One of my favorite things about book discussions with youth, using “Savour”, is their uncanny ability to delve deep and come up insights I had never planned to convey, or thought of as I wrote & painted it.
As we ended the session with courageous musings filled with laughter and tears, a brave boy stood out with his authentic takeaway:
“I think the stars and flowers in your book remind me of Super Mario. You know when Mario gets a flower? He gets superpowers to shoot fireballs. But he still has to do the work, you know? It doesn’t mean he overcomes immediately.
And when Super Mario gets a Super-star, guess what? He can ‘chiong’ (speed) to the endpoint easily. He becomes invincible.
That’s my biggest takeaway from your talk today about living a purposeful life:
The flowers- they’re like our dreams and passions. Sometimes they are really hard to pursue. Even though it’s like a fireball we have, we still need to put in due effort to go against the grain.
The stars- well, they’re like the awards and accolades we attain in life. They can really help us ‘chiong’ and attain so-called success easily. But that’s not what life is all about- just collecting stars and awards to ‘win the game’.
So my greatest takeaway today is not to live life without savouring the flowers in life, and to be encouraged to keep trying, to keep pursuing my dreams even when the going gets tough… and to share the stars I have obtained along the way with others.”
<3
At College of Alice and Peter Tan, NUS