I used to be such a negative person. Honestly! Those who know me for many years know that I am a far cry from the Empress of Negativism and Worry. I would think of the most negative outcomes in life as if to prepare myself for the worse thinking that it would reduce the blow from life when it really hit me. Most of the time, such negative possibilities hardly ever happened. I had, through negativism, robbed myself of decades of happiness. This is the main reason why I have changed so much to be a positive person. Ready or not, I have come to terms with the fact that some day it will all come to an end.
What is the point of harping on negative possibilities? When some pose such questions to me, I am always reminded of what I used to be and how relieved I am unshackled from my cares and burdens. It took my husband over thirty years to breed optimism in me. Through negativism, I failed to see so many blessings in my life.
It is the same as the political scenario of our country. There are a few who think things will never change. I beg to differ. I still believe that change will happen - otherwise, why would I blog about it daily?
It will never change if we do not change ourselves or if we continue to believe it will never change or if we do NOTHING to make change happen.
Why should we resign ourselves to the current pattern? Think of the Law of Attraction. It is again not blind idealism or pipe dreams but I believe beyond a certain level of sadness, it is largely up to ourselves to get out of the mire and not succumb to the whirlpool of depression or apathy.
One day, there will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. We will expire and leave this world. All the things we collected, treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.
Our wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance - in fact diminished to NOTHING. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Even our grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will be no more as well as our hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists.
Victory and failure matter no more as well as our social class symbols or the lack of those. It does not matter how beautiful or ugly we were but it is our life that counts.
Why am I writing this post then? As always, I read my posts and readers' comments for the last five days and see readers' thoughts and my own and take stock of things. I just realized that lately, I have been saying that I want to make my life count.
I really do.
So what will matter? How will I make my life and my days count? How can I assess the value of my life?
I have never been a materialistic person. My dear husband says I am a low maintenance wife who splurges on hair saloons and books :-). I do not hanker after branded goods and seldom go shopping. Yet, in these times as I age, I realize that even the collection of books I amassed over the decades mean nothing to me.
It is what I have built in my life that matters, not what I have but what I gave.
Despite reaching the top of my class in university, I am at the bottom of the earning ladder because of my inclinations and career choices. But I am happy where I am, driving a small car, living a simple life, wearing shorts and t-shirts at home and filling my days with my blogging and time with my family and the handful of friends I have in Penang. At this point of my life, what really matters to me is not my success but my significance.
I often ask myself the impact I have left in the lives of those with whom I have come into contact. I even wonder who will come to my funeral :-).
What really matters is not what the many lessons I learned in my life but what I taught in my courses and classes, even to my own children. And I believe I have left footprints in their hearts that can be seen till today.
At the end of the day, I believe that for all of us, what really matters would be our lives that must demonstrate integrity, compassion, courage, even sacrifices that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to do the same in their lives that the world will be a better place.
In short, our lives and our characters matter. It is not the number of friends that we have but how many will miss us when we die.
I know I am a sentimental woman but even my memories will be gone when I die. What matters would be how far my loved ones and friends remember me when I am gone.
Life is so short and it is easy to be blinded by worry, cares, tension, news reports, rumors etc. Of late, I suddenly realized that time is running out on me!!! I may be concerned about the political scenario but some point in the future (and it has started already), I will be concerned about health issues. Soon enough, I may be gone and I had better do something to make life matter for me and for those around me.
It was then I decided that I had lost enough years of my life dwelling on the negatives, robbing myself of the positives and in that process - losing some friends who could not tolerate my negativism and worrying streak! I am thankful for those patient ones who stood by me from then till now, prodding me to wake up and till today, we are still good friends. For those who decided that I was too negative then, I think of them fondly and pray that there will come a time when we can reconnect and I can tell them that I have learnt my lessons in life....
In some of my recent comments in response to readers, I talked about choice. Each of us has a choice, many choices in life. Living a life that matters is a conscious and deliberate choice that we make and I hope and believe all of us have made that choice. Choose to live a life that matters - to yourself, to everyone around you and to our country.
Take care, dear reader. God bless you and yours. Have a nice day!
14 comments to WHAT REALLY MATTERS AT THE END OF THE DAY?
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nick Sis,
You are right to say it's all about choice. Even though we don't have any choice in determining our gender, race and country of birth but so does all of humanity.
It's not about fretting all the challenges and adversity life throws at us. It's about us accepting it and looking for ways to be happy and making other people around us happy too. You choose to do something after accepting the fact.
Indeed being pessimistic, negative and becoming a "scrooge" is a choice too but isn't it a waste of time and effort on our part to spread sadness, sorrow and melancholy when we can bring joy to the world and to others with our existence? Wouldn't it be great to spread happiness and hope to our family and friends? Why would you choose gloom over happiness? Even the worse human being longs for happiness. So it quite unnatural (well against nature to be exact) to be pessimistic because if we look at our world, we can see optimism and hopefulness in nature itself.
