What is life? That is the question. Not William Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be?”
How many times have you heard the answer, “like that lah” (Malaysian expression). “The same”, “as usual”, “boring”… and the “expressive” or “non-expressive” list goes on, including “have time to kill”.
There are those who will describe life like pictures of people running through fields of long grass (not lalang), big smiles on their faces, with butterfly nets, trying to catch those colourful little creatures that fly, everyone so happy, with orchestra-type happy music filling the background; no space for white blank blotches or anything like that.
Life, besides having to breathe air (especially the oxygen part), is about experiences. “Experience” may seem general. It is. It would encompass everything that has happened, is happening and is going to happen (the past, the present, the future).
“Phew! The past. Glad that it is over.” This is an expression of having experienced some really challenging times. It is an expression from those who have made it. Some expected the difficulties and hardships during those times, were prepared, somewhat for it, and “pulled through”. Others were not so fortunate, when these challenging, painful times hit them. They were not prepared for it, yet somehow, they endured it; and have overcome it.
Then, another two groups of people exist. Both live rather, safe, happy lives.
One group goes about life with no challenges. Everything seems to work out for them, Day in, day out. It’s so mundane. They don’t really complain. They go about life, existing. This is what they were meant to do, and they are doing it. They don’t think it special. It’s just there.
Then, there is the flip side of this group, with the same plus(+)s in life. They know they are more privileged than others and don’t take things for granted. This is the group that do not look down on those that don’t have what they do in life, but recognize them as equals. After all, “We are all human beings”.
In every moment that has passed in life, an experience is formed. If you come to think of it, no two moments are the same. They can never be the same. We are never the same age. We get older each passing moment.
Life is about One Direction – forward. We have to keep moving in the direction of improving ourselves in every little way. Every moment, which is the future, avails itself to us, giving us the opportunity to better ourselves in every way, in our own way, in our space. Therefore, we become our own competitor. Improving ourselves from the last moment, is a win. We could say it builds self-confidence.
Probably one of the best ways of doing this is to look for the positives of people. “Oh, that’s hard to do”, you may say. Sure, practice doing that all the time. Practice (the right way), makes perfect. Soon enough, you will not have the time (nor the patience), to notice anything negative because your time is consumed looking for the positives and moving forward.
In no way is this pretending that challenges in life do not exist. They do. Many a time, we do not have answers to them. However, we have to face / meet these challenges head on and at times circumvent them. This can only be accomplished if we continue to strive to look for the positives.
Life: Don’t stop believing.
LIFE: ALL ABOARD! NEXT STOP IS THE NEXT MOMENT.
NOTES: Being grateful
