* * Reflections on Life

Someone had emailed me a link to a speech by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen (pictured, 1953- ). I found it great and redirected it to my ex-classmates with the hope it will add a few more ounces of wisdom for them.

To my surprise my ex-classmates replies with their own version of philosophy on Life which were as profound as Quindlen's.

Here is one from IL Cheah:

I would summarize the speech as "Get a life!". How apt. This is how I arrange life. One has soul, body, family, relatives and friends. Materials wealth are what we gather to facilitate our life on earth. How it contributes to one or all of the above is entirely up to us. Of course one must gather enough material wealth to be comfortable. The question is always, "how much is enough?". Different people will have different beliefs and perceptions on this. Very often there are trade-offs we have to make. Again, different people do different trade-offs according to what they believe. Most important is what we trade-off in life makes us happy.

And another by HY Lee:

yes very interesting speech indeed from a philosopher. To be able to do all that is perfect. To not able to follow them is only human Knowing what to do is one thing. actaully doing it can be quite another. Circumstances affect much of us..., we can try various methods to be 'detached' of the materialistic world, but can we? As long as we are happy, so be it . Afterall, we are the sole custody of our own life.

Reading my friends' emails my mind was stirred and some rudimentary reflections on life surfaced. I responded with:

For me life is a difficult subject especially when I add 'work' in front of it. Yes, work life is something I try to shun during Mon to Fri and always looking forward to Sat and Sun for the 'real life'. But to my dismay the 'real life' is really elusive as it disappears like morning dew on Monday morning and I was left depressed. What is left on Monday is a dreamlike recollection what I did at weekends, the 'real things' that I try to do such much and enthusiastic as possible- gardening, playing with kids, bird watching, fishing, off road ventures etc. But they are all dreams! So, to alleviate my depression I have to trick my mind that the real life is actually what I do everyday- works! plus all the things done in between- reading newspaper, checking internet, staring at the wall, do a few squatting exercise, eat, shit, sleep, read two pages of novel etc. In short, small things in life.

SL Tan read these and she gave a short and sweet reply:

I love it when the guys in here manifest their profound side. The way I see it....Happiness is like a moving target. Aiming at it requires practice. So keep practising as getting a bull's eye maybe possible.

I attach here the speech by Anna Quindlen:

"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't Ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".