The Purpose of Life

Now that most of us are going to be High School graduates, have you ever thought about what your future would be like? I don't know about you, but let me tell you, if you have not set any goals for the future, you will not live your life meaningfully.

Just like as the new year begins, we make a new year's resolution. We tend to look at it and sometimes we tend to forget about it. That is what makes our new year more enjoyable, right? In this case, sometimes we can't forget our life goals. Without making our life goals, we will not be able to see the direction we are heading to. It's okay to switch up our goals every now and then, it just means we want to do something different in the future. Or even our dreams have changed, and that is totally fine.

Most of us as a child, we say we want to do something great in the future. Although we don't have a certain plan at that time, it was fine only because we were so little. Now, we still say we want to do something great in the future, but how do we get there? Soon, our parents will let us pursue our dream, but how do we pursue our dream? To be able to pursue our dream, we have to make goals that we can look at from time to time to know where we are headed. That's the purpose of our life.

Last week, I went to my Youth Group and had a little discussion with some of my fellow friends. The theme of the discussion was, "Our future". Each one of us had to tell our goals for the Youth Group as well as our own personal goals. I was shocked at first to hear someone ask me that question, only because I had not goals for my personal life. I only had goals for my Youth Group. Therefore, I had to make something up. So, I said, "My personal goals are to be successful, expand my knowledge in education, and to support my family." Then I realized, that is my purpose in life, but what is it that I really want to do in life that can fulfill my purpose in life? I came to realize that, my purpose in life is to do what makes me happy, because if it makes me happy, it will surely make someone else happy.

I believe in goal setting to help guide us to where we want to be. It may not always be the only source to help us on our path, but it is an encouragement. If we are heading West and our goals are East, we know that we should turn around and head East. I encourage my fellow friends and classmates to set goals on their future. Little things like this, helps us look back and think about how great our life is now. Fulfilling our purpose in life feels like helping the world one person at a time.

What are your goals in life?

Seeking the Lord

We often hear 2 Chronicles 7: 14 quoted in the bible in seeking God for revival:

                                    “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, 

and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, 
then I will hear from heaven 
and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

 But what does it mean to seek God?

Thinking of what it means to seek God, I came to realize that I don't know why I would seek for him. Trying to find the answer myself will be the first step in seeking Him.

Majority of us seek God when we are in desperate for God to grant us something. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. It's just like us asking our parents to go out and hoping they will say yes, but their answer is no.

Bottom line: If you're feeling the nerves to seek God, it is because he was the first one to seek you. Let that phrase sink into you. Don't miss it, because when it's gone, it's hard for it to come back.

The Lord is searching all over the world to try and see if He can find someone whose heart is His. Do you surrender daily to seek for Him? Is every ounce of your day dedicated to Him? Are you running after the Lord, to know that you have Him? Do you have sleepless nights searching for the Lord?

If your answer to these questions was "no", then let me encourage you to pursue the Lord relentlessly, as if we were hunting for Him! Seek the Lord with all your heart, take advantage of the early and late hours of the day, when everyone is crying out of desperate for the Lord to help them. I want to encourage you to be driven to reach out in a way you were rushing in line to meet your favorite celebrity. This by all means, is not a passive act. In fact, it is something you give your whole body, mind, and soul into.

If you are willing to do this, the wonderful promise to you is that the Lord will strongly support you in whatever it is that you are doing. D.L. Moody had once said, "The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him. I will try my utmost to be that man." I agree with Moody, we get so distracted in our daily lives that we never see the good God has given us or even through us.

Do you want to know Him?

If you want to Jesus personally, you can. It all starts off when you repent on your knees and believe in Jesus.  God's words in the bible said, " Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel, and saying, ' The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mar 1:14b-15). In this section, he preached to us that we must repent and believe in order to receive His grace.

It's That Time of Year Again...

Grades and homework - who needs them when college is so near?

Second semester seems to be a little troubling for some senior students. The lack of motivation to me seems to be the anxiousness to go to college after being accepted. I know for a fact that majority of my fellow classmates feel as if a weight has been lifted off their shoulders once that acceptance letter has hit the mailbox. I, myself have a bad case of Senioritis. I feel like an illness has struck me and that has been my excuse to not do or finish my classwork/homework - well, that's Senioritis for you. 

Some if not, most of teachers know that second semester is the semester that majority of their seniors slack off. Depending on the teacher, the quality of the work may vary. Some teachers maintain the amount of workload to students and expect the same effort from students. While, some teachers know that second semester is the time to slack off and understand why students don't want to work as much as they did for the past three years of high school, and don't give much work. Then, there are teachers who don't give a smack and dump a ton of work to the students.

There may be parents that have same perspectives as teachers do. I know for a fact that my parents would not care if I had Senioritis or not, they would tell me to work harder. Unfortunately, that does not work in the real world to some students. They think that they are now eighteen, they can decide for themselves. Well, I can tell that some decisions are not the right decisions. With that said, having Senioritis and not having the motivation to do your work so you can pass your provision statement, is not the right decision.

This may help, it may not, but now that we have been accepted to a college, we should not neglect our workload in high school. We say we are ready for college, but are we really?! I think we say we are ready for college is because we want to be done with high school and not have to worry about all that workload in college. Wrong, in college, we are on our own. In high school, our teachers have been spooning us with loads of information and expects us to know the information, while us students, we take that information and we regurgitate it, as if we know the information. I heard from a friend that in college, professors HATE it when their students regurgitate information. It tells the professors that we have not learned anything.

