The Audacity of Hope

Earlier this year, I saw Barack Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope". Although I haven't read the book yet, the title struck me as incredibly powerful and bold.

In life, we always have a choice when we are faced with situations. I often find my choices lean toward fear, doubt and worry due my loss of control and lack of trust in God.
In 1 Corinthians 13, there are three other choices to life: faith, hope and love. When you compared both the negative and positive choices, they are actually opposites:
- faith / doubt
- hope / worry
- love / fear

When I think about it, doubt, worry and fear do not draw you to God but actually prevent you from fully living the blessings of life. That is why I liked the word "audacity" because it flies in the face of negativity. The definition of audacity is "boldness or daring, esp. with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions."

I want the audacity to hope in the face of life's uncertainties and challenges. Hope is what makes us human. I would rather live with disappointment than to never choose hope.

Being asked for ID

During my life, I have always looked younger than my actual age. In my twenties, it bothered me because I wanted to be taken seriously in my career. However, in my thirties as I begin to notice more wrinkles and gray hairs, I actually want to look younger than my age. Despite the Garnier Nutrisse #30 to color my hair or Clinique cream to smooth the wrinkles, I was wondering if my youthful looks were beginning to fade. In fact, just the other day, I was "bemoaning" to a friend that I hadn't been asked for ID since I was 29. But today, when I bought a bottle of wine for a dinner party and I was asked for ID. This request filled me with great joy!

However, the situation begs the question - why, for our first 30 years of life, do we want to look older than we are and after 30, we want to hang on to our youthful looks? It seems society is a great hurry to grow up but not in a hurry to grow old. When I look at teens now, they seem so much older than when I was their age. Even 9 or 10 year old girls are dressing more grown-up than ever before. Yet, some women in their 30's and 40's are dressing like teen-agers and showing a desperation of staying young. Since our society celebrates youth and marginalizes the elderly, I understand why people want to stay young. There is age-ism on both ends of the spectrum...either we are too young or too old.

The ironic thing is that I love being in my 30's. I am confident about who I am despite other people's opinions. I am entering the best years of my life (so far) and I wouldn't go back in time even if you paid me. I need to worry less about looking older and just concentrate on living a full life with joy.



The whole Dove campaign for real beauty actually inspires me (http://www.dove.ca/beauty/). If you haven't taken a look at the conversation they started about female beauty and age, you should take a look at their website.



To end the blog off, here are some quotes on aging:


I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel. - Elizabeth Arden


None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. - Henry David Thoreau


Live your life and forget your age. - Norman Vincent Peale


Wrinkles merely indicate where the smiles have been. - unknown


It is not the years in your life, but the life in your years that counts. - Adlai Stevenson

The Pink Mountains

I wish the world would know that God is in the details.
I wish I had a camera with me last night.
I wish I was a great photographer like my sister Nicole.
I wish I could capture the beauty of the pink mountains.

For the last 4 days, I have been up in Banff at a conference for work and I was reminded again about the amazing backyard I have. The Rocky Mountains continue to take my breath away at every turn. And to make the enjoyment even greater, I was with colleagues from Montreal, Bahamas and other locales who had never seen the Rockies or Banff. Their excitement magnified my own.
But last night was the most breathtaking...after wandering into town for dinner, we took the scenic path back up to the conference centre just before dusk. As the sun set behind the mountain range, the snow on the surrounding peaks caught it and transformed the view. At first, the snow was a warm yellow and then a fiery orange and then finally a glorious and glowing pink! My breath was gone and my eyes transfixed until the sunlight completely disappeared behind the mountain range. "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."

the adventure continues

Originally, this blog was only going to be about my Hong Kong trip. But after careful consideration and due to the fact my philosophy is that life is an adventure, I am going to continue this journal. Whether or not I have anyone who cares is not the point but this will simply be a means to share my observations along the journey.

Speaking of journeys, there are always changes to it and last week, I quit my job. My colleagues planned a "secret" and wonderful send-off party. The ladies in the attached picture made me feel at home at the office and I will miss them. It is interesting when you consider the people who come into your life especially from the workplace. You spend an incredible amount of time with them....sometimes even more time than your own family. But when you leave a company, there is always the question of whether or not you will continue to be as close or even stay in touch because the convenience of the relationship is gone. I hope I do stay in contact because these are great women who supported me in my career. They encouraged me and celebrated my successes with me during my time there. I miss them already.

Home Sweet Home

I am home and it is good! I will miss Hong Kong and the different pace of life but there is a relief at the end of a journey to be at home. I am attempting to stay up until 8pm in order to get my body/internal clock back to normal ASAP. I am falling asleep at the computer so please forgive me if there are any typos.
To see some pictures of the trip, check out http://picasaweb.google.com/bateman.sj for some highlights.

Xie Xie Hong Kong

Xie Xie means Thank you in Chinese.
As my trip wraps up, I am truly thankful for the experience I had here. The city and culture were kind to me through great food, memorable outings, fantastic shopping and good times with friends old and new - the only exception to the city's kindness is the facial rash I developed yesterday! Besides that, this trip was worth every penny of it. I am glad that I made the choice to experience Hong Kong and Beijing. I hope to come back to Asia soon - perhaps the rash is the travel bug that I have caught again. The list of places I want to travel is growing daily as I ask myself why I haven't travelled to the ends of the world in recent years.
Now, I have to figure out how to get to the airport with my 2 suitcases - it will be a bit of gong show.
PS - Some people have requested pictures from my trip. When I get back, I will post some here on the blog as well as provide a link to my picasa photo album

China - a country of contradictions

Arrived back to Hong Kong from Beijing last night and am still trying to process my feelings about China and Beijing. What I found is that China is a country of contradictions and it is difficult to define it. It is clean and dirty, rich and poor, communist and capitalism, polite and rude, old and modern - perhaps Beijing defies any type of definition.

Having said that, our side trip to Beijing was incredible and overwhelming. There is very little English spoken so that has its challenges but we found a few "friends" along the way which helped with our trip. One being the cute concierge at our hotel - Mark. He booked our Great Wall trip and suggested places to visit during our time there. I had a small crush on him.

Speaking of the Great Wall, I am a "heroine" because I climbed it - apparently Chairman Mao called anyone who climbed the wall a hero or heroine. In my expectations, I imagined the Great Wall to be like this first picture - not a lot of people such as the picture here. But let me say, the wall is complete insanity due to the crush of tourists just like the second picture (I didn't take either of these pictures - thank you Google Images) . Despite the majesty and immensity of the wall, the crowds took away from the pleasure of being there. Still, I was glad that I went because it is one of the wonders of the world and I don't think I could go to Beijing and not go...it is like going to the Eiffel Tower in Paris...you just have to go because of the iconic nature of the attraction.

The other things we did were:

- Ming Tombs - the burial sites for the Chinese emperors

- Chinese Herbal Medicine University

- Jade factory

- The Forbidden City - the living quarters for the emperor's family

- Tiannamen Square

- Wangfujing Shopping District

Beijing is full of ancient reminders of the imperial rule as well as constant propaganda of the Communist regime. Quite a fascinating city but I was glad to leave and return to the civility of Hong Kong.

Today is our last day in Hong Kong - I can't believe our trip has gone by so quickly. We have 29 hours to go before our plane leaves. We are going to explore the Central District around our friend Lynn's apartment and then out for dinner with friends for Korean BBQ- more good food.