The Balance of Love

The story below was sent to me recently by an old friend, Jim. I find it particularly interesting and so am reposting it below. Let us remember (in particular the more youthful ones among us) that "love" does is not limited to boy-girl love but also encompasses love for our parents, family, friends and fellow humans in general.

A woman dies after living a long, dignified life. When she meets God, she asks him something that has long bothered her: “If Man is created in God’s image, and if all men are created equal, why do people treat each other so badly?”

God replies that each person who enters our life has a unique lesson to teach us. And it is only through these lessons that we learn about life, people, relationships and God.

This confuses the woman, so God begins to explain:

When someone lies to you, it teaches you that things are not always as they seem. The truth is often far beneath the surface. Look beyond the masks people wear if you want to know their heart. And remove your own masks to let people know yours.

When someone steals from you, it teaches you that nothing is forever. Always appreciate what you have, for you never know when you might lose it. And never, ever take your friends and family for granted because today is the only guarantee you have.

When someone inflicts an injury upon you, it teaches you that the human state is fragile. Protect and take care of your body as best you can because it’s the only thing you are sure to have forever.

When someone mocks you, it teaches you that no two people are alike. When you encounter people who are different from you, don’t judge them by how they look or act. Instead base your opinion on the contents of their heart.

When someone breaks your heart, it teaches you that loving someone does not always mean that the person will love you back. But don’t turn your back on love because when you find the right person, the joy that one person brings will make up for all the past hurts put together.

When someone holds a grudge against you, it teaches you that everyone makes mistakes. When you are wronged, the most virtuous thing you can do is to forgive the offender without pretence. Forgiving those who have hurt us is the most difficult, the most courageous, and the noblest thing man can do.

When a loved one is unfaithful to you, it teaches you that resisting temptation is man’s greatest challenge. Be vigilant in your resistance against all temptation. By doing so, you will be rewarded with an enduring sense of satisfaction far greater than the temporary pleasure by which you were tempted.

When someone cheats you, it teaches you that greed is the root of all evil.

Aspire to make your dreams come true, no matter how lofty they may be. Do not feel guilty about your success, but never let an obsession with achieving your goals lead you to engage in malevolent activities.

When someone ridicules you, it teaches you that nobody is perfect. Accept people for their merits and be tolerant of their flaws. Do not ever reject someone for imperfections over which they have no control.

Upon hearing the Maker’s wisdom, the old woman becomes concerned that there were no lessons to be learned from man’s good deeds. God tells her that man’s capacity to love is the greatest gift he has. At the root of all kindness is love, and each act of love also teaches us a lesson.

As the woman’s curiosity deepens, God once again explains:

When someone loves us, it teaches us that love, kindness, charity, honesty, humility, forgiveness and acceptance can counteract all the evil in the world. For every good deed, there is one less evil deed. Man alone has the power to control the balance between good and evil, but because the lessons of love are not taught often enough, the power is too often abused.

When you enter someone’s life, whether by choice or chance, what will your lesson be. Will you teach love or harsh reality? Each one of us has power over the balance of love. Use that power wisely.

The White Rabbit and I

This is the first time I'm trying to upload a pic into a proper blog entry (on dial-up!) so here goes. Fluffy the white rabbit =P Eats shoots and leaves. My brother bought Fluffy some time in March, while I was still in the UK but now that I'm home, I've temporarily taken over the job of caring for this new member of the family. This is what I have been doing for some time this summer.

Theory of the Last Day

Have you heard or read a particular series of questions that goes like this? "If today would be the last day of your life, what would you do/say to the people around you? If so, what are you waiting for?"

The implication of these questions are that life is short and unpredictable; we ought to say and do the things we really feel or hope to achieve; and that if we delay for reasons of shyness or procrastination we may end up not being able to do it at all.

This seems to be an appealing argument. Since neither you nor I know for sure whether we will be alive in 24 hours, let alone 6 years (the length of a JPA bond) or a decade, why not take time to tell loved ones that we appreciate them, take time out to do the stuff we like to do and well, enjoy life in general? After all, once our time is up and "bang!" it's Game Over in the Game of Life, words may end up unsaid and deeds undone.

Trouble is, the fallacy of this argument is in assuming that the projects we intend to complete can be done with in the time frame of a day. It doesn't make allowance for plans which return yields in a period exceeding 1 day, otherwise by definition it would require reliance on our continued existence for more than 1 day and thereby turn into a self-defeating argument.

To illustrate: Suppose a girl I have only recently known has caught my eye and I have fallen madly in love. But she is particularly shy and likely to be scared off by any abrupt pronunciation of love on my part. Therefore if I were serious in going after her, I would logically have to build the friendship and win her trust (chic term "get to know each other") before "making the move", so to speak. Now assume I followed the argument above. Not knowing whether today is my last day of existence, I decide that I have to tell the people I love that I love them. I declare my love and she says gee that is nice but sorry I'm not ready for a commitment with you, so tough. Well, in that case I'd have lost both ways. If really turns out to be my last day, I haven't got her either. And if it isn't, I'd have merely played my hand too early and ruined the prospect of anything "happening" in the near future.

