Mary was awakened by a large shout. "hey, quick! Before anyone gets all the petrol." With blurry eyes, Mary woke up and wearily got off from the car. She went to the convenient store to get some bread and drinks while her husband , Sim, frantically filled the car with petrol. Behind their car was easily another five cars. Petrol price increase? Perhaps. By the time Mary came out from the shop, Sim was already behind the wheel, ready to hit the road again.
As they sped off, Mary pulled out food from a white plastic bag and shared with her family. About 6 hours later, they pulled over to another petrol station. Mary cautioned Sim to slow down as she knew there was a pothole nearby this station that was as huge as a wok. How could she ever know about it? A deja vu? No. She was here last year.
In fact, Mary had been doing that for the last 30 years, only that she was younger then and it was their parents that were rushing. Where was she rushing? She had no ideas, but just like others, rushing to get more petrol. But to where? Absolutely no idea too. She had been plying the route plotted with a few hundreds petrol stations in circles for the last 30 years and was prepared to do so till she died. But why she did it? She wasn’t prepared to know.
This could be another show of the mysterious 'twilight zone' TV series which challenged the mind to think. But unfortunately it is not. It is what billions of people are doing every day. We tried to get more petrol (money) to fuel our journey (life) but yet not many are sure where we're rushing to. We could see many people around us doing the same and so how could it be wrong??!! So, a lot of people ended up moving in circles and cycles. Birth & death, resignation & new jobs, disease & health, budgets & reviews, winning and losing, gains & losses...
We are doing our best to maintain the 'course'. But where is this 'course' leading you? If it's a happy-go-lucky ride all the time, then at least we can say 'we ain't going anywhere coz it's great here'. But most of the times, it's not. Despite the pain, we convince ourselves ‘that's the way to do it’. It will get us where we want.’ Yes, but where???
Unless we know where we are rushing to, there is really no meaning in this rushing. We must be able to differentiate between a goal and a method. We work hard because that’s a ‘method’ to get money. But getting money is not the goal. What do you intend to do with the money? Do you ‘re-invest’ into the course to get more money? If that’s the case, it is still the method and not the goal!
‘Where are we going?’ is a profound question that is not easy to answer. To find a purpose for life can be a search of a life time. But not only that…it also varies by individuals.
But for those who want a suggestion, may I humbly share my strategy:
I do not know where I want to go to because my mind is unclear
My mind is unclear because there is too much distraction
I need better focus to avoid such distractions
By then, my mind will be clear and naturally I’ll see the tangent to this cycle…and get out of it!
Simply put, it means:
‘Do good, avoid evil, purify your mind’
