On gaming, near the end of HoN beta, I started to not have a strong desire to play games any longer and at this point, I think I’m pretty much over it. I think I’d still enjoy playing games, but no longer do I feel a need to incorporate it into my daily lifestyle.

But on maturity, from writing this entry at nearly 4am in the morning, clearly discipline is still quite lacking. Early to bed and rise? Not really happening. In fact, my sleep pattern these past 6 months or so have been worse than ever — though I justify it by needing equipment in lab and not clashing with other people’s schedules, and that no time is actually lost or gained. I’m not sure that I can even consider it better for me to be an early person, as I had tried it a couple weeks ago and I’m still pretty useless in the mornings and that my useful juices don’t start running till night-time and past midnight. Either way, this is something that will need to change in the future, as society functions during the day, not so much at night.

So what is the key for changing a lifestyle? Where does the source of radical action stem from?

As I was frustrated with myself today for failing still to complete a decent draft to show my professor and my dad, I couldn’t help but feel that I really need a jolt of discipline in my life that comes from suffering harsher conditions that put my life into perspective. Though I didn’t grow up with butlers and maids catering to my clothes and meals, there’s no doubt that I’ve enjoyed a privileged lifestyle with minimal concern about how I’d eat my next meal or if I could pay the rent this month. But with my step into the real world looming just months ahead, I really can’t carry this lack of discipline ahead with me. While I can perform excellently given the right task and direction, some things, as exampled by this thesis, just can’t be completed by my own motivation — not due to lack of ability, but just failing to harness the desire to complete it into action. Instead it just turns into time wasting on the internet and yet another day goes by.

Prolonging this entry will only take up more precious time, so I’ll cut it here for now, but perhaps I do need more honest reflection since very little has changed in 3 years

But going back to irresponsibility, I’ve always thought myself a responsible and mature person. Yet as I look at how I live and how those older than me live, there’s a stark contrast in our actions. I think I’m responsible because I always take care of whatever tasks (mostly) that other people ask me to do. This includes things like schoolwork, meeting someone at a certain time, completing something I’ve committed to to someone else. But when it comes to things that nobody asks me to do, or things that I assign for myself that aren’t immediately pressing, then I usually don’t get around to them.

When I watch my dad, he doesn’t just do things that people ask him to do, he does things that have to be done. Things like mopping up the kitchen floor, helping my sister with her schoolwork after a full day at work, waking up early to do things that need to be done. You get the picture. I always think I’ll become like this kind of person once I have to fill those shoes.

We all know how dumb that idea is.

Always we’re told to first become someone of character before we inherit the particular responsibility we desire. Yet it seems that I can never shake off the truth in the good old Toys ‘R Us song… “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys ‘R Us kid”… I still like to kill time by playing meaningless games. I can’t develop habits that I want in my life and I can’t get rid of habits I don’t need. In some ways, this mirror’s Paul’s conflict of two natures in not doing what he desires, but always doing what he does not. Of course, Paul’s dilemma wasn’t due to maturity. Anyhow, before I disqualify myself with my Bible commentary, the fact of the matter is that the vicious cycle of laziness and irresponsibility must be broken and a new cycle of discipline must be cultivated. Now this sounds all nice and dandy, but I’ve probably made this mental commitment to myself dozens of times. So what’s gonna change this time around? Well I guess I’ll start first by keeping a better track of how I’m doing. That means keeping up the posting and targeting issues that I can improve in.

So here’s a list:

- Radical action for changing lifestyles

- Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man… O_o ?

- External ministry vs. internal ministry

- Gaming

- Family man

- Career? Already?

- whatever else I come up with later

So feel free to bug me to get to these topics if somehow I’ve seemed to gone AWOL again.

I was also afraid that my non-Christian friends would see me talk about God (or not talk about God, which is even more disheartening). But I no longer fear these things.

Yeah I never really had the confidence that anyone would want to read my blog, and that it’d be a waste of their time. But after stalking the blogs of people like James Szeto, Steve Tu, Jonathan Pan, Ben Du, and being thoroughly encouraged by their honesty and their sharing what they’ve learned and how God has been working in their lives, I thought maybe I could share my thoughts with the world too.

I’ve also always been disappointed when I went back to read things I said or wrote in the past. Especially if the time gap was several years. I always look at it and think “wow I was so stupid” or “what a kid, complaining about this?”. Not to say that I’ll be exempt from this this time around, but it’s alright.

As to having a testimony before my friends, I was afraid I’d always have some sort of half-blog where I talked about things just like everyone else, what I did, and what happened and whine, whine, joy, joy. But I also knew about people who blogged about things they cared about. They brought out topics that they were thinking through and what that meant in their life and their walk with God. I didn’t want to have a useless blog, but I also was afraid to go all out and write my mind. But now I know that it’s just a fear of man, and if there’s gonna be discussion, then let’s talk.

I guess I’ll start the real blogging another day