A and I met a little over a year ago at Toastmaster district conference. At that point, I newly moved to the area and came to the conference for the 1st time wanting to learn more about a new district and make new friends. A and I sat next to each other and hit right off. We chatted about Toastmaster, books, and whatever. The next day when I returned to the conference after the business meeting (since I wasn’t an officer, I didn’t attend it), I heard people were looking for me. Why? Nobody knew me…then A and G, the newly elected district director came to me. A (then a division director) introduced G to me and G asked if I’m interested in being a division director in the new Toastmaster year. I liked G’s energy and said I’ll consider it; we exchanged phone # to talk more later and went on with the conference.
I thought being a division director will be a great opportunity to get to know more people and the area so I said Yes even though I had never been a division director and I’m new to the area. It was a busy year; I had recruited/ worked with 10 area directors (including 4 transition) to serve/ lead 21 clubs (& personally visited all) across the North Shore, hosted/ supported area/ division contests and demo meetings, and attended most district events. Things weren’t always easy and certainly took way more time than I expected, yet, I’ve enjoyed and learned a lot. I’m proud of my team and grateful for the experience.
I caught up with A over noodles after the year, again, we had a great time chatting about Toastmaster, books, and whatever. We took a walk around the reservoir near-by to relax our over-stuffed belly. It was a beautiful evening, cool with breeze, quiet, and an open sky. A turtle popped out to say hello. A rock tower stands out of the water, who created it? A little island in the middle of pond that we joked it’s the summer resort for the ducks. We were wowed by the simplicity and beauty of the nature…it started raining on our way back, we were lucky!
How did all these happen? A, G, and I ‘connected’ at the right time, place, and with the right chemistry. Chinese calls it 緣份Yuan Fan, the closest English word is probably ‘fate’, a special chemistry to bond people. Among the billions of people in the world, we meet a small portion in our lifetime, become acquaintance with a smaller % of them, and with even fewer special ones, we become friends and family. There is a Chinese saying ‘十年修得同船渡,百年修得共枕眠’ which means it takes 10 years to ‘earn’/ be able to share a boat ride and it takes 100 years to share the pillow/ be the couple. Treasure the people we encounter, work together, and love!