STARTING LIFE ALL OVER AGAIN

I was trying to order some rail tickets online and there was some glitch in the payment section. This meant that I had to start all over again many times and the word frustration took a new meaning altogether. Every time I keyed in the details, I made more mistakes as the brain became more tired and fuddled.  After the sixth attempt, I decided to give the company a call and the problem was arrested.

Starting all over is a journey of strength and resilience.

Hall and Oates in the song ‘Starting all over again’ profess that this is an uphill climb to the finish line. In the movie, Phoenix, a disfigured World War II survivor had her face reconstructed so she could begin a new life.

I was in Warsaw recently and  I would never have suspected that more than 85% of the city’s historic centre was destroyed by Nazi troops during the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. In fact the market square in Old Town is a complete reconstruction.

Its citizens got together and after the war, they started a five-year reconstruction campaign which resulted in the magnificent restoration of the Old town with all its iconic buildings. The citizens laid brick upon brick on a virtual sea of ruins.

I am sure that there was much opposition to the reconstruction. After all, wouldn’t it have been easier just to leave the city as a war memorial and move on to make another city the capital?

But the indomitable spirit of determination reigned strong.

It was the incredible hearts and souls that drove the whole nation, the pouring in of donations and workers from all over Poland and of course with much volunteer work. Apparently bricks from neighbouring cities like Wroclaw/Breslau were used for the rebuilding as well.

Constant knocking down eventually gets to us and affects our personalities and we are shattered literally. To reconstruct is to pick up the pieces and make something new and better. Like a jigsaw, all the pieces can come together to give a complete picture.

I have been having fun with mosaic glass, assembling small pieces of coloured glass, tiles, stones or other materials to create beautiful images. It is laborious work which involves the selection of the pieces and mounting them on a board or glass surface before finally fusing them together with grout which can be sticky and mucky. What begins as a humble sketch often ends in a spectacular display piece.  In the process of picking up the glass pieces or shards, accidents do happen.

Reconstruction of our lives is just like that.

The pieces may cut us but we select those that we need to rebuild our lives and move on.  Never mind the naysayers and gloomsayers– people who are negative about whatever we attempt to do.

Now is as good a time as any to reflect and see what we want to do with our lives. We have 12 months ahead of  us which can be filled with great endeavours. My 2016 planner is already getting filled up!

I often have people come up to me to ask whether I miss teaching. My answer is always the same. I am content where I am, a different phase, a different season. I may not be formally teaching in a university but I am teaching all the same – teaching myself and others around me and more importantly, learning, which is key to everything. Ronald E. Osborne says “ Unless you do something beyond what you’ve already mastered, you will never grow.”

Broken pieces can be fixed. Only if we want to.

This article was originally printed in the NEW STRAITS TIMES MALAYSIA 17 JAN 2016
http://digital.nstp.com.my/nst/books/160117nstnews/index.html#/23/