It's that month of the year again. The last few days left before we count down to usher in a brand new beginning. It's also that month where most of us will be subjugated to delightful 5 year olds by the dazzling aura of yuletide cheers and frenzies. It is that time of the year when bonuses comes in and you gleefully laugh your way to the bank only to sob at the entrance of Saks Avenue or Selfridges on the following weekend because you have just generously donated all your life's saving to buying Christmas gifts for others and yourself (mainly). The mail industry is also experiencing their busiest time of the year this month. Flooded with greeting cards, letters, and bombs parcels all waiting to be sorted out and to arrived at the addressee preferably before Christmas. There sure will be alot of hard nipples at the port where those poor mailers have to brace the double cold brisk weather.
This entry is not going to be another yak about the miracles of Christmas. I have exhausted all ingenious creative writing to brag about the presents and cards that have been deluging my mailbox or rather, the cards and presents have stopped arriving. I am in despair but I can cope with the fact I only have a handful of friends who have me in their hearts to bother to make me ambrosial. In fact, this is going to be random. A whole page scribbled with whatever that makes me tick. Yes, for once, it has to be about me. For 345 days, I have been traipsing on egg shells, worrying that if I the decisions I was making will come back to haunt me one day. Within a span of a week, I have seen and experience, how short and unexpected life is. It has come to my senses that whatever decisions I made, the worse outcome is that I am wrong. I will be wrong and no dead. No wrong can beat death. Even if I made a mistake, I am still living and breathing. Unless of course, I am silly enough to make the mistake of driving under the Influence. However, as I have etablished through the course of writing and as clearly evidenced by my paper achievements, I am a bright and intelligent woman and would have more senses than to be intoxicated and attempt a F1 feat.
It's amazing how our human body is made to adapt, adjust and accept new conditions. When we were younger, we always felt infallible, almost immortal. We were idealistic. not yet jaded. Then most of life lessons came in unexpected ways, all of them leaving a scar. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks of having to learn everything the hardway. It would have been far more easier if I had been built with a mircoship embedded in me to guide me in every decisions I made and to warn me of the dangers lurking withint a seductive smile, a rousing wit and a clever conversation. But we never learn from simply observing, do we? It's the hands-on experience, the trauma, the drama and the pernicous catastrophies that puncture our protective bubbles and leave us vulnerable to infections and viruses that threatens to take out the light in our eyes. It's the volatile mixture of what life brings us that makes an impression and nothing can ever detract from that.
If you have survived the maelstrom and pandemonium of 2009 till this far, give yourself a pat on the back. Your miraculous account of your surviving 365 days in life's harshest circumstances of the year (whatever may be) should be made into a movie and documented to be a best-selling novel. So, do yourself and the rest of the world a favour, find yourself a good publisher and an editor to record your testament of a heroic 2009.
Don't let this year be the most important year that has happened to you. Look forward. You will have a future. You will have a life. What I had gained at 24, some people only learned at 42. We all have our own 2009s to overcome at some point in our life. There is only so much we can work for. Even if we work 24/7, there will still be more to do. And completing work leads to more work. I don’t want to reach 90 and say I wish I were 19 again! Now we can’t all be like Bill Gates or Tony Fernandes. The success is in aiming for that.
We all only experience what 2009 has to give once. The surprises and shocks that 2009 has to give is almost running out. Our lives belong to us. Whatever the year has given to us or taken away from us, we must make do with whatever we can with it. No one is going to live this life for you nor achieve your dreams for you. So live out your life. Live your dreams. If not now, when?