The birth of life in our planet for instance...it borders on miracle AND HOPE because for life to exist, so many thing and events must occurs at specific time and at specific level that a single minute deviation would prohibit the existence of life. BUT against all and enormous odds (billions or trillion to 1, against), those sequences of events and time did come together to allow the creation of life on this planet. If that is not hope and positive inclination of nature (divinity/hope) then I don't know what is? Life and nature itself is full of positive energy and why should we be different? We are sons and daughters of this world, right? So why are we against our own nature and become pessimistic and gloom and bleak? Choose and the choices are all around us. Choose wisely because we will not be here again and our choices effect others as well.
Change happens when we are hopeful and optimistic of a different outcome otherwise we will not want change. Even those pessimistic who preach negativism are hopeful that people will change and join them. Isn't that a contradiction? Hoping for people to share their negativism/PESSIMISM? I say that hope is the engine of life and humanity is the fuel that powers the engine. SO LETS US BE THE BEST FUEL FOR THE ENGINE OF HOPE AND LET THE ENGINE ROAR TO LIFE AND CHANGE THE WORLD!
STILL THINK THAT YOU DO NOT MATTER? WELL, THINK AGAIN MY FELLOW MALAYSIAN!
Hamba.
Everyday we went to sleep with the hope of waking up in the morning..GOD's way of telling us something, maybe??? Hopefully, Yes!
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Unknown Dear Stephen
At least you inherited from one side of your genes :-). BOTH my parents and both my grandmothers were worriers, as if fighting to see who could outworry the other!
Sadly, due to my predicament, my older boy also picked this up and developed a twitch when facing his SPM exams.
After all I have experienced in my life, I will never succumb to any worry or negative feelings any more. Enough is enough.
Sometimes I forget to keep the laundry when I am out and then when it starts to rain, I fret etc and drive at breakneck speed to rescue the wet laundry. How foolish of me.
It is NOT the end of the world. So if it gets wet, learn the lesson. Move on and never repeat the mistake.
Guess what? It happened again yesterday when driving my boy home fr school and my younger boy kept saying - let it rain heavier and let mom remember her lesson LOL and I told him...it is ok...i will still drive home slowly n believe it will not rain at our area...and it did not. :-)
Yea - I read so much stuff - part of my husband's propaganda also these days his propaganda is 100 reasons why mws must stop blogging LOL...
Looks like we share the same perspective to life, dear Stephen. Way to go...You see, next time you are in Penang, you must let me know and allow me to make you and your family more horizontally challenged. After all - you have to catch up with me haha...
Years ago, I was busy attending friends' weddings...then the birthday parties of their kids...then the funerals of their parents...then the weddings of their kids...and lately, the funerals of friends...
Sighs.
That is the cycle of life. So much to live for, why worry? :-)
Indeed, I want to be remembered for my positives...and also my silly mistakes so that when my friends think of me, like what you said, they will laugh and cry at the same time.
Thanks for sharing, Stephen.
God bless you and yours and take care!!!
Shalom
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semuanya OK kot Perhaps you could re-examine significance, relevance, success, achievements, funerals, concerns etc. in relation to that implacable "monkey on the back", the ego.
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Unknown Dear Nick
Wow!!! What a beautiful message of hope you have shared here with us.
I hope it inspires positivism in the hearts and spirits of those who believe in negativism.
People may focus on negative perspectives due to another agenda, psychological problems or propaganda or emotional hurts or insecurities. I have done enough counselling to see the traits and used to be blind to my own!! That is the tragedy of life.
You put it aptly - being negative is a waste of time and it is pointless to be spreading a message of doom, gloom and a sense of hopelessness.
Man thrives on hope and wilts with despair. I choose the former and I know you do too!
Each day brings new hope for us and let's live it to the fullest. Take care and thanks for spreading this message....May I post this also as a separate post???
Please say yes :-).
Thanks! Have a blessed day, Nick.
Salam
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Unknown Dear Semuanya OK Kot
Wah!!! You are a tough task-master. That is a tall order indeed...Will have to think of how to approach this. Thanks for the suggestion! Take care and God bless you!
Warmest regards
mws
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nick Sis,
Don't say you're not hopeful that I say yes?;-) Well, I'm always honored with your request and I'm hopeful that more and more people who reads your blogs will be changed and changed for the better because of your writing.
Hamba.
Have a restful evening and remember your friends are behind you, always.
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Unknown Dear Nick,
You know, whenever I open my blog, I look forward to reading comments from my readers. These matter more to me than the hits. Of course disregard the ad revenue cos I earn nothing from blogging hehe and instead have to spend money :-).
The connection, hope, inspiration, motivation and friendship that you and some readers have given me are the precious gifts without ribbons which I treasure so much.
That is the beauty of the connection - we inspire each other to be better than what we were yesterday - to see that as long as we are alive, there is hope.
And HOPE NEVER FAILS US!!!
