Life Is But A Brief Candle

Today while at Cheng Meng, father received news that the second son of our Sultan had passed away. He was only 54.

In our culture, and heck, I'm sure for people of all cultures all around the world, it's not good for a parent to ever bury their child. It must be heart breaking to see the child you've cared and loved for and see them grow into an adult being laid to rest in the ground.

People can just suddenly die without any warning. You don't have to be old to die. You can be 16 and sick and just leave. You can be 3 months old and just loose your life. Suddenly, I feel like life is too short to hold any grudges or to be filled with hate. We'd only be wasting our time.

Our lives are short and precious. Fill it with the things that make you happy and don't hate. I may be a teenager, but I've hated before, for so long till there was a time I was depressed. But now that I've let go of that hate, I've been so much happier.

I've heard of a story that went like this.

A teacher prepared lots of potatoes for the kids in her class one day, and told each of them to carry a bag of potatoes the entire day and not let go. Confused, the kids did as she said.

At the end of the day, they were all exhausted from the weight of the potatoes they carried for so long. Smiling, the teacher explained. "The potatoes represent the hate you have for someone. Like that sack of potatoes hate carries a heavy weight. You get tired from carrying that weight for so long that at the end of the day, you're the one who gets dragged down."

Why give that person or thing the satisfaction of hating it when we are the ones who suffer then? We will carry the weight of that hate and unhappiness with us till the day we let it go.

Time and again, life has proven to be far too short. Maybe it's time we re-examined our priorities, and maybe then we can live life to the fullest.