They (Who are the “they”?) say, “the road down the hill is a slippery one once you hit 40”. No kidding!

It’s like the gas pedal has hit the floorboard and the brakes…Where’s the brake pedal? There is no brake pedal!!! Wah lau! (1) Crazy or what???!!! (Malaysian expression of surprise and anger) 😠🥶😰😱 How come no brake pedal??? Who designed this vehicle with no brake pedal?!! Why is this not mentioned in the vehicle of life manual???!! No brakes so not in the instruction manual…Duh!

When I look back or try to look back at when I was 40; it was in the last century. Let me clear the 🕸️cobweb. The year was 1998. Sounds so far away. Actually, it is not. Really. It was just 24 years ago, something like around the corner.

Clouded by the distance in time, I was a life insurance agent. It was the year I achieved MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table), closing 168 individual policies.

Late June of that year, I attended the MDRT Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Jeannie, my wife (Yes, I dream of Jeannie…and got her); accompanied me on this trip. While I attended the meetings, she visited the museums there.

This annual event is a gathering of MDRT qualifiers worldwide. It was at this meeting where my name tag had a “150 Lives” ribbon attached to it; recognising the 168 lives (life insurance policies) I sold for that year.

On, July 4th, 1998, we flew from Chicago to Los Angeles, where we holiday-ed, spending most of our time in Hollywood, Disneyland, Universal Studios and San Diego. In Hollywood,  we stayed at a hotel (can’t recall its name now) directly behind Holiday Inn.

I am at the motor mechanics workshop, getting the car serviced, replacing the hydraulic struts for the rear door as they are worn out, and had the broken left wing mirror set glued back on after a cop on a big motorcycle whacked into it (misjudged his distance) in a traffic jam. I decided not to take action against him or press for repair payment as he was a young cop, probably not too long on the beat. I let him go because I did not want to leave a blemish on his record. He has his whole life ahead. Maybe if it was someone else whose car was damaged; the cop may have had to pay for the damage.

Do I feel 64? No, because I am not… at least not yet. Don’t even know what it feels like to be 64. Anyway, I read an article somewhere (can’t remember where), that there were studies done in Ireland that resulted in a finding: 80 is the new 50. So, this means that I should be 40 now. Yay!

So, what am I doing as a person so near the age of 64? A few things I am not doing: Digging weeds out from the garden just to past my time or watching a pot lot of TV. I am not sitting around, waiting for things to happen. I make things happen.

I continue to write, something I am passionate about. Through these writings, I hope to be able to spread “goodness” to all others😁. I don’t know if I should put some straight-jacket serious writing into it as well…well, to make it a more seriousness serious affair. Wot! Wot! (British way of asking, “What say you?). I will travel to many more countries.

There are countless untold stories to tell. They are waiting to flow from my mind to my hands to have them typed / written out. Whether I will write in “reporter mode” or write from experience, or both…I don’t know. I don’t know how the road to story telling or story writing will turn out, let’s see. Stories that are waiting to be shared.

NOTES
‘Wah lau’ is merely an exclamation, the way English-speaking people use ‘Oh, my God‘. You can hear ‘wah lau’ when people are surprised, or excited to explain something. http://www.mysmu.edu/faculty/jacklee/singlish_W.htm