Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Life and Death -How you see it?




Today, during my lecture we are discussing about " Palliative Care", which means we provide a type of care for those patients who are terminally ill and have no chance of surviving. In order way, we care for those patient who are dying.


When talking about this type of care, or more specific is in order to carry out this kind of care, first we need to understand the meaning of the word "Life" and "Death" . Usually, most of the time, especially chinese, would prefer to avoid talking about this issues, maybe they will talk about Life, but hardly "Death". Some dont even think about how will it, how's the feeling will be when they are actually dying....not now, but in the future. Honestly, "Die" keeps on floating in my mind from time to time.


First, I would like to talk about "Life". From time to time, I always wonder, why am I in this world in the first place? Why am I having a life now? Why am I responsible to be someone called Kean Seng in this world? Just like an ordinary people, born as a baby, going through childhood, learn how to talk, speak, crawl, walk,run....Going to school, learn how to read, gaining knowledge, having fun with friends,exam, holiday, entering university, choosing a course you have interest in,finally graduate...entering the rat race in the society, earn money, start building own family, married, have kids, working harder for another 30-40 years and retired finally...become elderly, waiting for their children to take care of them....and finally....waiting to die. Basically, this is basically the stages of life where everyone will go through, BUT...how you define "LIFE" is definetely different from one to another.


Every morning, when I accidentally look at the mirror, I will look at myself a little longer. I will stare at the mirror. Looking at my face...and talking to the mirror " WHY AM I LIVING IN THIS PERSON BODY", why must I breath,eat,sleep,walk,happy and cry with this body? Why am I in this world. I always ask the GOD "Why you wants me to come in to this world?" "Is there anything you want me to complete into this world?" Sometimes I keep on thinking and thinking, and i am tired of finding out the reason why am I here. Some of my friends said to me that, coming to this world is to enjoy yourlife, you done good in your past life so you can become human in this life. Some told me that because you have done something bad and you need to come into this world to do good, so that when you died, you can achieve nirvana where you no need to come back into this world again. Well, I dont know which 1 i think is more appropriate.Some people coming to this world not only never do something good, but end up hurting and doing bad things to other people. Some just come into this world, just become a normal human doing normal things everyday until the day they leave this world; Maybe this is the reason why I wanted to become a doctor since I was a small kid. Since small, I have been thinking about this problem many times, i keep on searching for the truth, why am I here? Not because I dont understand the meaning of life and I dont appreciate life. I understand what is life and i do aprreciate it alot so I need to find a reason why am I here, so I wont be wasting my time and do what I supposed to do, before I leave this world.


People may think that I am silly when I said this, but at least I think is normal for me to think so. Sometimes I think that maybe god wants me to come into this world to help the human beings. I admit that I am not someone who can influence the world and I also do not have supernatural power to help human beings. But at least I have a completely functioning 4 limbs with me, which I think I can use it to help people. I think that my purpose to come into this world with a completely healthy body and funtioning limbs is that I am here to help those who are handicapped, who are sick, who were borned less fortunate than I. I think that I am here to help them out. God gave me a healthy life when I came to this world, and now I am here to carry out my duty to help those who is sick and unfortunate. I dint mean that those who studying business or engineering or architect are not good and not helping people. I believe that, either directly or indirectly they have already helped many people in their life, from donating millions or thousands of money to a old folks home or charity, donating their clothers , or even helping an old man cross a road is considered as helping those who need. I prefer to take up medicine because I prefer to help people in a different way. I prefer to help people with my time, my energy and my knowledge rather than my money.

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