Category: Letters for 2015

Letter #15: Letter to the Future

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Dear Future,

How uncertain you are. So uncertain, yet so full of possibilities. I look at you with mixture of both fear and exhilliration.

Fear, because I do not know what you hold. I know good things are in store. But what if those good things are not what I am expecting? What if I am building my hopes sky high only to be met by – by what again is unknown. But perfect love casts out all fear, they say. So I open up my heart for Love. I open up my heart to that Thing that will banish all these cares away.

Like jumping into a roller coaster, I look at you with exhilliration. I may be afraid at first, but you are definitely something to look forward to. There will be many twists and turns, many up and downs, but I will just scream my heart out and enjoy the ride. The ride will be exciting. I am sure if it. It is a brand new adventure I am willing to take on.

I shall jump into you like one jumping off the edge of a cliff. Prepare to catch me because here I come.

Letter #14: Letter to Yuppies Everywhere

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To the Yuppies,

There is a balance. Between pouring yourself into your work. And between living life like you only live once (putting YOLO here makes it redundant).

Truth #1: There is more to this life than work. There is more to this life than climbing up that corporate ladder. There is more to life than the four walls of your office, than the cages if your cubicles, than the mounds of unending paperwork and unread mails. There’s God. There’s your family. There’s friendship. There’s yourself. When you spend most of your waking hours at work, it is easy to forget these. But learn to break away every day and devote time to things which are of utmost importance.

Truth #2: Your work may not be the most important but nonetheless it still is. Do not use life as an excuse to slack off. Remember, you are being paid for what you do. You need to get paid, whether you like it or not, unless you plan to live off the earth or the wallet of another. You were made do be excellent. Whatever is in your hands, do it well. Most of all, do it with heart.

Take these words, learn from them as well. Because there is a balance, dear friends. There is.

Letter #13: Letter to the Oldies

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To the older generation,

Thank you for going before us. Thank you for paving the way, for giving us a platform to stand on. Thank you for your words of wisdom, for your well intended advice, even, well, for your reprimands. We acknowledge you because even though we blame you a lot of times, we won’t be where we are if it weren’t for you.

I suppose the next few paragraphs will make this letter sound like a graduation speech:

To our teachers, thank you for teaching us what we know now. I still don’t know how Math 17 and CMSC 150 is applicable in my life, but oh well papel, CMSC 2 and CMSC 100 is very useful to me know. CMSC 128, too.

To our parents, thank you for loving us, for doing your best to provide for us, for raising us, and even for releasing us to do what we have to do. I hope we never tire of telling you how much we love you.

To our leaders, we believe in you. Yes, each one of you. Leaders in our workplace, leaders in our church, leaders in (let me brace myself for all the rotten eggs and tomatoes) our country. Forgive us for being harsh, for being critical, for feeling that we are so much better than you – we don’t realize how difficult it is to truly lead. We will simply continue praying for you, supporting you in whatever way we can.

And to all whose ages are a month or a year higher than ours – we simply honor you. You have been on this planet longer than us. I hope we can glean a nugget of wisdom or two from you.

From,

Me and the younger ones

Letter #12: Letter to the Youth

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Dear Youth,

I’m reading this book, “Can’t be Arsed: 101 things not to do before you die”. It’s a humorous counter to all the YOLO things we like to do nowadays. You know, bucket lists and all that. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken seriously (the book, I mean). Because if there’s one thing I can tell you, youth, don’t be afraid to live a life of adventure. A life or risks. A life or purpose. A life of meaning. A life of love. Go out and live life, living for yourself, pouring out to others, pouring out most of all to God, too.

LIVE. For yourself. I mean, be you. We tend to fall into two extremes. You care too much about yourself (hello narcissistic youth), or you don’t care at all. But you can’t love others if you don’t really love yourself. So live. I tell you again, LIVE.

Pour out to others. Because there are other people aside from you. Everyone is fighting a battle. It wouldn’t hurt to move out of your bubble and bring some joy in other people’s bubble’s, too.

Most of all, pour out to God. Some of you might believe in the concept of a supreme being. Some of you might not. But since I believe in Him, this is my conviction: every breath you breathe in this life is a song being sung out to Him. Will you belt out cacophony of sounds like those of clanging cymbals or will you sing a sound of worship instead?

