Since I was a child,
I've been fascinated by and heavily invested in the stories,
Lives and growth of others.
My answer to the question,
What's your favourite secret superpower,
Has been and will likely continue to be the ability to read people's minds.
To me,
The world is made of us and the things we do are the things that we don't do together.
Between the time that I was 13 to 18 and later on,
Sporadically as an undergraduate in university,
I sang in a choir and I spent hundreds of hours training with my section and even more hours collectively singing as a full choir,
Competing and performing at local and international competitions.
If you've ever heard a single section of a choir sing on their own or a bassist of a band playing her own solo,
You'll know what I mean when I say it feels incomplete when you sing or perform on your own.
Sure,
In most songs there is often a part of the melody,
A solo,
Where a player or a section is featured individually.
Having a high vocal range,
I was often one of the select few,
Allocated to sing the highest and the technically most difficult notes.
Though I patiently practiced to ensure I could sing them well,
I didn't really care for those moments,
The moments that other people considered to be the limelight.
I was,
Am and will always be happiest in a group when together as a collective,
We shine.
Looking back,
My favourite moments are those hours after a high stakes competition,
When I can still feel the remnants of those chills down my spine from having been completely in flow,
All 70 of us,
As if we were one single living breathing organism.
Our technique might not have been perfect,
But we were one.
And I will be forever grateful for that experience because at the age of 13,
Without knowing it,
I was already practicing yoga and already experiencing union with something much greater than myself.
Every cell and fibre of my being had already known what it meant to be when we are greater than the sum of our parts.
In these past years,
Particularly these last two years,
This endeavour of shining together as a collective has proven to be particularly difficult.
You and I,
Like many others,
Have experienced separation,
Loss,
Isolation and probably loneliness.
Almost every week,
I get an update from my father,
A screenshot sent through WhatsApp of an article from Zhaobao,
The local Chinese newspaper in Singapore,
On the staggering number of COVID cases and deaths,
Or maybe about some new variant that has emerged,
This time rather uncreatively named Deltachron.
And already it has been almost three weeks since the eruption of Russia's war on Ukraine and possibly the war on democracy and the entire free world.
In June 2020,
My wish upon waking daily was that COVID would someday end and some kind of normalcy would be restored.
Now every morning I wake,
My hope is to receive news that the war has ended and the people of Ukraine are free,
Sovereign and safe.
These weeks I often find myself waking at 2.
30am,
Writing as I'm doing so right now,
In a bid to avoid checking the news or being on social media.
Perhaps you are surprised and wondering why I'm teaching or even sharing about charity classes for a country and its people that I have no blood ties with.
You might be asking yourself,
How does this relate to me and my country?
How is this any of my business?
I can't answer that question for you,
But I can answer why this is my business.
In October last year,
I crossed paths with Roman Togovitsky,
A Ukrainian-Harvard-trained neuroscientist specialising in sleep science.
He responded to a post I wrote on the Expat Forum inviting digital entrepreneurs for gathering in Turin.
He was passing through and so we did not spend much time together,
Meeting only three times over the span of two weeks.
But our interactions and his story left a deep impression on me.
He had left a well-paying job in the US to return to Ukraine to create and run an NGO to support the injured Ukrainian veterans from Maidan,
The 2014 clashes and subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia.
From then till late 2021,
He continued to dedicate his life,
Time and resources to support the healing and recovery of others,
Many below minimum wage through his by donation health optimisation programme.
Now just two weeks before the war broke out,
I wrote to him asking if he would like to collaborate to teach something together on Insight Timer.
And he said yes,
Gladly.
When the war broke out,
He flew back from Boston in the US to Ukraine to help.
Unlike me,
Roman is not an expressive or emotional person.
He says he has only cried two times in his life.
The first time during Maidan and the second,
Two weeks ago,
As he watched the long fall of lone Ukrainian women and children as they were trying to escape across the border to safety.
Roman is just one of the many stories that you have probably already read,
Heard or seen in the media.
Stories of resilience,
Courage,
Compassion and hope in times of despair,
Destruction and desolation.
A Ukrainian man picks up and moves a mine with his bare hands.
A Russian spy drone is heroically taken down by a Ukrainian grandmother with a humble can of tomatoes.
A young Russian soldier cries as Ukrainians feed him their enemy,
Bread and tea,
While helping to contact his family to pick him up.
These stories go on.
And this is why I'm writing I'm speaking to you.
Because I found the post where I write about my stories and stories of others,
Raw,
Real and honest,
Are the most moving,
The most popular.
Years after we have met,
After you've heard this story,
You will forget exactly what I have told you,
But you will never forget how listening to this made you feel.
And we all love stories because stories are a way to experience the retelling of our own lives.
But now is not the time to passively listen to these stories.
Now is the time to take action,
To shape how these stories unfold.
Because these are not just stories.
These are other people's lives.
You are the protagonist of your own story,
But your plotline sits amongst billions others.
And the greatest story that is being told that will continue to unfold long after you and I cease to exist is that of life itself.
What world would you like to leave behind?
Every day I try to find consolation in the words of my teacher Uma.
She says,
Dream,
Because we can't think our way out of this mess that we got ourselves in.
And I fully agree.
I thought long and hard and it has been futile.
I am neither a politician,
A policy maker,
Nor an influential billionaire entrepreneur who has the power to approve sanctions,
Decide the allocation of defense budgets or to allow the transportation of fighter jets.
But some of you have mentioned that my classes,
My recordings and my words inspire you.
And I can inspire you and encourage you to dream and take inspired action with me.
Why is it important to dream?
Because in dreaming with our eyes closed,
We might with luck find the solace,
Inspiration,
Ideas,
Intuition,
And courage that we fail to grasp or see with our eyes wide open.
Dream so that we can take inspired action.
Dream so that we can become brave.
Dream so that we can care more.
Dream so that we can love more.
I dream of a world where every single person has all their potentials fulfilled.
I dream of a world where every single person is safe,
Healthy,
And happy.
I dream of a world where every single person can live and be free.
Would you dream with me?
Would you join me to shine together?
Would you shape the stories of Ukraine and change how history and life is written forever?
