It was January 23rd, 2018: I was at a restaurant having supper with a friend as Vietnam’s U23 football team engaged in an incredible tense penalty shootout at the AFC semi-final. Everything fell unnaturally quiet, then the noise started to rise to a crescendo: We won.
Vietnam became the first ASEAN side to enter the AFC final. A deafening symphony of motorbike horns and kitchen utensils was created in every corner of the street of Saigon. People started to dance and scream out “Vietnam Vo Dich” (loosely translated: “Vietnam is the champion”) at strangers, together. Although I wasn’t and have never been a football fan, out I was, emerging myself in “the storm” — a special term this nation of football fever dedicates for football victory celebrations. At that moment, no one can help smiling and being cheerful. A sense of joy spread out, as contagious as it went.
So does the joy of the tiny yet mesmerizing details of this very life for everyone around me. It’s when a friend finally found a way to smile and embrace happiness after a long period of depression and locking his heart inside. It’s when a colleague received a well-deserved promotion after fighting for gender discrimination and her own self-doubts. It’s when one disadvantaged student got to fulfill her dream of studying abroad on a full scholarship.
Above all, joy comes from within, as it becomes my energy stream. It can be as simple as having Netflix bring back “About Time” for Christmas streaming, or coming across a beautiful article and being able to share it with my beloved, or the feeling of a sudden autumn breeze on my skin after a heating summer. Through the looking glass of joy, I savor life and treat it with kindness, contemplation, and appreciation.
Joy shapes life decisions and meanings. Juggling between a full-time job, other personal commitments while managing an outreach program — Day One Educational Platform seems like a lot to take in for me. At some point over the past years, I was so tired of the only incremental progress that we’d made to the program, so frustrated by the endless talks of tight budgeting and scheduling. The whole journey sometimes felt cold and grey without any beam of light. But over and over again, I stopped, looked back and reflected on how far we’ve gone together with the students.
Having started with only $5,000 from an individual donor and 11 scholars in 2015, we received funding from PayPal Impact Fund and Temasek CSR fund in 2016 and 2017 respectively and quadrupled the number of beneficiary students to 40 scholars. We aggregate and optimize fragmented resources to create a virtuous cycle helping underprivileged students. Our foundation partners finance student tuition fees and partial living stipend. Meanwhile, we organize a free 6-month college complementary program not only for career preparation but also to inspire students to become active and responsible citizens.
Without Day One, the students would still have been able to secure a job, a good career path, even though that might’ve been a little bit more difficult. But with Day One, the students are exposed to a much bigger paradigm of the world around them. For some students, the underprivileged background hindered them to dare to be bold. Some were just looking for the encouragement to be braver. With our philosophy of “Every day is Day One”, more potentials are unlocked. More impacts are exerted. More seeds of hope are sown. At the end of the day, the elation of worthiness, of being able to help and empower keeps me going. I felt the power of joy, utterly and whole-heartedly.
Fast forward to the recent days, on a Tuesday night, December 10th, 2019, Vietnam football team clinched our first-ever Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medal. After 60 years of waiting, a total of 30 SEA games and a sexagenary cycle in Asian tradition, joy was sparked and shared, connecting the hearts of millions of Vietnamese people.
