I do feel life’s kinda unfair. I was made to slave all the way even before I graduated. But seeing our second office in the same building being handed over to us and the anticipation of the staff some of whom have been with us for over a decade. Seeing them happy with their families and a secure career does seemed to assuage the pain. Not everyone can be Ford, but at least in life, if you can bring happiness to others even if it isn’t many, at least that’s an accomplishment. To me life isn’t how rich you are, how powerful you are but how much happiness you can spread to the others. How much hope you can give the hopeless. At least I did something, lots of regrets but also consolation.

You came to life with nothing and you leave with nothing. I am long past the times of hoarding money and counting cents. I mean you can’t live without money in the modern world. But you don’t really need much. I don’t have expensive tastes, give me $10 a day is more than enough. 80 cents for kopi-O, $2 for breakfast, S$3 for lunch and $3 for dinner, that’s about it. It depends on how you spend. A million dollars can be spend in ten minutes, it isn’t that difficult to splurge a million. But you can also live a lifetime and more with it. Life’s simple joys, you can feed me with wanton noodles every day and I won’t grow tired of it.

I know too many of those who literally use abalone to clean their teeth and sharks fin soup to rinse their mouth. Drowned in XO every night. Of course golf every other day. Are they really enjoying life? I really wonder. But I do know that they better not say they are playing golf with me when they are out visiting their mistresses instead. Kinda hard for me to tell lies, keeping quiet doesn’t help placate their angry wives. Easiest thing is to tell everyone I don’t play golf, save the trouble of being their alibi provider. They got the wrong person really, I don’t lie for anyone. Some of these guys never dare to return to their families for years, still out there globe trotting. Sad to see those friends in such straits.

Kinda tired physically, but I guess mentally I am still Invictus, just need to recuperate and readjust the momentum:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Sol Invictus

If I can relive the past, will everything be different maybe yes, maybe no, there is too many Ifs abound…..

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..