No Wasted Journeys - Why I Blog

The World does not need another blogger

"Why did you start blogging? There are so many bloggers now, the world does not need another one."

This was what a friend said to me recently and it got me thinking.

Why am I blogging? I treasure privacy a lot and yet why am I putting myself out there, sharing with the world many of my very personal life experiences and adventures? Who are the people reading my blog? Are they people who appreciated my sharing and took something meaningful from them? Or is my blog just read by voyeurs and stalkers who are just amused by my folly and naivety?


Going back to when the seed for this blog was planted

My friend's remark about "The world does not need another blogger" got me thinking back to when and why I started this blog.

I know many who read my blog may not be Christians, but I am and therefore I cannot help but view everything I do in my life, everything that happened in my life through the perspectives of me being a Christian, everything as part of my walk with God. So for those of you who are not Christians, I ask for your understanding when I share from my personal perspective as a Christian, as part of my walk with God.

Although this blog is about 2 months old, the seed for this blog was actually planted more than a year and a half ago in early 2014.

In early 2014, I was 'grumbling' to God, I kept asking God whether I had 'wasted' my life in doing so many different things in my career, unlike many of my friends who stayed on course in one single path for most of their lives and were already in semi-retirement, cruising at the pinnacles of respective chosen careers. I practised as a family physician for many years before I did a mid-career switch and joined Economic Development Board and then went on to spend a good many years in Singapore Tourism Board, and then took the leap to be an entrepreneur in my late thirties where I got involved in many roles and ventures, including being a consultant to businesses, a SME business owner, a CEO leading the construction and launch of a property development.

I asked God if my many faceted career was as a result of my own sense of adventure or were my journeys directed by Him and if so why did He do so because each of the different roles in my career were not quite connected to the others and each time I took on a new role/challenge, I had to start almost from scratch and it was really really challenging.


Is that really you God?

Then one day in early 2014, I 'heard' God's reply, "There are no wasted journeys in your life, not even a single one. The journeys are not just for you, they are for other people. You are to share them so that others would learn and benefit from them."

Don't ask me how I hear God. I do not know how to answer you. I am not a theologian, I am not a pastor, I am just an ordinary Christian who every now and then hear from God and just know and believe that it is from God.

So for one whole week after I heard God saying that to me, I was very unsettled and restless, I kept wondering if that was really from God or was it from my imagination. And if it was really from God, what was I supposed to 'follow up' from it? Was I supposed to write a book? was I supposed to start a consultancy and go teach people about life's lessons? Was I supposed to become a speaker and share my journeys?

Although I heard from God, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, so I just waited.

Then that very Sunday, when I went to church and the speaker went on and on talking about "There are no wasted journeys", I knew I didn't hear wrongly, although I still didn't know what I was supposed to do, so I just waited.

Then a few weeks after that, when I was hosting a gathering of church friends at my place, a pastor from our church came to visit, he was new to the church and we were meeting each other for the first time that night. And that night when we were praying together, he said to me, "God wants you to speak up, you have so much to share, young men and young women could learn from you and your experiences."

When I heard what he said, I was both surprised and also not surprised at the same time. 'Surprised' because that was the first time we met and he knew absolutely nothing about me or what I had been going through or what I had been grappling with. 'Not Surprised' because that I've been hearing that since I started asking God about why I had gone on such a varied and challenging journey in my career.

Although I was by now quite sure that God was telling me to share my journeys so that others may learn and benefit from them, I didn't know in what way and how to share them, so I just put that in my 'parking lot' and waited.


The day I started to blog.

Fast forward to June 2015. And by this time, I found myself 7 months into the role as an accidental chef running a start up F&B. And during this time, many of my friends and even customers been asking me about why and how I ended up being a chef.

And since so many people had been curious about and wanted to know why and how I became an accidental chef and I did not have the time or means to explain and share with the people who asked me, I thought of starting a blog to share my journey.

I then recalled what I had in my 'parking lot', I recalled how God had 'spoken' to me about sharing my journeys  in early 2014, so that others may learn and benefit from them.

So I woke up one every early morning in early June 2015, I went to buy a domain name, signed up on blogger and started writing my first blog post. And that very morning, I shared what I wrote on my blog with my friends on FB, and my blog 'Whatscookingdoc.sg' was born.

I blog to share so that no journey is wasted

My friend's remark "Why did you start blogging? There are so many bloggers now, the world does not need another one" started me thinking.

And my answer to him is just this.

I blog to share so that no journey is wasted. I hope that through the sharing of my many faceted journeys and adventures, someone would learn and benefit from them, including and especially from the mistakes I made.

Even if just one person in the world benefit from my sharing of my journeys, then all the time, effort that went into this blog and the sacrifice of privacy for both my wife and I, would be well worth it.


The next question is ... Should I continue to blog?

I've been asking myself this question lately, should I continue to blog?

Is anyone even reading my blog and if they are, who are these people? Are they people who appreciated my sharing and took something meaningful from them? or is my blog just read by voyeurs and stalkers who are just amused by my folly and naivety?

I have so many more 'stories' and 'adventures' to share. But that would mean sacrifice of time, effort and privacy. Also, every time I share a story, I do feel very exposed and vulnerable. But I do not know how to or want to write any other way, I just want to write and share from the heart. 

I would really like to hear from people who are reading my  blog. I would really love to know

• Your general comments and feedback about what you have read from my blog so far
• Whether you enjoyed or even benefited from what I've shared so far
• Whether you think I should continue to blog and what you think or like me to blog more about.

Thanks much. It means much and would help much.

What's Cooking Doc?