Monday, January 23, 2006

What will keep us alive?

Not a good day at all at work today, where even at one point I thought I’ve landed up in a totally wrong office. I go into the office to start handling all sorts of minute tasks, all involving chasing after people for confirmation and information. TMD. Gotta organise an offsite for TEC Management, prepare a set of slides for boss to present to EXCO and HR, arrange bus trips and arrange logistics (human as well as physical) for a series of workshops.. endless! Really see no value in the work I do, all sai gang and no deliverables! If it goes on like this..

On the way back home, my head was pounding away coz of all the stress and coldness in office. Seems like headaches are common thing on Mondays. And I’ve gotta squeeze with the crowds in the MRT, where people stick so close together that intentional molestation may be mistaken for incidental bumps or knocks. So I blasted music max to drive off all this craziness, let my mind be free, let my soul lose its sense of rationality. At that point, I could have stepped hard onto anyone’s toes if I get offended. It was insanity at its best.

After a while, one of my favourite piece came on in the mp3 player and it dwindled my irritation. Then, as I was reading an article in The Economist, evil humour got into me and I started laughing at the pitiful plight of others (I’m most evil when irritated). It was about the plain boredom of Saudi Arabia folks’ lives, and how when a new store in Jeddah handed out gift vouchers to promote its opening, 15000 people turned up and created a stampede killing two. What attracted the people was “the utter lack of anything else to do”.

Such a tough balance. Do you want simply nothing to do, or get swamped with endless work? Why can’t we live a moderate life, to be equally able to smell the roses and pump the adrenalin?

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