Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!
Time passes too quickly. It has been three months since I had written anything in my blog. Yet it feels just like yesterday. It is frightening to think about how quickly the months go by, even though you are not consciously aware of its passing. I would enter my thirties, unaware that I am at the halfway point in my journey through the natural human lifespan.
When I was young and carefree, I was usually surrounded by older peers. Most of my life, I was usually the youngest person in the midst. In those days, time seemed eternal to me. I was full of youthful vigor and energy. I mocked my older peers with the vanity of my youth. Nothing really troubled me. If there were anyone younger than I, they were pimply teenagers from secondary school or junior college --- they were not a part of my circle of friends. I lived a life of vanity where it was beneath me to even contemplate the ephemeral nature of our mortality.
As time went by, I grew older. Younger people entered my life. They were no longer pimply teenagers. They were fully functional, matured adults with aspirations in life. Most importantly, I no longer enjoyed the luxury of being the youngest. Now, in my late twenties, I was forced to come to terms with the reality that I had become one of the "older peers".
There are many things in this world that are unjust, but one can take consolation in the fact that the laws of nature apply equally to every living person. Time is fair. No mortal in this world has been able to escape the ravages of time. Although I would wish it differently -- that time would not touch me; that I would have more time on this earth to do what needs to be done; who am I, to wish upon myself a gift that no other man is privy to? Even Dorian Gray had to pay a price for it -- his soul. It is not a price that I am willing to even consider.
I do not so much mourn the passing of time, but how I had used that time. Ten years from now, would I look back at my past with regrets? Would I wonder if something about my life could have been done differently? Missed opportunities. Wasted chances. These have come to characterize a large part of my life. Unlike many of my peers, who have just begun their careers and are probably not considering this question at this point in time, I have had the benefit of working for almost a decade. I shudder at the thought of how I would, a decade later, ask myself the same questions once more.
When I was young and carefree, I was usually surrounded by older peers. Most of my life, I was usually the youngest person in the midst. In those days, time seemed eternal to me. I was full of youthful vigor and energy. I mocked my older peers with the vanity of my youth. Nothing really troubled me. If there were anyone younger than I, they were pimply teenagers from secondary school or junior college --- they were not a part of my circle of friends. I lived a life of vanity where it was beneath me to even contemplate the ephemeral nature of our mortality.
As time went by, I grew older. Younger people entered my life. They were no longer pimply teenagers. They were fully functional, matured adults with aspirations in life. Most importantly, I no longer enjoyed the luxury of being the youngest. Now, in my late twenties, I was forced to come to terms with the reality that I had become one of the "older peers".
There are many things in this world that are unjust, but one can take consolation in the fact that the laws of nature apply equally to every living person. Time is fair. No mortal in this world has been able to escape the ravages of time. Although I would wish it differently -- that time would not touch me; that I would have more time on this earth to do what needs to be done; who am I, to wish upon myself a gift that no other man is privy to? Even Dorian Gray had to pay a price for it -- his soul. It is not a price that I am willing to even consider.
I do not so much mourn the passing of time, but how I had used that time. Ten years from now, would I look back at my past with regrets? Would I wonder if something about my life could have been done differently? Missed opportunities. Wasted chances. These have come to characterize a large part of my life. Unlike many of my peers, who have just begun their careers and are probably not considering this question at this point in time, I have had the benefit of working for almost a decade. I shudder at the thought of how I would, a decade later, ask myself the same questions once more.
