Hey you, its me you from 2008. Yup call it what you want - corny, cheesy, unoriginal but I had to do something for our sakes. You see, the double-o-nine is upon us and since my year, lets be honest to ourselves, turned out to be, well, crap, I figured that maybe drawing up some guidelines for you to follow in 09 could only benefit us all in the long run. Good Luck.
1. Open up (more/again) to God.
Remember the many times this year that you felt the piercing guilt every time you called yourself a Christian or had to dodge those bullets tipped with "oh really, where do you go to mass" and the like. Why do you think that is, where do you think it all went wrong, when did you decide to take a vacation from God, and how long did you think it would go on like this. If anything I have learned in these last few weeks of my time (before you take over that is) is the undeniable fact that you are a christian, it does not matter to what degree in the past you allowed your predicaments and to warp, dilute and discolor that. I have made peace with God, now its your turn to hold on to it.
2. Do not miss Weekly Mass.
No mate, I am not repeating myself, though I cannot not understate the biggest message I hope to deliver to you today. Remember the time you read about Bonaparte being quoted confessing that his happiest memory of himself was of the day he got his first communion. Maybe our memories in church cannot be quantified with such tangible certainty but admit we must that they were numerous, and not just bliss but also purposefulness, tranquility, guidance, fulfillment and fleeting spots of rapture. Frankly mate, I'm tired of my own excuses; don't like the production value of masses at CTK; the frock in Sentul talks nonsense; Fat Fred is a wank; church going Christians are hypocrites, mate, lest ye hath forgotten, that is not why one darkens the church door.
3. Resolve Love.
4. Get pet.
Its been a while since you had something alive that you were responsible for and its about time you fixed that. We have never had a dog before, sure we had family dogs and we've had chickens of our own, remember Padayapa and the lot, but not our own pooch. Would be nice wouldn't it?
5. Fix Career.
Our career would paint a pretty somber picture, while not quite a fresco fitting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, interesting none the less. Interesting and depressing at the same time if one sees the irony in its inverted progression in the last 10 years. How in our first proper job, we basically were in charge of a whole hypermarkets IT needs by the time we left, and how on our second assignment our job title should have read dispatch cum support, then, for lack of need to mask or glorify the obvious, a call center agent on our third post, and finally now, a customer service rep. This atrophy must stop.
6.Fix Car.
Our Tiaga was running on mainly pride on the streets of Penang, well at least we felt the pride, the kind that comes with non conformity and extreme sense of individualism. But curses befell her the day we brought him back to KL. One of her headlights fell off, the aircond bit the dust, the battery died, a pack of rats moved into the engine bay, some worthless idiot dented the right front wing and now, he has fallen gravely ill again, her clutch plates are worn clear out. Hear her cries mate, fix him.
7. Fix Physic.
Our perennially pregnant posture took a turn for the worse this year. Surprised? Surely not considering that we have had 30 years of unfettered debauchery and unbridled gluttony, gleamed with pride for our black-holed, pot-bellied gut. Guess what mate, our free pass has expired. Continuing the same beyond this point would be the same as digging a cozy little spot next to gramps in Cheras. And its not just about the fear of dying a premature and painful death mate, its more, much more. Its about the things that we have lacked or ignored in the past; the self discipline to say no that last leftover piece, the moral right to admit that speaking about hunger in the world while at the same time wolfing down a horse in a single sitting is hypocrisy, the virtue to something about these ills. Don't you also wonder what it would feel like to like what you see in the mirror, having clothes that fit you good, able to play 90 minutes on the pitch.
8. Fix Wallet.
I have to personally apologize for this, for single handedly having for the first time in our lives, doing something that we would not have thought of a couple of years back, maxing out our one and only credit card. Yes, I know what you are saying, that in these last 2 months an elephant share of that deficit was due to hospital bills incurred fixing our knee but I did get the ball rolling with the necessary evil in the form of a shinny new N95 I got early in the year.
9. Learn guitar.
For the times that we felt emotionally stunted, unable to express even the slightest nudges of the heart with the faintest eloquence, for the countless creative sparks that died constipated for lack of a proper vent, do us a solid, learn to play that guitar.
10. Grow up.
Mate you're 30, live it.
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