Melissa Lim Mae Lyn’s birth on the Summer Solstice feels prophetic. 20 June is, after all, the longest day in our calendars where summer basks in its full glory, making it the official happiest day of the year. What could be a better date than this to announce the beginning of a charmed life? Melissa, whose philanthropic endeavours began with a youthful Legal Aid position at UNHCR, reminds us that 20 June is also World Refugee Day. “What are the odds, right? It’s God’s way of saying, ‘hint-hint we’re all here for a purpose!’”
Living a purposeful life is clearly one of Melissa’s main goals. Throughout the course of our conversations, the word ‘use’ often crops up, underscoring the notion that being of service is essential for her. Sifting through her lived life this is endlessly expressed, be it through a creative approach to problem solving for her clients as a lawyer and entrepreneur, dedication to charitable acts, or even devotion to providing her toddler son, Mason, with the best start in life. Most charmingly, it is woven into the fibre of her being as she adopts a sunny disposition and speaks with a contagious warmth that inclines those in her immediate radius towards positivity.
Melissa shares her favourite quote from American poet and playwright T.S. Eliot as an inspiration for her life’s modus operandi: “To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.” In a world where we are inundated with motivational messaging constantly flashing across our screens, only to flit out the information saturated mind, Melissa has taken the time to philosophise on the essence of Eliot’s words—to her at least. I ask if there are any more quotes that have driven her as keenly?
She replies with a twinkling smile, “You should always go the extra mile. It’s not crowded there.”
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