Renew, Refresh or Revamp?

On the 24th April 2010, a tribe of 10 volunteers including myself went over to a one-bedroom elderly home for an Extreme Makeover. For 12 hours, we turned a one-room HDB flat inside out. Painting, repairing and fixing up new furnishing for a 80 year old Singaporean single male. He is without family and living with a friend in this flat. The purpose is to renew, refresh and revamp their living space. Cleaner, brighter and more livable.

Hardly, we get to see, touch and enter into the homes of the less privileged. Concealed out of our everyday lives, theirs is a world without LCD TV, heated showers and washing machine. Things we easily take for granted. Not to mention having a Personal Computer. The revamped flat which is about the size of my bedroom but it sure push us to the limit in terms of the details we need to take care of. Dead beat but definitely happy inside.

At some stage of our lives, we tend to seek renewal, refreshment or revamp. It could be internal or on the outside. Even an established brand seeks the same. The key is when and more importantly what do we do it for? Does the brand seek new meanings with new line of products? Or simply, it is time to refresh itself with a simpler look like what Pepsi did recently. Finding the purpose fuels the motivation to do it. Ours is simply to make an impact in a small way. Writing it, hopefully makes that effect a little bigger. I hope to dirty more sleeves in the future. My next pipeline is to promote road safety, especially within the cycling community.

No matter what is your choice, you need to stick to it and have a clear purpose with end goal in mind. If it benefits you, good. If it benefits a bigger cause, more than yourself. Great. You have outdone yourself. Quoting John Hope Bryant; "You can never go wrong doing good.".




PS. I will post pictures of the Before and After revamp sometime in the next 2 weeks. Stay tune.

Please leave your comments, if any.