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on time, late blooming, and other random thoughts.
Been a long time since i blogged... haven't really got the time since i got hooked on diablo 2 again =) anyways. had some random thoughts recently. bear with me. i'm a late bloomer. only recently have i found a direction in life, developed serious interests and started actively working towards them - and i'm already 19! (20?) a ripe old age in singapore. by this age many of my peers have already done remarkable things, like published books, won various international competitions, participated in regional competitions, attended important conferences and the like. i haven't done any of these. and because of that, sometimes i feel really behind my batch in general. of course, on an intellectual level, i know that i'm still really young and there will be plenty of opportunities more to achieve in my lifetime, but i just can't help feeling sorta inadequate at the moment. I know, and can trace, the origin of this... insecurity? ... to things like my being brought up in Singapore (kiasuland), and having studied in highly competitive RI and RJ to boot. but you know, there's that irritating thing that people always talk about, which is the separation between the logical mind and the emotions. Oh well. handicaps are only handicaps if you let them get you down right? I'm going to use this as the driving point to improve myself and propel myself faster towards my goals. so far so good, but i'm keeping my fingers crossed. something else about time - it's really very relative. Guess Einstein got it right. taken in its entirety, time is as relevant to us as the universe is relevant to Earth - it's there, it affects us, but we're just blips in its entire long history of forever. So where does that leave us? it leaves us to make the most of the short time we have here on Earth, and more so, to treasure the quality rather than the quantity of time alloted us. People speak of "make-or-break" moments, the points in your life where you make the decisions that will shape the rest of your life - the life-changing moments. To me, making these decisions decisively and subsequently living the life you chose without regrets, is more important than living a long life wishing you could have done something else with it. There are 2 concepts here - that of being prepared for the pivotal points in your life, and that of enjoying life in general. i'm working towards both, maybe with a bit too much slant to the latter (><) but definitely making progress. this is my... damn how do you say ren sheng guan? this is my view on life. speaking of being prepared, there are plenty of opportunities around for those who are prepared to take them. recently i had the opportunity to participate in NDP marching (one of the guys selected didn't want it and actually came to me asking to be replaced), but i chickened out and didn't go. Wasted, but there'll be no more of that. There's an ROC trip coming up, and i agonised over it for some time (didn't want to step out of my comfort zone, telling myself i would miss driving and other lessons), but now i know i want to go. other things can wait; an opportunity like this will never come again. i guess that's about all that i have to talk about right now. funny thing , i keep trying to define myself, but that definition keeps changing. that's life, after all - life is change, only death is eternal. so why do i bother? i like to think of it as a process of refinement; only by starting with a broad definition and endlessly revising and refining it will i finally reach the point where i'll be exactly what i want to be. that's impossible to reach of course, but who says i can't reach for the asymptote? heh. til next time... |
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