A Great Way to Live

I had a few weird dreams lately, all targeted at the core issues of my life. I had been saying a few dejected prayers before sleep these days, and I guess the dreams are His answers to my queries.

One way to tell His answer from your own answer. If the answer in your mind gives you a sense of peace, then the answer is truly a gift from the heavens.

I woke up with some feel of that!

In that dream of mine, I had a confrontation with my boss. (Of all situations to be in.) I was being reprimanded for being performing poorly in my work. There was a lot of tension, and somehow the situation escalated into a quarrel. At the end my boss challenged me to leave, along the lines of "you are free to quit and chase your flying dream!"

Wonder how he knew that. I haven't really told him before... Nevermind. It is just a hypothetical scenario anyway.

Of course I took up the challenge. I quit my job and did my PPL full time without income. It was cool for the first few months, but as the months went by, my savings got depleted.

And finding a job was tough. The ministry wouldn't reinstate me back to a JC. Independent IP schools won't take me into their JC cohort because I have no JC experience. To make it worse, my certifications from my ground examinations expired due to the six month validity period. Everything was just hanging there. Not here and not there in all aspects.

Give PPL up would mean all the money invested will be wasted. Don't give up, and find a way to maintain the course was driving me nuts. There was just a lot of regret and desperation. Even the temp job that I found paid too little to cover anything. Thousand plus a month. Not even enough to make ends meet, how to finish the course?

I was just down and out.

Woke up from that scenario with cold sweat. After a while I went back to sleep again. Fortunately didn't have to go to school on Thursday, that why I could afford to sleep and dream again.

This dream was so much better!

I got selected by SIA as a cadet pilot! And I proved my mettle and worked my way up. From second officer to first officer to finally captain. I became a captain for the A380s, flying from Singapore to Sydney frequently.

It was great. I had a comfortable income, bought a house, saw the world, immense satisfaction of flying a commercial jet, what else? It's the perfect job, the perfect life.

But subsequently over the years, there was lesser and lesser warmth when I returned home. Parents became strangers. My brother moved out and didn't leave any contact behind. My sister got married and had her own family.

And I wasn't around when my parents finally left.

Whenever I returned home, all I had was a big empty house to myself. And whichever part of the world I went to, I'll see people happy with their friends or loved ones, white people, black people, whatever, of all skin colours. I wasn't part of it. I didn't know them. I was a stranger to them, and they were strangers to me.

Even the pilots working with me were not constant. The pilots were rotated frequently. I'll see a new face every now and then in the cockpit. Everyone was trained to follow a company SOP. Pilots are trained to be team players, but they do not stay in the same team...

It was then, that I realised I wanted to stay around. I wanted a job that allowed me to see the same people everyday. I want to see my parents and brother everyday. I want to see my colleagues everyday. I want to see my students everyday.

Sounds like a scene from "Click" the movie.

It was already 9 in the morning when I woke up from both dreams. It was a rainy morning. Cool and refreshing. I thought about those dreams for a while. I seldom remember dreams after I'm awake, but these two were as vivid as life itself.

Lots of thoughts were coursing through my mind then. It was a difficult morning. Finally one thought gave me peace. I believe it was what He was trying to tell me.

1) Love your job.
2) Love the people you get to see everyday.
3) Love the present.
4) Love flying. Use it as a means to lift the spirits of people around me.

Point 4 got me confused stuck for a while, but now I know what He meant.

Flying does not mean a change of job. I do not have to join an airlines to be happy. Just some experience of getting up in the sky would be enough! A PPL would suffice! In fact, a PPL is better because your passengers are in the same cockpit as you, not like a commercial jet.

I... finally found my sense of direction in life... After such a long time.

To help people by lifting them up. To use flying to achieve that aim. To fulfill His aim of saving souls. Everything fits. Everything's in line.

Now just need to put everything in place!

Bless me with a SPL in 5 month's time.