‘Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.’
~Lao Tzu
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Dream
He knew he was in a dream. They were together, and even though he was soundly asleep, he knew that was impossible.
They talked about things which he could not remember once the words left his mouth, and they were in some place he did not know where.
It does not matter.
The only thing that matter was they were both holding hands, laughing and he was happy.
When he woke up, he knew that while it was only a dream, the happiness was real.
He had his answer.
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He Wonders
A thought ran through his mind as he laughs. If only things turned out differently, what will it be like? Will he be happier than now, or things will fall apart? He wonders.
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Different Hats
This is how I felt for the past few days. I am tired beyond words. -
Heroes of the Lance
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Five Regrets of the Dying
Found this off Twitter, I am putting this to remind myself:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people have had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.
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A Thought About Luck
A colleague of mine was married recently. Our client decided to pool money together and buy Toto based on his wedding car license plates. It seems they won some money. Now they are asking him to pool some money again for the $1.5M Toto draw next week. They were saying that newly weds have huge amount of luck which supposedly will rub off others.It was the same for my case. The friend who lend me his car for the wedding had a son not long after, which he was trying for quite some time.
What is this thing about having huge amount of luck when one is newly wed? From what I understand from the older folks, it seems that when one has a joyous major occasion, it tends to bring in luck too.
So why is this so? I suspect it has less to do with the occasion and more to do with the happiness during the occasion. There is much happiness during weddings, everyone is laughing, smiling and happy. There is much happiness during the birth of a new child, much happiness during birthdays. Could it be that making oneself happy, making the people around you happy, is the main criteria for luck?
There is a school of thought in geomancy that when one is happy constantly, there will be less hiccups in his life. In order to be lucky, could it be as simple as just trying to be happy and making people around you happy?
Now that is food for thought.
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Carpe Diem
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. -
Stronger
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.
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Life Experiences
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.