Take care and thanks for being a real and genuine friend.
May the Almighty bless you and yours always.
Salam
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Anonymous There is this perennial struggle between optimism and pessimism in the human psyche.
From the wiki on optimism
"A number of scholars have suggested that, although optimism and pessimism might seem like opposites, in psychological terms they do not function in this way. Having more of one does not mean you have less of the other. The factors that reduce one do not necessarily increase the other. On many occasions in life we need both in equal supply. Antonio Gramsci famously called for "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will": the one the spur to action, the other the resilience to believe that such action will result in meaningful change even in the face of adversity."
And from the same wiki, hope:
"Hope can become a force for social change when it combines optimism and pessimism in healthy proportions. John Braithwaite, an academic at the Australian National University, suggests that in modern society we undervalue hope because we wrongly think of it as a choice between hopefulness and naïveté as opposed to skepticism and realism."
So, be a
happy pessimist anyone?
"The really good thing about Pessimists is that they don't ignore the possibility of failure. That gives them a chance to explore the possibilities and have alternate plans ready. It's just really important not to EXPECT the worse to happen, because you may actually do subtle actions to ruin your chances of success."
OTOH,
"You create your own reality by every choice you make. If you believe that something is going to be bad, and you stop trying to make it better, it might actually get worse."
"By taking care of yourself, the world has one less person who's in pain."
From this write up on free thinking and
Bertrand Russell
"We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world — its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it."
"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create."
We cannot change the past, but we can change the future by what we think and do today.
:-/
Excalibur
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Unknown Dear Anon aka Excalibur
Brilliant comment with excellent quotes!
Many thanks to you for taking the time and trouble to steer us in the right direction.
I must do another post on this.
Take care and God bless you.
Please keep in touch. Your views and knowledge are gems which must be shared.
Shalom
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edward Dear MWS,
Thanks for sharing your life journey; the trials and tribulations. I am glad you have managed to break away from the negative emotions that had hindered you from enjoying a rich and fruitful life. I am truly happy for you. Congratulations are in order!
Often I observed that these debilitating character traits are hereditary in nature - passing from one generation to the next. One really need to muster the wisdom to discern this and overcome its paralyzing effect on us. So many are demoralized, unhappy, depressed. And some even suicidal. I have just met a fellow social worker who shared how, on 2 occasions, she had wanted to end it all because she couldn't find anymore meaning in living. Then she found God and everything turned around. It was a very touching testimony and all of us were left teary eyed after hearing her story.
"What really matters at the end of the day?" I am still trying to figure that out. What I really don't want to do is to spend my entire life pursuing material gains, neglecting my family and health. And later on spending all those money earned to regain my health. But it would take much more to restore lost family ties. Maybe by then its too late.
What I really like to do is to make a difference in people's lives by acts of kindness and love. Try my best to live a righteous and exemplary life and be a role model to my children. Create beautiful moments with the people close to me and leave behind memories that are cherished and treasured. I will try to live each day to the fullest and always be mindful of God's blessing upon my life.
Till our next hello, take care.
Edward
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Unknown Dear Edward
Lovely to hear from you again! Many thanks for such a heartwarming message. Thanks for hearing my voice in this post and empathizing with me.
I will never again succumb to fear or negative emotions. All those debilitating feelings are in the past.
Reading your post makes me realize that we share the same ethos in life.
For some, making money is important. Some are mercenary while others work hard. For me, because I lead a very simple life, I need very little and so at this stage in my twilight years, I want to learn as much as I can and give even more so that I will be remembered and the legacy I passed on will live on in the lives of those I touched.
Indeed, we have to live life to the max - especially at our age!!!
Take care and may the Lord bless, lead and protect you and yours always.
Keep safe and have a great weekend.
Shalom
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A Arthur Carpe Diem, live for the moment, seize the day.....
Don't be negative. Get on with life. In life some rain must fall so take it one day at a time.
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Unknown Dear Arthur
Excellent advice - powerful, brief and meaningful. Thanks a lot!
Take care and have a lovely evening.
Cheers
stephen Hi MWS, you know, I think I inherited my mother's worry wort habit. I am always worrying about something or other. And i am also an eternal pessimist which stands me in good stead I suppose as I don't gamble for fear of losing!!
I can however,switch off occasionally and not have a care in the world and I derive a great deal of pleasure from these little precious moments.I love sunsets and the quietness of a field.It frees my thoughts and eases my mind.
The countless motivational books I acquired have helped a bit,but it is a wide river to ford.I agree that our lives are ticking away and its good to make the best of it while we are still mobile and our thought processes intact.
At the end of the day, I tell myself that it doesn't matter how much wealth or status you have acquired but if you have left something of yourself behind in as many people to make a positive difference in their lives.
I remember when the faces of people would light up when they talk of a departed friend who left a warm and indelible mark in their lives,and they would laugh and cry at the same time.Wouldn't it be great if we could be remembered like that!
Cheers my friend.