Now say that it's Pay Day and I've just received a nice wage packet for the work I did last month. Applying the argument above, I wouldn't know whether I would be alive tomorrow, so I decide that I must let the people around me know that I appreciate them. So I spend my money on calling my girlfriend, accompany friends to play street soccer at the rate of RM10 per hour per head, and buy nice Aston Villa scarves for my family members in anticipation of a big season-opener win over Bolton Wanderers, which incidentally doesn't happen anyway. Fine, if I really ended my days at least those people would have benefited. But if I did not, I'd be reduced to living on charity and regret my foolishness. The money which was to have sustained me for the rest of the month would have been wastefully spent on very short-term projects, because according to that theory I would be precluded from relying on anything that returns its yields in a period longer than the remaining hours left in the day.

The point is, uncertainty is an inescapable fact of life. We all have to deal with a massive load of uncertainty in planning our lives and resources, there's no getting away from that. Sh*t happens and screws up even the best-laid of plans sometimes. We just have to factor in this element of uncertainty as best as we can, and the law can help us by providing facilities such as wills, contracts etc. But corny pseudo-theories of behaviour that pretend to offer a way of handling this element of uncertainty should be identified and shunned rigorously.

Crap Emails

Today I opened yet another Friendster bulletin that ended like this:

Repost this bulletin in 10 minute and you will get Happiness. If you not repost this bulletin you will get bad luck...
******GooD LuCKY!!!!*******
You've opened it!!!! Good Luck! Tonight at midnight your true love will realize they love you. Something good will happen to you at 1:00-4:00 pm tommorow, it could be anywere. Get ready for he biggest shock in your life. If you break this chain you will be cursed with relationship problems for the next 10 years. Post this within 15 minutes
******i MiSS You!!!***** [[i miss you!!]] If you are missing someone right now and can't get them out of your head then re-post this within 1 minute and whoever you are missing will surprise you tomorrow.

Normally, this kind of stuff just amuses me a bit. But recently I've opened one too many of such chain letters, so the joke's begun to wear off and bemusement has set in.

And I would like to state empathically that I do NOT repost, forward or recirculate such emails or bulletins, because I don't think people on the receiving end would be happy to get such junk crowding out their Inbox either, or duping them into opening Friendster bulletins with nice-sounding titles.

And I would state that to date, all those bulletins that have promised me that special phone call "from the one you love", wonderful luck, pleasant surprises etc have been patently stupid. Not that they were even remotely promising in the first place. Would she call just because at such-and-such time I opened some dumb bulletin saying she would? Would she hell.

And having not reposted any of those, I wouldn't consider myself as being particularly accursed or having any noticeable spell of bad luck of late. True I still haven't got "the love of my life" (if such even exists) but I haven't been run down by stray elephants either, and no bloodthirsty ghoul has shown up beside my bed at 3am with a knife she would like to bury in my neck.

Sheesh. I wish people would stop dreaming up such rubbish!!!

Fuh. Now getting that off my chest was nice ...

Haze Alert

A state of emergency has been declared in two Selangor districts (Port Klang and Kuala Selangor) following air pollution index readings consistently exceeding 500 in those areas.

In Batu Pahat heavy rain that has fallen in the past two days has kept skies relatively clear.

Henceforth a state of emergency will be declared by the relevant authorities in any area with an API reading of 500 or higher.

It is now common knowledge that the this round of bad haze originates from, again, uncontrolled forest fires and peat fires currently raging in Sumatra and blown over by seasonal monsoon winds.

Despite being repeatedly the cause of haze that damages not only the health of Malaysians but also the tourism and transport sectors of our economy, Indonesia has again failed to take effective measures to prevent and/or control slash-and-burn fires on their island of Sumatra. This is quite unseemly of them and hardly reflects the so-called "ASEAN spirit of neighbourliness".

I will be heading to the Klang Valley tomorrow (too late to cancel travel plans) so I am pretty annoyed at the prospect of travelling into what is now virtually a disaster area.

An Exercise In Futility

One of the little changes that happened when I was in the UK, was that a zebra crossing was set up in front of The Summit Batu Pahat. Which is not to say that our striped horselike friends have suddenly decided to partake of the annual MegaSale carnival, but rather that the authorities took the step of creating a "safer" means for people to cross from the Public Bank side of things to the main mall in town.

Last Sunday (parking charges for the weekend being increased to RM2), my family and I parked outside Kolej Aman and proceeded to cross Jalan Bakau Condong to The Summit, via the zebra crossing.

We stepped up to the crossing just as a shiny blue car was approaching. Whoosh. The car just sped up and crossed the striped area like nobody's business. The driver in the car behind lagila pandai. He slowed down as though to let us pass. Then when my brother took one tentative step onto the crossing he changed his mind and decided to speed across instead, narrowly avoiding the pedestrians who had already begun what proved to be a rather precarious crossing indeed. Eventually we managed to cross when the road was clear in both directions.

I mean like, hello? If we are supposed to wait till both sides of the road are clear then what's the use of the paint and the effort creating the zebra crossing in the first place? Isn't that what ordinarily happens along any road, anyway? What a mockery Malaysian drivers are making of basic traffic rules.