Whatever Happened To Promises Made?

You know what people sometimes say when they look at a friend's baby pictures and then look at the grown-up form that the baby in the picture has morphed into and go "what happened man" half in jest?

I found myself asking that question about myself today at cell when I shared about my bad experience working on Geosphere at cell group just now. I cited it as an example of a situation of disharmonious working situation.

And sharing it on hindsight after so long, it was almost surreal because it was as if I was talking about another person.

Quite honestly, I was shocked at how only now I realise how vindictive I was to have suggested that not only did the errant sub-editor be sacked, but also recommended that demerit points be deducted from her records.

Whatever happened to the placid, good-natured and punching bag person that I was when I was a boy? Whatever really happened along the course of the last 10 years?

When Peichi delivered a gentle rebuke afterwards, it made me think about the events that led up to the person that I am today.

It also occurred to me that while I may decide that I should change, somehow the expectations of the people around you may dampen that enthusiasm altogether - because once people have known you, they would expect you to behave in a certain manner.

If you deviate from their acceptable range of their behaviour, they would somehow "keep you in line" by saying something like "this is not the person I know" or something to that extent.

But I diagress. Back to how I became the person I am today.

I guess a large part of how vindictive I have become is largely a response to my time in the army and to a smaller extent, my time in Jurong Institute.

If you were to extrapolate a little further back in time, I don't mean it in a negative way but my parents and my time in Fairfield had a lot to do with it.

It's mind boggling just to consider that the Clement that those kids know as Mr. Tan in my pre-army days in the first quarter of 2002 as an aspiring dynamic relief-teacher and Clement of the present, an aspiring journalist with that proverbial fire in the belly, are drastically 2 very different people.

I guess army played a great role because it was significantly my rite of passage into the world as it is. And in that stage of liminality that I was in, which is essentially a state of limbo, I was, in the words of Victor Turner, "neither here nor there" and basically had an identity crisis.

How do I respond in a world that is constantly trying to eat me up? What is a Christian response to the competitiveness out there?

I guess over time, I forgot myself as a Christian and my defensive mechanisms started forming - when I get hurt, I make sure I inflict equal or double the pain, best if it's insidious and the person doesn't even know it's coming.

And worse still, over time, I would pre-empt any attempts to hurt me by hurting other people first. All in the tradition of George W Bush's shock and awe strategy when he made the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

I decided that I was not going to be a punching bag when I commissioned as an officer in April 2003, like I was on OCS Bravo Wing, where the whole platoon was seemingly against me for no reason. I started going on the offensive since then.

I could go on uncovering the many layers of my personal history, but I think it would take time. I think today's session was just another episode of unravelling that first started when I melted down almost 2 months ago.

And I guess as 2006 begins and I go into a season of rest and reflection on a sabbatical-like thing, I would have to deal with more of these things that I have been avoiding for all of my life.

And maybe more time to think about whatever happened to the promise that God had for me when He first made me, and what was this promise in the first place.

I really wasn't always like this.