How to Be Good

Just read Nick Hornby's How to Be Good and was doing some thinking about stuff I want to improve on in my behaviour. It's not depressing stuff - completely understand how God's grace will see me through and help me be a better person. But I find it is always good once in a while to muse about one's shortcomings and force yourself to buck up.

Since I was a kid, I have always wanted to be the Good kid, the one that sits on the side of the angels - who is naturally polite to her parents, does all her homework, always has an intelligent answer, always has perfect manners, smiles alot, is never burdensome and always winsome.

Now as an adult, it is hard to look at the gulf between what you want to do and what you actually do. I feel even more like a louse when I have walking, talking specimens of humanity who live up to the ideals that I aspire to. Witnessing their lovely sides makes me wish I could be as Good as that.

Here is my current Wish List of Good Behaviour right now:

I want to be as consistently friendly to strangers as D - hospitality is such a gift and I realise while I have a little bit of that talent, it is no where near what I think hospitality ought to be. I want to be the type of person who leaves behind a trail of cheeriness everyday and sometimes back in taciturn Singapore, it's easy to slip back into the culture and put on the deadpan pedestrian face.

I want to be as inspiring as Y - who keeps tabs on all his students and knows all their names, silly fears and mundane thoughts. I want to live up to the ideal of what I think a teacher ought to be and some days, I let work and just selfish desire to retreat into personal space stop me from reaching out as much as I should.

I want to be as neat as L. My table is such a mess and my room has devolved back to its primal soup stage.


Current mood: musing, optimistic, hopeful, trying to keep the faith and impatient for things to happen
Current music in room: my students yakking about iPods while I cling onto the last few minutes before class starts