We may have Senioritis now, but will we have Senioritis when we are in college? Second semester is to prepare for exams and get us prepared for college. If we are like this, how will we ever learn our mistake and move on? We should keep doing our work and keep our focus. Just because summer is coming up is no excuse for us to slack off. I don't think we would be very happy if we were to fail a class and our dream college has revoked our admission because of Senioritis. This goes for me as well, so don't worry if I'm calling you out. With only three to four weeks left of senior year, I have to figure a way to get all my assignments in, study for AP exams, final exams, and most of all, placement exams. Wow... Now that I see how much I have to do, I regret slacking off. Don't you?

Let's work together to better our habits, now that we have had our fun, let's be serious now! I hope all my fellow classmates can get something out of this blog. Remember, in my last blog I said, "Your actions are what describes you", I mean it! You don't want your dream college to see that you have tried all three years and now you have failed to please them with your second semester grades. Let us finish these last few weeks with a bang, have fun on our summer vacation, and start a new life in college!

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
                         
                             - Og Mandino

What's next?

It's that time of year again, where high school seniors are receiving their acceptance and rejection letters. For me, it does not matter what schools I get into or turned down from. As long as I am continuing my education, that is all it matters. There are some intelligent students out there that go to a certain college because of it's "prestige" name or to brag. I used to be one of those students, except, I wasn't intelligent compared to them. My parents would always tell me, "Why do you care so much for those colleges that are full of prestige? Schools like UCLA, UC Berkeley, or even Stanford have ambitious students surrounding their campus. If you were to get into those schools, are you willing to compete with them? It's not a matter of prestige that you should go to those schools."

I have came to realized that what my parents had said to me is very true to heart. I have a little story to help why I agree with my parents. My cousin graduated out of high school with a 4.32 GPA. When he applied for colleges, he applied to UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSD, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. Luckily, he got in to all the schools he applied to. He went to UCLA to continue in his education and of course, because his parents wanted him to. After graduating from UCLA and applying to Medical School, he was not fortunate into getting into Medical Schools because of his GPA. By the time his Junior year came, he took his MCAT (Medical College Administration Test) and scored a 30 (meaning it's the minimum of what is required of students to score). Although his MCAT score was average, his GPA was not. By the time he applied to medical school, he earned a GPA of 3.2. Because of his low GPA, he was not accepted to get into any medical schools he had applied for. For an bright guy going to a very well known school, why did he get such a low GPA? The competition at prestige schools like UCLA is no joke. Due to the competition, he was not able to get into Medical School.

Now that I have applied to colleges, and get accepted into prestige schools like UCLA, I know that I should not go there because of its fame and my abilities to succeed. I will go somewhere I know I can compete with other students and rise above them. A lot of students and parents have different perspectives. Majority of my fellow friends tell me that they will be going to UCLA, but they think they will not pass. I always tell them that indeed, it is a great school, but they should always go somewhere they know they will be able to get ahead and do well.

We should all think through where we fit in, not where our parents will brag about where we go. I mean, we all get the same education if we go to a school like UCR or RCC. Why need to go to a prestige school like Stanford when you know you can succeed when going to UCI?

Prestige gets you nowhere, your actions are what describes you. 

Toast to Motivation Mondays!

First of all, I would like to say,"FOOD POISONING SUCKS!". I had to skip school because of food poisoning, making me lose in on a fishbowl argument! Since I did homework over the weekend and had nothing to do today, I took my time off of school and only focused on me.

Looking back on my life, my biggest transformations came after feeling lost, frustrated, and challenged.

My life went from being happy to miserable. The day I was diagnosed with cancer was the day I felt invisible. That health crisis led me to feel insecure, most of all, dead on the inside. Hair falling apart, my immune system shutting down, just a lot of things that makes one person feel complete, made me feel dead. For a healthy person to go out in public and breath the fresh air, look at the nice sceneries, and just enjoy life. Meanwhile, I was in and out of my room taking tests, and just going through hell. Maybe that was when I knew I wasn't able to fulfill a normal life. Thankfully, after months of getting chemotherapy, I was able to hear good news,"Your daughter is improving and she is able to be discharged in two months." Boy, was I happy.

Finally, my fear of Leukemia will be long gone. I can finally become a normal person, right? Not quite yet. I still have to wait for my hair to fully grow out, meanwhile, I was wearing a wig. What pity people gave me. Thinking that all I need was courage to keep fighting, but I was done. No need for pity, I believe I'm strong enough to keep fighting this. I can already hear people asking me if I was sure about not needing pity in my ears, truth is, no. I used to be sure since I knew I was cured and I knew it would not relapse, but two years ago I had this strange feeling. That strange feeling wasn't no nose bleed or me fainting because I'm losing blood, but my vision had become blurry. I told my parents of how I would have days where my vision became blurry. With that said, my parents arranged for me an appointment at CHOC Hospital. With just one appointment, my life has turned back to the same miserable person that I was when I had Leukemia. 

Having to deal with Leukemia and a brain tumor, I think my life has finally came together. I now don't just live for my health, but my happiness. Who knows, when my tumor relapses, will I be here another day? How about another minute or second? I will only find positive things to come out of my next life. Cancer, can just come back and I won't have to worry because the things that I have done in the time for my next relapse, I know I lived it with peace and joy. 

Some people with cancer say it sucks and I agree, but a part of me thinks that experiencing with cancer is the same as experiencing with life. We all have our ups and downs, but we should not be too concerned on the mistakes or failures in our life. We all have things that makes life worth living, whether it may be money, clothes, family, or even motivation to KEEP living. There are people who can't see, but they still live because they can hear all the beautiful sounds that nature has to offer. We should all rejoice in all that we've been through and be thankful that we are still here today!

Are you willing to start over after something bad happened to you?