learning from the root

It is amazing how we can learn from those who are less fortunate than us. At least, that is how I stare back at the lesson I got from my experiences with them, intellectually disabled, whom I have taken care for 5 weeks now.

...

A rather cloudy evening it was, on last Saturday, when we had our outing session with them. We went to Sentosa and played by the beach. Many games were held, generating laugh and happiness from all of them.

The point that astonished me was when they were given one piece of paper each, plus coloring pencils. Free to draw anything they liked.

Sharen, my trainee, drew the beach with its shallow water and coconut trees. She even drew me and other trainers as well. What an honor to be drawn by her..

Chen Sze, the other trainee, she drew tree with flowers, one person, one house, sun and the clouds.

Fu Yen, she made a beautiful view of the sky.

Up to one extent, their drawings were just drawings - everyone could make the exactly same things, even better. But that was not the point.

It began to extremely different drawings when they started to color it.

They painted the sun with pink color, the trees with blue, the sky with green, the woman with red, the stars with purple, and all.

People might think that was crazy, but developed no worries since they were intellectually disabled. But hey, there was a hidden gem out of it.

I started to think, how wonderful life would be, when we can do the same, just like them.

How wonderful life is, when we can free our thoughts, let it fly, be brave, and start to imagine something different, something extraordinary.

Thinking outside the box, where we can see how pink sun is, how blue the tree is, how green the sky is, or even how red we are, women.

They let their minds played when sometimes we did not. We were too scared of dreaming. Too scared of imagining things. Too hesitate to explore something new. We were set, in the perception of how ideal world is. A perception that sometimes misguide us in appreciating life.

Why can't the sky be green? Why can't the trees be yellow?

We can be purple too, if we want to.

See how we can obtain something good, when we try our best to look at a contrast perspective?

Maybe, this is the time for you, to pursue your personal legend, like what Paulo Coelho said in The Alchemist :)