Godspeed and welcome back.

I’ve been quite busy with work this past month, maybe as a way to keep myself busy and to try and forget. Well, it’s not working. How can you forget someone who’s loved you so dearly for so long. Someone who’s always been there for you?
One of the sad facts of life, is that children don’t appreciate what their parents are trying to teach them until we’re old and (hopefully) wise. Growing up, I remember all the fights with my grandmother. I remember being mad at her. Pressuring my poor mom into taking me to live with her, even if she could neither afford it nor had the space for me. I can’t but imagine how much my rejection must have hurt her. And even so, she took my back with open arms when it didn’t work out. I stayed there for another 5 years, before moving out, but never leaving her.
This lady, whose wings sheltered and protected me for 17 years, passed away. Yet she never left me. She’s in my heart and in all the wisdom she passed on to me.
Different people, teach us different things in life. Sometimes we don’t realise this until it’s too late to say thank you.
Say thank you to those around you who make a difference in your life. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
The closing lines from Garth Brooks’ song “If tomorrow never comes” says:

So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes.

I think that’s sound advice.

Choices and paths

Or should I call this just mid-life crisis?

All through my life, I’ve stated that I don’t regret any choice I made nor any path I took. And deep down I still believe that I shouldn’t regret choices I made. Those choices, and there repercussions made me the man I am today. We learn from every step we take and from every choice we make in life. I will apologize to people who got hurt in the process but I can’t honestly say that I regret the choice, only that (not so) innocent people got hurt in the process.

As I’m reaching the age at which I’m finally allowed to have a midlife crisis, I look back and ponder all the things I’m “missing” because of choices I made in the past.

When I go on social networking websites like hyves, LinkedIn, and face book and I see (old) friends and what they achieved and I ask myself why I didn’t make the same choices. The same is true vice-versa. People see what (little) I have achieved and say they would like it too, without pausing to think about the price I’ve had to and am still paying.

Before we go envying what others have, we should ask ourselves: “Do I want to pay the price they had to pay to get what they have?” I remember the wise words of my late grand-mother: “kada kas tin su krus” (every house has its cross to bear.)

I for one, will choose to have wandered my own path. On the path of life, only our starting point is pre-set. We make our own path by walking (Cantares, Antonio Machado)

If you think that the paths others take influence our own path, you’re quite right. But even then, it up to us, to choose how we react to these changes. Sometimes we choose the easiest road and forget that it’s not always the best road on the long run.

And yes, in the macro-vision of the world, we can’t always directly influence the overall picture of  our life. But I believe in the grassroots principle and in the butterfly effect, whatever we do on a small scale, will eventually influence the big picture. I feel compelled to believe it. Without that belief, life just wouldn’t be worth the effort.

So my dear reader, I challenge you. Go out there and think small in order to make a BIG influence. But think about more than just yourself, don’t forget that your lot is influenced by the lot of people around you.

And if life deals you lemons, you pretty damn better learn to make lemonade.