As I finished work like any other Saturday night, I would pack my bag, punch my card, take the long flight of stairs down the restaurant and head for the train station. Usually by then I would feel a chill from the air-conditioning on my perspiration and I would take the MRT from City Hall back to Tampines and I will take a bus back home from the bus terminal.
This Saturday felt different.
Since I got my driver's license, I have been working late through midnight and driving my dad's car home, or to supper at Fei Fei Wantan Mee, or to find some friends for company. But this Saturday, yesterday, I went about my old routine of taking the good ol' public transport.
I felt the void.
I used to have a pesky A.P. who would send me smses even during my shift, and after work, I will definitely see a message that asks caringly, if I have finished work or am I tired, or, she would say that she was tired and she'd be turning in and I'd see her tomorrow.
Yesterday, I received no such messages, and it made me ponder, is there someone waiting for all of us?
It made a whole lot of difference, having someone wait up for you whilst you head home, because even though you're alone, you don't feel alone, because someone is waiting, someone notices if you were to make it back home safely or if you might have been involved in a car accident.
Don't take your someones for granted, they are the ones that keep you company when you're lonely and make sure you're home safe each time you venture.
Saturday nights feel lonelier than usual now.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
"Boats", navigation and decisions
I believe I have always been a positive person, even before I knew I was one. My experiences in life only serve to remind me further that you find a way or you make a way, you choose what to feel and what not to feel, and you can empower yourself with the simple act of decision-making.
We make decisions every day, some more significant than others, but nonetheless these decisions regardless of their gravity will shape our destiny and future.
The day we were born, we were all put into "boats"; our families and environment decide what boats we sail on, a luxurious yacht or a simple speedboat, and there we go, sailing into the mysterious sea that is seemingly calm one moment and turbulent and threatening the next.
Every voyage is different; it brings with it different climatic conditions, and as much as we have the technology to predict the weather and sea conditions, we are not often prepared to deal with the sudden change in the environment and the decisions we make in these crucial moments determines our destination, if we do have one planned in mind that is.
We can't control the boats we receive but we can use the stars, or whatever tools we have in our possession to chart our course. Because the one thing we can control is ourselves, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, and that is what makes us human, and not animals that act on instinct. As much as we humans often claim to have no control over ourselves, I am sure many of us remember a moment or many moments when we took over, and these feelings and emotions held no reins over us.
And I have decided four years ago, that I will be happy no matter what, I will not put myself down, neither will I allow myself to sink to that pitiful, depressing threshold because I've been there and I had enough. I will chart my own course, even though I do not know my final destination, but I will keep going in search of my own paradise.
But yet the people around me whom I love dearly are struggling in their own oceans.
Few were blessed to receive machines with navigation systems and capabilities of 16 knots or more, and many of them are plunged into the most turbulent seas and torrential weather. And whether they do or do not know it, they have slowly subjected themselves to fate, and everyday they curse and swear at the seas, at the weather, wondering what they have done to deserve such an agonizing voyage.
And I start to ponder, is this not for everyone? Are "navigation charts" proving useless in the most turbulent oceans with the most primitive "equipment".
We make decisions every day, some more significant than others, but nonetheless these decisions regardless of their gravity will shape our destiny and future.
The day we were born, we were all put into "boats"; our families and environment decide what boats we sail on, a luxurious yacht or a simple speedboat, and there we go, sailing into the mysterious sea that is seemingly calm one moment and turbulent and threatening the next.
Every voyage is different; it brings with it different climatic conditions, and as much as we have the technology to predict the weather and sea conditions, we are not often prepared to deal with the sudden change in the environment and the decisions we make in these crucial moments determines our destination, if we do have one planned in mind that is.
We can't control the boats we receive but we can use the stars, or whatever tools we have in our possession to chart our course. Because the one thing we can control is ourselves, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, and that is what makes us human, and not animals that act on instinct. As much as we humans often claim to have no control over ourselves, I am sure many of us remember a moment or many moments when we took over, and these feelings and emotions held no reins over us.
And I have decided four years ago, that I will be happy no matter what, I will not put myself down, neither will I allow myself to sink to that pitiful, depressing threshold because I've been there and I had enough. I will chart my own course, even though I do not know my final destination, but I will keep going in search of my own paradise.
But yet the people around me whom I love dearly are struggling in their own oceans.
Few were blessed to receive machines with navigation systems and capabilities of 16 knots or more, and many of them are plunged into the most turbulent seas and torrential weather. And whether they do or do not know it, they have slowly subjected themselves to fate, and everyday they curse and swear at the seas, at the weather, wondering what they have done to deserve such an agonizing voyage.
And I start to ponder, is this not for everyone? Are "navigation charts" proving useless in the most turbulent oceans with the most primitive "equipment".
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