Youth, there are probably a lot more I should tell you. But for now, these will have to do.

Go, Youth. I believe in you.

Letter #11: Letter to my Foster Country

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Ahh, Malaysia, truly Asia. It will be six years soon. How are we doing?

I don’t know what to make of what is happening right now. Politically. Coz everything’s got GST. Nah, that’s all behind us now. We’re moving forward, aren’t we?

At any rate, thanks for taking me in. Living here is fun. You have lovely infrastructures, awesome natural vegetation, interesting historical sights — I look forward to every road trip I plan with my friends. This June we want to go to Sekinchan and Kellie’s Castle. I’m so stoked!

Food here is uhhh-mazing. I have you to blame to the kgs I gained during my first few years here. No matter. With a few tweaks to my diet and exercise, my body’s back to being a healthy range. But nasi lemak… I’m looking at you. You’re one of the culprits. Char Kuey Teow and Everything Goreng, I’m looking at you, too.

I’m going to miss you when I’m gone. I know you’ll miss me, but I think you should know now that I shall miss you greatly, too. But why am I saying goodbye? It’s far too early for a long farewell now, isn’t it?

Well. One thing I know. I’ll make sure I make the most of every moment I spend with you.

Letter #10: Letter to My Country

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Pilipinas kong minumutya. How do I even start writing to you? My heart is filled with such mixed emotions about you. Don’t get me wrong. I love you. I do. You’re filled with so much wonder. So much beauty. It’s more fun, it’s more overflowing with smiles, it’s more… it’s more everything where you are. You’re home.

But I look at you from afar and I sigh. I know every country has its imperfections. And you have more that your share of them. There are so many things I want to improve about you! But what to do. My voice, my ideas – they can only go so far.

When I go back into your arms, I’ll take everything I have learned and pour it out to you. Well, it’s mostly good web design and development. But hey, we have lots of things to work on in the .ph portion of the World Wide Web. But I’ll pour out the other things as well.

I miss you, dear Philippines. But let me be honest – sometimes I dread coming back to you. But they say, perfect love casts out fear, right? When the time comes that I’ll be back – as in back – let that love drive out all fear, and let me realize that I am indeed at home with you.

Letter #9: Letter to My Batchmates

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GUYS. It’s been a long, long while since I last wrote you. Remember those password-protected PDF file days? That was eons ago.

How are we all doing? Timehop says our last batch outing was almost one year ago. Something tells me we won’t have another one anytime soon. Some of you guys are already married. Some are expecting babies. We’re all busy with different things in life. And I guess that’s good. We’re moving into the next levels in our workplace, in our ministry, in our relationships, in – well, everything.

I do miss you all. I do miss those days when we can go to Enchanted Kingdom at the drop of the hat. I miss days when a coffee date was just a knock on the door away, when life was as simple as sitting on the steps of the Freedom Park, stressing about acads. Now we’re stressing about a whole mishmash of other stuff.

I know we’ll remain to be covenant friends, though, no matter what. I’ll die first before you go hungry, right? I love you all in the Lord.

Until we see each other again.

Mushy as always,
Mari

Letter #8: Letter to My Soul Sistah

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Hey Soul Sistah!

You’re the reason why I started this “Letters for 2015” project in the first place. I was going through my mail and I found our exchange of letters. Can you say, nostalgic?

I miss those days when I had all the time in the world to write, write, write, and be caught up in wonder. Remember the lake in UKM? What did we name that again?

I’m trying to think if anything whimsical happened to me this past week. Well, my car broke down. That’s hardly full of magic. Hmm. I got inked! But you already know that – you were one of the first people who did. Well, I’m reading “The King’s Damsel”. I’m lost in the Tudor court right now. It’s a stuffy, old-fashioned place. But I feel things will get more exciting after a few chapters more.

We don’t write to each other anymore but I know the connection is still there. Isn’t it amazing? How we have this bond forged by words shared through the miracle (is it?) that is the Internet. I’m thankful I have found a kindred spirit in you.

I look forward to having Froyo again with you. Or pesto and then some hot choco. This time I’ll be careful not to tip the table over and spill things accidentally.

I miss you, Soul Sistah! I hope to catch up soon.

Love,

Jang