Personal: #thelightsgoout | Good Stories by Goodstuph

Before my memory fails me, I shall type out what I felt about this experience. Good Stories - The Undefeated is organised by Goodstupf (A Social Influence Marketing Company). For this series, they invited 3 different people to tell their stories. It was a first for me to attend such talks/story telling/event and it was refreshing. S suggested to check this out and three of us thought we could use some inspiration and motivation from other people's experiences and hence, we went.

I thought the event was quite well-planned. It was held at Art Bar @ Butter Factory last Friday night. Everything was easy from registering to just turning up. It's free, just register on their FB page, turn up, get a chop and off you go!

Let me just briefly talk about the 3 speakers and what I thought about their stories after I slept on it. Lol. 

1. Yip Pin Xiu - Paralympian, 21 years old, SMU undergraduate.

She came off to me more like a friend, maybe it's because we are from a similar age or maybe it's just her vibe and the way she carried herself. She was very friendly and rather informal but I guess people of that age are mostly like this. 

If I recall correctly, she was diagnosed with muscle dystrophy when she was really young. That didn't bring her down, she found freedom in swimming and hence, she took up swimming when she was 5 and swam competitively when she was 12.

The way she recounted her life for the past 21 years was really positive. She kept saying about how her positivity brought her thus far, how she dreamed big and make small goals to reach her ultimate aim in the end. 

I did not cry, not exactly moved at all. Why? She was smiling all the way and I felt her happiness. She genuinely happy and then I thought to myself, can I be as happy as she is if I'm in her shoes?

Maybe not.

I'm a pessimist.

I try to be happy by doing things that I like. Sometimes I transfer some of these negative energies to R and he hates it. I know, but I can't help it. I need grow out of my pessimism and all the negative memories that I had when I was young. Time to move on XinEr...

2. Simcik Goh - Lost his wife on an overdue holiday, Entrepreneur

I was moved by this speaker. Although he didn't give much details on what was the exact cause of his wife's death, it was heart-wrenching. My main takeaway from his story is to not wait for anyone or anything, not chase for anything that you want to have at the expense of what you have. He left us quite a few quotes and one that I remember was this:

"Time only stops when the time on your watch stops."

Something like this, I can't remember the exact words but to put it simply, what he meant was what JY has on her arms:

Life won't wait.

No one is going to wait for you, time will continue to go pass you, the Earth will continue to rotate and basically, life goes on.

One thing that puzzled us was that why they stayed in Europe for 3 weeks when his wife was in the hospital? Why not fly her back to Sg? He did not say, I guess it's because of instability? He said it was unexpected because his wife looks okay at some point but deteriorate suddenly. He also said he had no regrets because he gave his wife everything he could and done everything that he could as well.

I beg to differ because he could have given her - time. I know, when you're young you're supposed to be working your asses off, making ends meet or even earn the extra money just so you get the extra comfort in the future. But amidst all these chasing, you lose time and it's not just you alone, people around you lose the same time that you are losing. 

He also pointed out that we should take life with a pinch of salt (?) and do everything in moderation.

3. Ivy Tan - Breast Cancer Survive, 30 years old

So, there are so many cancer survivors out there, why her? Why Ivy?

She was only 27 years old when she found out she had breast cancer. I can't imagine getting cancer at 27, that's only 4 years away but now it seems quite real, like anything can happen.

She was choking back on her tears every now and then which makes it hard for me to not cry. Yea, another emotional bitch but maybe it's just the period talking/crying? Idk.

Her story was the fastest, no fanciful slides. Just her and her story.

I was most touched by this. I don't know why, maybe because I'm a woman as well? 

The thing that all of them concur was that life will throw you anything terrible anytime and all you can do is just deal with it and move on. No point drowning yourself in sorrows. Just stay positive, work through these obstacles. They were all lucky in a sense that they all had their friends and families with them when things became sucky. Their friends and families were their pillars of support.

Overall, it was a nice experience. Something more wholesome than what I've ever done.

Btw, they had promotions and cocktails were going around at $10 and 1-For-1 house pours. So we had to order something to drink since it's only $10 and we were thirsty. They made us pour away the water in our water bottles (jy and s).

 The drinks came in weird yet normal containers that you will find on dining tables. 

Everything ended at around 9 plus and we headed back to our kampong for some PIZZA PARTY with the boys. It was a rather successful attempt and we will be having a pizza competition soon (when?). HAHA.

The pizza that I made. Yummy! Voted the best pizza of the night - Yeah!