Tinted Glasses

 

Have you read the story of Dr Richard Teo, a 40 year old millionaire who died of lung  cancer on October 18? His story has been going viral in cyberspace, being shared in emails, facebook and twitter. There is also an online memorial which you can login to pay your respects.

Dr Richard Teo, by his account was a product of today's materialistic society. He was given a  research scholarship by National University of Singapore to develop lasers to treat the eye. He was given 2 patents, one for  medical devices, and another for lasers but  he decided that training in eye surgery was too long a process. Instead he opted to study aesthetic medicine to earn the big bucks. According to him, he became a "glorified beautician". Vanity was good business. He was raking in millions in his first year and expanded his business to Indonesia. He lived the good life, drove a Ferrari, bought land to build a bungalow, had the best cuisine whipped up by Michelin chefs and of course beautiful girls.

Everything came to an abrupt end on the discovery that he had Stage 4 lung cancer which had spread to his brain. Just before his diagnosis, he was still working out in the gym.  Subsequently, he shared his story at the Dental Christian Fellowship.

While most people would say he was sharing his story to benefit people, my colleague,  Don had a very different opinion. He was quite critical of Dr Teo's motives for sharing. According to Don, "Dr Teo has had the best life ever. He should have died without regrets. What could have been his  purpose for "promoting" his story? Even if he had any regrets, he should have just kept it to himself instead of blaming it on materialsim or his previous "God-less" life. Making money is a very practical and important way to survive and live well. Why the switch all of a sudden just because of cancer. In fact, the cancer maybe due to his genes and not materialism, arrogance or God-lessness".

I find human behaviour so interesting. One story but so many takes and the opinions so vastly different. Each one of us is different and unique. We perceive the same world differently. The way people look at life really depends on their value system, their lifestyle and their past. It is almost as if we are all wearing tinted glasses. What we see is what the glass allows us to see. However, our glasses maybe distorted or blur yet we rely so much on them.

My neighbour had a father who was unfaithful to her mother. Because of this, she grew up very distrusting of men. Today, even though she has a loving husband, she feels she cannot trust him. She is wearing the "all men cannot be trusted" glasses. Even though I tried to show her a different perspective, she remained adamant. Until she lets go of the old fears and removes those glasses, she cannot move forward. Not knowing that she is contributing to her own unhappiness, her relationship will continue to suffer. That is the power of those glasses. Could you also be wearing glasses from the past?  How is it impacting your life now? Has it ever occurred to you that if  you removed those glasses, the view could be entirely different?