You Made Me Sinned

They smiled at you, approached you, convinced you that they were doing a survey and they just needed approximately 10 minutes of your time. Although you were in a hurry, they were still eager and determined, assuring you that you have nothing to lose listening to them.

 

I beg to differ, people. First you will lose your time. Secondly, you will lose your temper, which means you would add in another additional sin of cursing them inside your mind and also under your breath.

 

So, who are 'they' that I am referring to???

 

It all started with my experience last year end. During the month of November. My hectic month, fyi.

I just came back from the library - fatigue was the only appropriate word to describe my condition at the time. After having a late dinner at about 9.30 pm at Bali Bali, I walked back to my apartment. On the journey back home, out of the blue, there were two students of different sexes who were still walking looked at me and approached me. I was like, shit, I am in a hurry. Can't you notice that I am like walking 90km/h now?

 

After stopping me,they told me that they were doing a survey and they needed about 10 minutes of my time. I was like ok, so they needed to do a survey, so I just responded to them. As a student myself, I knew how it felt to be going around looking for candidates to fill out a survey form.

 

But the thing was, they asked me to watch a video. I was like "how long is this video? Because I am in a hury. I just came back from library and I am very, very tired." Still insisting, they assured me that it would not take a long time. I was like, okayyy.

 

Then I watched a video about how this one religion, have spread around the world and were shown with the feedback of the public to this religion, where there were quite a number of people are conforming themselves to this belief. The two students were telling me about 'Heavenly Mother'. Using the logic of their religion's teaching, and their own interpretation of the Bible, they told me that all the creatures in the earth are created with partners, with two sexes. One male, one female. So they told me, how could you believe that there is only one God, male, and there is no female God, whom they deemed as "Heavenly Mother."

 

The reason and the point of this post is not that I am going to degrade their belief, or their determination to preach. I do not care that they want to proceed with their stance in the notion about the existence of Heavenly Mother, but the thing is, when they tried to challenge my belief, I was bothered. I do not like people challenging my belief, despite my insufficient knowledge in the religious doctrines and my infrequent bible reading. 

 

The moment I heard the guy preacher told me "How can you only believe there is only God the Father?" my temper was rising. Then they continued speaking, adding on and on about their religion, and it felt like bullets coming out of their mouth.

Bullet 2: "Actually the Sabbath day is on Saturday, it is not on Sunday."

Bullet 3: "Actually we consume to Holy communion only during the Passover, and not on other Masses."

Bullet 4: "If you look at the Bible verse here, here, here, bla bla bla.. etc..."

 

Hey hey stop there.

 

Putting my best diplomatic and matter-of-factly look, I told them "Actually we also have Masses on Saturday. If you think Sunday is the wrong day, then I just go to Saturday Mass lo." Case closed. No point in arguing with them, because earlier when I asked them "how you can be so sure this is the message in the Bible, that is your interpretation, etc," they would not listen.

 

Then I told them I AM IN A HURRY, I AM VERY BUSY and then I just asked them to give me a youtube link of their video and I would watch it at my own convenient time. And I pretended to be curious in what they were preaching and told them I would ask my church's PRIEST about this.

 

They looked kinda scared at the mentioning of PRIEST so I justified my intention of seeking a priest's opinion because priests are the ones with adequate knowledge about this theological matter, therefore I have to ask the expert's opinion though. *innocent face*

 

And again, I want to state that, I am not degrading their religion or their belief, it is just that the way they preached annoyed me. Unfortunately, they did not bother me only once, but TWICE. Second time was at my home, when I was in a hurry to submit my draft to my supervisor. They were knocking on my gate for a very long time. I was actually hiding in the house, thinking that it was a salesman, but when I finally gave up and opened it, there they were. That same eager but tactless preachers. They, who did not learn Psychology of attracting people to your religion yet eagerly persuading, or more accurately, enforcing people to join them.

 

Well, boys and girls, here's a little advice in preaching.

 

Preach by example, not by mouth.

 

If you're this aggressive, even when you sell me Amway (a brand that I trust and consume) I would not buy it from you.

 

Enough said.

 

 

 

 

The After-Effect

I can finally say...

 

I am free!!!

 

Yeay?

 

After all the troubles I went through this afternoon at the printing shop, spending more than 2 hours correcting the margin on the soft-copy version of my thesis.

 

It was four when I submitted my thesis at the Humanity's office, getting a look of disapproval from the receptionist.

 

"What, still got 30 minutes leh," I argued in my mind.

 

But that was over.

 

Now I felt somewhat... liberated? Not really.

 

Ironically, I felt like there was something holding me back, something pulling me from embracing this newfound freedom that I have.

 

No, it is not the coming Viva. It was the thesis itself who spoke to me

 

"You did not put in your best when working on me~!"

 

Yeah, thesis, indeed I did not.

 

Reading back my thesis, grammatical-wise, it was readable, thanks to my eagle-eyed proofreader sister, but the contents itself, I felt like it was lack of something.

 

Citations, arguments, etc.

 

(for juniors, always remember to argue why, why, why, you are doing what you are doing, and include support from citations and reliable sources okay, and DO NOT DO it at the LAST MINUTE~)

 

Only at the 11th hour I was putting in 101%.

 

Before that, as usual, I was in my own dreamland, frozen time machine where I kept thinking there would still be enough time to proceed on with what I delayed.

 

But no, time was never enough.

 

But it was not time which was my enemy. Time I had plenty.

 

It was the inspirations, that I was lack of when I still had plenty of time. And they only came out from their hiding places at the last minute. 

 

 

So yeah. The after-effect of this thesis submission is, I am still unrest.

Not at peace with myself. Not forgiving myself for not doing my best.

 

Let's just hope this lesson will enforce me to be more productive in the future.

 

Amen?