Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

– Odes 1.11

Don’t ask (it’s forbidden to know) what end
the gods will grant to me or you, Leuconoe. Don’t play with Babylonian
fortune-telling either. It is better to endure whatever will be.
Whether Jupiter has allotted to you many more winters or this final one
which even now wears out the Tyrrhenian sea on the rocks placed opposite
— be wise, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes
to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have {already} fled
Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Though no two problems are the same, each problem, each obstacle that we overcome, gives us more strength to face the next one, gives us more confidence that we will be able to overcome the next one.

It is like playing a game. The more puzzles you solve, the more monsters you kill in the game, the more experience points you gained, which gives you more powerful skills to solve the next puzzle or kill the next monster.

And yes, life is like a game.

One common topic that always seem to crop up when a group of Singaporean guys gather together is the topic of National Service. Inevitably, whether it is over meals or drinks, guys will tend to talk about their National Service experiences.

Perhaps it is the suffering endured that forms an invisible bond between people who had gone through it before, even though they were not suffering it together at at time. The suffering endured becomes like a ‘war scar’ that guys seem to proudly display, like medals of honour on their chests.

In a way, life experiences are just like these ‘war scars’. It is painful while going through them, it felt like hell then. But after surviving through it, it becomes interesting to look back upon them and talk about it. It might be even fun to actually compare the ‘severity’ of such ‘war scars’. I can imagine one conversation might goes something like this:

“I went through so much pain when she dumped me for someone who was shorter and has less hair than me!”

“That’s nothing. I found out that she dumped me after posting it on her Facebook status and I was the last to know because my Internet connection died and I couldn’t read about it until 2 days later.”

I think one way to look upon all the life experiences I had so far, which by the way would make a great primetime soap opera, is that these life experiences actually enriched my life. I mean, who wants a life dull, boring and without any excitement right? Who wants a life that is predictable and goes according to plan? We only live this life once, thus it should be live to the fullest, and having all these experiences allow us to go through the whole spectrum of what life can offer.

That is one way to look at it. Either that or I am finally losing it.