Bad Timing.....

Time...... always a precious commodity for me. And it gets more precious as I get older because I know for a fact that the supply is getting less and less by the minute.... or seconds. Sigh! All those time wasted when I was younger.

I read a very wise quote long ago, `Live every day like it's your last, for one day, when it comes true, you will have no regrets.' It makes absolute sense. It's not like it means we are going to spend every last cent we have like there's no tomorrow...... if you do that, come tomorrow, it's just going to be regret that's left...... hehe! It means, no procrastinating, maximising every minute of every day...... blah, blah, blah !

Ermm... does that mean there's no rest ? No, it means, being aware, fully aware of what you are doing .... savouring every moment that passes by. Like when you are eating something, if you gobble everything up in a split second, you won't even know what it actually tastes like.

Hmm......... that's pretty philosophical...... time out. Now, it's the complaining part. I have terrible timing. All my life, my timing has been out of sync with the rest of the world, and it's always to my disadvantage, of course.

Now, let's take a trip down memory lane. When I was about to enter pre-u, there was a hike in the tuition prices for matriculation students. After finishing Form 6, there was a hike in university tuition fees. When I graduated, there was a recession.

When I wanted to buy a car, the Japanese yen rose all time high and all the prices of cars went up. When I wanted to buy an apartment, there was a shortage and prices were really high. I bought my apartment anyway but when it was ready, there was a glut and property prices went tumbling down.

So I decided to buy shares. Share prices were high and my friends were making big bucks. I decided to buy some. After investing my lot, came the Asian currency crisis. Every single share I had lost 90% of their values. Most of them did not recover, until today.

I decided to start a small business. Just when things were picking up, came Sept. 11., then war, then SARS, then tsunami.......

`The Gods are mocking me !!!' I told myself. Aren't they ? It takes so much planning..... way ahead of time and so much effort. It's like they are saying, ` Okay... he's planning to start a business, .... so, let's turn the whole world upside down...... Don't make it easy for him, give him a really hard time, just to spite him and see how much he can take!!!'

And these are just the `macro' stuff.... the big things. I don't even want to talk about car washing, finding parking places, gambling, etc.

Then I thought..... `Hello, wake up..... the world doesn't revolve around you.' There are so many people with worse fates. Sept 11. So many people lost their lives and loved ones. The war.... so many lives wasted. Tsunami..... even more lives taken. And you are complaining about not making enough money!

Okay, fine. I understand. But, does that mean I've lost my right to complain ? Okay, I've no answer to this one cos I'm still trying to figure it out.

A friend of mine summed it up in a rather amusing way. Life is such that, it's never perfect. 3 things ~ Time, Energy and Money.

When we are young, we have the time and energy but no money to do the things we want to do.
When we start working, we have the energy and money, but no time to do it.
When we are old, we have the money and the time, but no energy to do it.

Another lady friend said this.... `When we were young, we spent our youth chasing after fortunes. Now that we are old, we spend our fortunes chasing after lost youth.......'

Always a case of bad timing..... it's not going anywhere. But it's life..... so savour every minute of it and make the best of it and stop complaining like me......... somehow, you will survive.

Live life to the fullest and live it well...... then one day, when we are old, we can look back and say, `Despite it all, I've had a great life..........'