What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?
I wish I had known the saying in childhood—”Idle young, needy old.” I wish I had studied harder in primary school. This is not regret, only fact.
At six or seven, my mother said my curly hair marked me as rebellious. She was right. I was playful, inattentive in class, and my primary school years suffered for it.
In my teens, I changed. I spoke of self-discipline, tenacity, and commitment. Year after year, outstanding reports. On Graduation Day, the principal awarded me a banner of excellence—an unprecedented, solo honour. What turned me was waking to reality: education is the best investment for a great life ahead.
Yet I carried one true regret in my teens—not studying the Bible enough, missing the call to serve God in my youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1). But Scripture encourages me: “Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, pressing on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13–14)
And so I hold one image close—the child is father of the man. In the summer of 2008, on the Great Wall, I saw a father and his three-year-old son. The boy, bare-chested and barefoot, climbed the steep slopes tower after tower, tapping along step by step without stopping—unbelievably resilient, vastly energetic. They bore witness to many tourists that day: when there is a will, there is a way. I wished the boy a blessed life—and today, I hope he, now in his twenties, stands firm at the summit.
May the poem below enlighten you on your reflections on what you wish you had started earlier.
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“Teach · Learn · Practise”
As the saying goes: “At three, you see a man at eighty.”
Walk the right path at three, and you’ll not stray from it in old age.
Greed is the root of all evil; a lazy heart is born in youth.
One breath cannot muster the spirit—giving up becomes a lifelong habit.
Without toil in youth, how can there be rest in old age?
Those who honour not their parents shall not be honoured in their elder years.
What you sow, you reap—these are words of wisdom.
Be faithful in the smallest things, and you’ll be faithful in great matters.
Be unjust in the smallest things, and you’ll be unjust in great matters.
O my heart, hold fast to the “Way”—
That you may not stray from it even in old age!
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en yan hua fang 