AS I was banging on my keyboard looking towards the New Year, I could almost hear time gliding by – tick-tock, tick-tock. It was not slow; it was not fast; it was just a steady relentless march. Before we knew it, and in the blink of an eye, the year 2015 was gone and forever. Now only memories remain and even that is subject to the vagaries of our faculty recollection.
I don’t know if I am imagining it but I do feel that as we get older, time seems to move faster. I recall when I was a kid, I felt a year was a long time. Now it seems to zip by.
“It’s all mathematics,” declared my lawyer friend Tan. “Huh?” said I, nonplussed. “You see, to a 10-year-old, one year is 10 per cent of his life. By the time one reaches 50, it comprises only 2 per cent of one’s life.”
Hmmm, very logical and well argued, I know Tan to be a very good litigation lawyer.
Well, whatever it is, “Time and tide wait for no man.” It is inevitable that the passage of another year reminds us of our mortality, much that we hate to be reminded. Predictably when reminded of such uncomfortable thoughts, we tend to think of that cliche, “Live life to the full.” But really what does it mean to live life?
I am sure many would admire the spirituality and wisdom of Stephen Grellet (1773 to 1855), a prominent French-born American Quaker Missionary, who was quoted to have said, “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
However, on evidence not many can live up to that noble ideal. Walk into any bookshop, you will find that there are thousands of books giving us tips on how to be successful and get ahead in life. Success is defined in material terms that can crudely be translated as just money, money and more money.
This last year, our minds have been saturated with the image of money and dollars, billions of dollars. In fact I have never been quite sure how many zeros there are in a billion until now. The year 2015 was the first time that I found out that there is a difference between an American billion and the traditional European billion. The latter consists of 12 zeros (a million million) while the American billion, which is now the universal norm, is a thousand million, hence only nine zeros. Whatever it is, it is still a lot of money. So, if you speculate that an individual has RM2.6 billion, it would take that person over 200 years to run down that amount by spending one million a month. Anyway my mind boggles.
Recently I chanced upon a YouTube video of an interview with Bob Marley (1945 to 1981). Robert Nesta Marley was a Jamaican reggae singer and songwriter who achieved international fame and acclaim. He was one of the world’s best-selling artistes of all time, with sales of more than 75 million records.
Interviewer: Do you make a lot of money out of your music?
Bob Marley: Money? How much is a lot of money to you?
Interviewer: Yes, that is a good question. Let’s say have you made millions of dollars?
Bob Marley: Naa.
Interviewer: Are you a rich man?
Bob Marley: What do you mean rich?
Interviewer: Do you have a lot of possessions, a lot of money in the bank?
Bob Marley: Possessions making me rich? I don’t have that type of richness. My richness is life forever.
In ending let me share this story with you. See what you make of it. It was in the middle of his birthday party when a rich tycoon suddenly keeled over and died. His family and his doctor were shocked, for he did not have a history of heart condition, high blood pressure or any of those ailments that could snuff one out like that. He took his health supplements religiously and exercised constantly.
Anyway the tycoon found himself in the presence of the gatekeeper of heaven. The gatekeeper too was puzzled for his name did not appear on the roll of those who died that day. “Wait a minute,” said the angel, “it is the wrong year”. “Huh?” “Someone entered the wrong year. You are to die this day next year. So go back and come back next year.” The tycoon being a shrewd businessman said, “Can I bring anything with me when I come back?” “Oh, sure” said the angel, “you can bring whatever you want and in any amount”. With that he woke up with a start and everyone rejoiced.
Knowing that his days were numbered the man went about converting as much of his wealth into gold bars as possible. A year later when his hour was nigh, he instructed his family to bury the gold bars with him.
Soon he found himself dragging a huge sack of gold bars on the road to heaven. It was heavy and it was slow going, and he arrived outside the gate of heaven huffing and puffing.
“What have you there, that is dragging you down?” asked the angel. “Oh, it just my wealth in the form of gold bars,” said the rich man. The angel opened the sack and sure enough there were thousands of gold bricks. “Why do you bring that common thing along?” “Common?” asked the man. “Yes, that is the stuff we use for making our pavement.” The man looked over the gate into heaven and sure enough all the pathways were paved with gold bricks, millions of them!
Someone just emailed me this wish and let me share it with you. Here’s to 2016. May you pursue your happiness without denying others theirs.