Recently got a chance to catch up with a few high school
friends. One of them was on sabbatical and decided to come to Sydney to live
for a year. I totally envy him as I would lo—ve to have a year off like that.
But that is not the point. When old mates come together the usual “time flies”
topic would inevitably come out. Some of them are still very actively in touch
with the high school and they talked about all the things happening there. The
competitions we used to participate in and how some people still take days off
for the finals etc. etc. As the conversation continued, I wondered how did all
these used to be part of my life activities became part of my history? Really
where did time go? And when someone mentioned that another person whom I haven’t
seen for years remembered me as a sprinter for the school, I nearly did not
know how to respond. I have gone from a teenager who tried to outrun wind to a
guy who ponders what vitamin tablets would be good for my health…
It is a strange feeling catching up with old mates. During
the years apart we had all gone different directions. Quite a number of us were
even scattered across the world and living in different time zones. Getting
back together and then trying to fill in all the empty pages within the span of
a dinner is by no means an easy task but somehow we always managed to do it. However,
the notion of time has gone beyond our notice was far from infrequent. I
remember when I was a kid I dreaded the time between holidays and wondered why
time passes so slowly (probably also because I did not like school as a kid, or
maybe any structured life in general). However as I grew up time seems to have
accelerated with it too.
Meeting my high school friends forced me to take a real look
at my life. I wonder what have I accomplished and also how much more time do I
have to accomplish what I want to achieve? Recent events at home put a very
different perspective on how I see things and especially life itself. However,
as my own clock is ticking, I do wonder whether I have lost part of my life in
time without even knowing it. I always wanted to be in the entertainment
business. Somehow I knew it consciously or unconsciously. I just feel alive
performing. However, looking back at my work history, performing is not a very
large part of my working life. I am not complaining about anything because I
did have a lot of opportunities in my non-performing line of work, and I earned
pretty decent income. But then have I traded passion for comfort to a certain
degree?
It is hard to judge one’s own life, as you can never be
completely objective. Without trivialising my own work, I did feel that I did
the right thing in the past doing a few leaps of faith, including moving
country and becoming an Australian citizen. But then as I worked through my
life, which seems to be accelerating to the final stop, every move seems to be
a lot scarier as I do not know whether I would have sufficient time to make
things right. The recent decision to move on from my current job without
anything lining up scares me still but I convinced myself this is the right
decision. The question here is what’s next? Do I have the time and the
opportunity to eventually accomplish what I set out for? Or would I be just
falling back in to a similar but different pattern? I certainly have grand
schemes and plans for this change but then at the end of the day, nothing is
under your control and you just need to have that faith in God that something
would happen, while at the same time dealing with all those “what if not”
thoughts that pound your head like thunder storms.
In the movie “In Time” people tried to buy more time after
25, in some sense I feel like the same. We certainly cannot buy more time but
then we become more and more cautious about our actions and decisions so we
wont’ waste time. Some people may say we can live a pretty long life nowadays,
but what I am thinking is it is not just about living a long life. For me
living a life that I am happy with and proud of is more important. And by that
I would need to make every of my decision count. But then it is a chicken and
egg situation – how do you know whether a decision is correct without making
it? For this I mean you can think and think and then make the decision, but
what happens after the decision is made is still a whole cloud of uncertainty.
I think I might have got a bit too sentimental of late
because of all the things happening around me, but then I do sometimes think
after working so hard for so many years, is it worth it? Or am I getting
anywhere near where I want to be? Or even am I just one of the many lives in
this world that would just pass on with time without a single memorable note? These are questions
I yet to find any answers for.
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