dishonor yourself, but your family, the generations of ancestors before you, and the entire Chinese people. To be frank and honest, when I heard the shooter of the VT tragedy was Asian, I felt a sense of shame. I had absolutely no association with this person, but when I heard he was Asian, I felt as if I was an accomplice to this horrible crime. I not only felt sad for the students of VT, but I felt sad for the shooter's parents who would have to bare this unbearable sense of shame. There is this constant pressure to live up to the expectations of the family and society. Marriage is a given. In Taiwan, there is this underlining tension to get married, produce offspring, and produce at least one son to pass on the family name. I'm not saying all this is bad, if anything a little bit of self-control and restraint goes a long way. A little bit of thinking about others and the people you represent before you satisfy your personal needs is something lacking in a lot of people living in the States. Nonetheless, the underlying tension to get an education, achieve accolades, get a well paying job, and obey every word of your parents somehow bothers me a little bit. It bothers me not because it goes against my value system. Quiet the opposite, it highlights the underlying tensions which exists in my heart. Maybe it's for this reason that I decided to go into Electrical Engineering along with an abnormal percentage of Asians. Maybe it's for this reason that I'm hypercritical over what other people thing of me and lack confidence in my decisions and the person who I truly am. Maybe we have been drinking the bitterness of restraint for so long that it's become sweet in out mouths. In many ways, self-denial is selfish. For the Asian, it's easy to throw aside personal ambition for the sake of honoring the pressures of other people.
I've come to a point where I've realized that I've never truly experience the grace of Christ. Albeit, I've glimpsed it, I've tasted a hint of it. The cool, refreshing droplets of grace have fallen on my lips. However, I've never really internalized grace within my heart, I've never fully come to embrace God's grace so that I can embrace the person I am. There is this precarious balancing act between accepting God's grace and being accountable to God's holiness. Strange how I've been seeing my absolute need for God's grace and, at the same time, seeing a God of absolute holiness and glory. I've yet to truly accept a God who would so generously impart his grace on my sinful heart and to continuously love a person which continues to spit in the face of the sacred. I'm desperately trying to realize that failure does not equal sin. Think about it, it's not going to be fun if everyone in heaven suddenly has the greatest basketball skills, intellectual conceptualization, and so forth. Hard to believe isn't it? Perfection is not about making every single free throw or acing every single test. We strive for those things because we long for power, status, or simply because we are ingrained with what the world tells us will make us happy. Maybe - i may be wrong - our inability to completely fight sin should not highlight our continual need to be perfect, but our continual need for God's grace. Right now, I'm waiting and hoping. I'm waiting and hoping to fully realize God's grace and love so that I can then truly be able to impart that love and grace on others. Blessed be the name of the LORD.