On Monday, my random suggestion to have a sip of coffee in one of the top coffee brewers in Klang Valley congregated my secondary school girl friends. Plainly intended to be a casual CNY hangout, I experienced the most extensive chatting session of my life. From a rainy 1530 afternoon, the chitchat lasted close to 2000 hour. I wondered how did I survived it. The magic of my Piccolo Latte maybe? While the girls as usual dominated the chat before LL and her boyfriend LS arrived later, my concentration was glued toward my “new” iPhone 4! The iPhone 4 impressed me a lot with its smooth UI compared to the Galaxy S which came out at about the same time last 2 years. My sluggish Galaxy S always prompted me to change a faster phone. My valentine gift to my sweetheart exchanged me in return just what I wanted. My part in the conversation finally gained a fair bit of portion after LS arrived. I tried very hard to trigger my conversation cells in the chat. I believe they were always inside there, I just need to live them up! In the end, the effort saw me exchanging questions quite frequently with LS about our job since we are in the different sectors. After the couple left, I tried to blend into the girls’ conversation. Life, was again being put onto the table, after a round of zodiacal turn. At 24, we are all left with the prime question of our life to ponder – what’s life? Is it to do whatever that makes one happy? Is it to live life without regretting at the end of it? Or is it just waking up to another day, eating and then waiting to shit, eat more, and sleep to the next morning? I agreed when G mentioned that the lost feeling became more obvious in the deep once we stepped into the year of Snake, which is our second zodiac year of our lives (disregarding our baby year). In fact, I had that feeling 6 months earlier before the start of 2013.
I completed my university in June last year. I decided to give the agriculture field a try because of close-ties provided by my family and relative. Coincidentally, a seminar was on the horizon for nursery operators on July. I attended it along with a friend since 2 places were reserved. The seminar gathered some of the nation’s top operators under one roof to agitate about the industry as rubber was identified as one of the high income generating commodities under the National Key Economic Area (NKEA). In fact, an award ceremony was held too to commemorate the nation’s top 3 nursery operators in which I witnessed my cousin A being one of the prize winners. It was a good exposure as I am considered a total amateur in the field. In the following months, I had on and off involvements with my mother’s nursery and followed my cousin A on several business trips to East Malaysia. Kuching, Sri Aman, Betong, Bintulu, Beaufort, Papar, Keningau, these names are increasingly familiar to me with each visits. Those visits had provided me a basic but good revelation to the field that I am about to venture in as I listened to what cousin A had to say and offer to me along the trips. He asked me to imagine the industry after some years, when most of the veterans will be retiring and there is little young forces to drive the industry forward. I thought this is a pretty good industry with future as long as the government are at it and profitable too! So why not? I like how the girls put it – at 20s, experiences come first, money will come later. True, money is important in many aspects. The reality is that we lack money. This is where the fear comes in. It makes you think fast forward to questions like what if I still unable to save up some money for future investments etc. Life is full of uncertainties, my stories may be good in the eyes of you, but you never know I myself too live in certain degrees of the “what ifs” fear as my life is left hanging on the thread at the moment. We need to learn the act of balancing. While in fear, we do not forget that we still have dreams as it will drive you out of the dread. Depending on how you think of your dreams, each people have different dreams. It might be to open a shop and be your own boss, fulfilling our desires of having the luxuries, or even doing charity with their fortunes like Bill Gates. It is normal to have fear, but let us not forget, that as long as we are capable, we must never stop dreaming. And always “stay ready”, so you do not have to “get ready”, as quoted by the WWE superstar, The Rock. Life is a cycle and I believe there will again be the day when we ponder about the same question. Until then, just ask your closed friends out for another round of coffee and extensive chat, every thing will be fine.
I wish all my friends a prosperous, plain-sailing, and healthy Chinese New Year ahead.
