I received an email from a good friend and ex-classmate today. Lets call him C.
We used to have our desks side-by-side at school. C was the class monitor. I remember the time when the both of us were made to do jumping-jacks by our Caucasian Literature teacher because we were caught sleeping during a particularly emotional reading of a passage from Macbeth by the stupid
AngMo. Embarassing to say the least since we were both student leaders. But we laugh about it now. And the incident always crops up when we reminisce about the good old days.
Anyway the email was a welcome surprise since we have not spoken to each other for a good 5 years. C's now a high-flying regional director of a big investment bank based in Hong Kong. I suppose he earns a 5-figure salary and zips around town in a Porsche but I didn't dare ask. Because I would probably die from jealously =)) But knowing his current position and his teenage fascination with the German marque, its more than an intelligent guess I reckon =P
But this is not about C and his fast car and the tonnes of chicks he probably attracts like a blardy magnet since he also happens to be quite a cute SNAG. Its about how our lives have turned out so differently. He, the slick and suave corporate banker and me, the lowly civil servant. OK maybe not so lowly but low enough lah when you compare =/
Well C's email got me thinking about how sometimes you can become so comfortable and complacent in your career and in what you do. And maybe that's because we compare ourselves to the mediocre, whether consciously or unconsciously. It makes us look and feel good. But if we occasionally take the time to look beyond our comfort zone, to the people outside our sphere of influence, at the larger scheme of things, the bigger picture, we may find out that we have actually achieved so little. Especially when you realise how far some people have run off in the rat-race although everyone was flagged off from more or less the same start-line.
Its really not about being envious and dis-contented or ungrateful. Its about being aware of where you really stand in the food-chain of life. A sense of reality as it were. It keeps your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds.
Then the question that begs to be answered is, what are you going to do about it? Rationalise and justify it in denial, accept it with a shrug of the shoulders or be spurred on to do something more with your life?
We have to decide.