Okay hey hey 35ths who just got invested.
I was on Facebook and my friend's status "Invest your time in what's eternal and not what's temporary" had quite a deep impact on me. I thought, how true. How true. Dearest fellow Councillors, what are you doing this for? If it's for the glory or the prestige of being in the Students' Council or even wanting to be the best Council ever so that we'll be remembered for our great contributions, I'm pretty sure we'll all burn out really soon. Because that's not what Council's about.
Council isn't about competition or what we gain out of it personally. To me, it isn't even about leaving a legacy as the 35ths so that we'll be remembered. We want each batch of Councillors to outdo the previous batch because we want the best for the school. I genuinely want to do as much as I can to help make the ACJC experience a fantastic one. I want ACJC to change people's lives. That is eternal. And, of course, I ultimately want to give everything back to the God who gave so much to me. I want to spread the joy of serving, loving and having Him - that's life-transforming - eternal. I want to change lives, whether people find Him, love or true friendship and school spirit here.
If we keep working for ourselves - to build up our portfolio or personal experiences - things start to seem really pointless eventually. I've thought about it. I've got a hectic schedule, being in Dance, Editorial and Council (and the Exco); I worked hard in Crescent Dance and performed in some cool events; I did considerably well for the O's; I've got an ELES Scholarship (It's a tiny deal, but it might help me somewhere sometime), and all this, what for? For a CV? To heighten my chances of getting a scholarship for a university overseas, maybe, but what for? To work in print journalism and slog my guts out for an unsatisfactory pay? Or to become an English teacher and deal with uncooperative students and authorities' rigidness? If everything I've been doing so far had been for the wrong reasons - for personal gain - I'd have lost meaning in everything long ago. After all, as Hamlet says, "what is this quintessence of dust?" Our lives may seem big to us, but we are one in 6.7 billion. How big are we? Our lives are temporary. What we leave behind in others' lives, and the lives we bring to God, and God himself, though, are eternal.
Council's going to be a tough journey. There'll be times we feel unwilling to do what we can (or go beyond ourselves to help) because we're too busy with school already; times when everything we've done seems to have gone entirely to waste; times we feel like we need a break; times we're certain we aren't able to take the pressure anymore. At times like these, maybe we could look back at... June camp.
As we hung in there, tears mixing with sweat, we knew everyone else was suffering just as much. Some of us went the extra mile to support someone else physically. During your Council journey, let's each pull our own weight - and more. We aspire to be a body of servant leaders - it's never about ourselves. Council isn't about gaining personal experience as much as it's about serving the school and others, for the love for College and Christ.
I want to give back as much as I've been blessed with. Each skill I've learnt, or experience I've gained, has a greater purpose. It's not about myself or leaving a personal legacy. I want lives to have been changed for the better, to be able to heal and spread love - and spread the word of the greatest Love of all, that which comes from the perfect One, who was none other than the epitome of servant leadership.
That's eternal.
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