Swirling Thoughts Cause Insomnia… Again…

Right… What’s new…? This is the 4th significant time that I have gotten complete insomnia since I have been out of job for the past 5 months. It’s bad enough that there are times when I get a bit of initial insomnia (during this period of worry), but finally do get to sleep after some time. But when I get complete insomnia, it means I totally can’t get to sleep at all for the whole night. Just toss & turn… toss & turn…in all possible sleeping positions. I even tried varying my arms’ & legs’ positioning, with whatever glimmer of hope that I might just fall asleep. But alas… it didn’t work.

Worry is a strange thing. I feel that it’s like no matter how much we can will our mind to trust in the Lord, there would still be like a teeny weenie bit of worry at the back of our mind. And even when we come before God, feeling so broken inside, sighing with much hurt & sorrow, worry is still something that sticks along.

I guess that’s why we are still really human… & our struggle with worry is like our struggle with sin. Although the Bible does tell us that we should not worry, it’s typically the same idea as telling us that we should not sin. This seems to me as a reminder not to so envelope ourselves in worry or sin, as this is not what God wishes for us. But even the disciples that were with Jesus for a few years still had their fears, worries & one of them even betrayed Him… so we just have to try to remind ourselves to stay away from worry & sin, as much as possible… & pray to God to help us. Just like God’s word tells us to FLEE (not grapple) from sin… I suppose it is also the same for worry… to flee from it… though it’s really not easy.

For tonight, I had two major worries that kept me up all night. My first main worry is about my interview with Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) this afternoon for the position of Communications Executive. I like this job scope because it deals with advertising & not just purely direct selling, as with insurance agents & such front-selling sales people. It also involves providing editorial support, which is also in-line with my interest coz I love writing, although my English subject grades never got above a C5 in school. Personally, I don’t think it’s very fair to judge because of one exam script. In any case, people can improve in their language over the years too.

My second main worry is about the high cost of getting married in Singapore. I have been doing a little bit of research over the Internet recently & before I slept, I did up an estimated calculation list of expenditures which shocked me in the heart. After spending time to go into fairly reasonable details, I realized that there can be several hidden costs that add to the wedding budget! It’s not as simple as just church sanctuary fee, refreshments, wedding dinner, honeymoon & HDB flat down-payment. It’s a WHOLE lot more than that… If you don’t believe, go figure & count for yourself.

Some years ago, I remember reading a research article conducted to compile & find out a list of events that can be highly stressful to a person. This research also attaches a certain mathematical figure to each of these events, so as to rate it according to its level of stress. Some of the commonly high stressed events include becoming unemployed, death of a loved one, moving house, etc.

I can’t remember if getting married was listed as one of the higher stressed events, but it is surely & clearly understood by those who have taken the time, efforts & pains to plan & carry out their wedding. I have only met one person in my life who said that it wasn’t so bad to plan & go through with the wedding. But that’s because he had many church friends who were very capable & helped him a lot. They were the stressed up ones… from the way I looked at it, especially when they went about rushing to create the PowerPoint slideshow, etc. It was scary just watching their tensed up faces…

In any case, since moving house was listed as a highly stressful event, that itself already forms part of settling down… & that usually needs to be done before the actual wedding day itself. In fact, it’s obvious that many, many things need to be done before the wedding day. And if moving house isn’t stressful enough, add the uncertainty of balloting for a flat & hoping for the best location. Add the costs of basic home renovation like flooring & wall paint. Add basic furniture like having a stove, bed, pillow, bed sheets, table, chairs… & for many of us, a TV is almost like a necessity… along with a VCD or DVD player & desktop PC to check e-mails & surf the Internet. Did I mention the need the buy at least one telephone for the house too?

Getting married is one of the biggest events planning activity that one will ever have to go through, should one ever decide to settle down. Careful planning for honeymoon, proposing to your fiancé (for guys), getting through with her parents (again for guys), booking a hotel restaurant or ballroom, & all the nitty gritty stuff that would seem unnoticed to the unknowing thought of those who have not yet considered it in detail. Oh boy, it’s going to be more than ‘quite’ a ride…