It’s 9.30 pm, Changi Airport, Singapore.
I’m at the international terminal and the airport is slowly
getting emptier and quiet. Outside, the sky is dark and behind the sliding
doors, taxis are still dropping off travellers from all corners of the globe. I
arrived here at 4.00pm and I still have plenty of hours to go. I actually don’t know how long I have to
stay, could be a day, could be 3, 5, 6 or 7.
I am currently sitting at Starbucks to charge my computer,
iPad and iPhone for the night before finding a “cozy” and silent spot to curl
up and fall asleep. Other passengers are already scattered in the seating areas
not too far away, either in semi-sleep or randomly observing their surroundings
with the resigned expressions of travellers in transit, travellers who are
between worlds, the world of the ‘not yet arrived’.
A group of Emirates pilots and cabin crew walk across the
terminal, a gaggle of laughing women, weary by the weight of both traveling,
working and by their heavy bags rolling after them, luggage tags bearing the
characteristic red and white emblem of the airline. The airhostesses are
glamorous, slender and tall in their uniforms, especially with their hat and
scarf that covers half of their faces resembling niqabs. And here I am, as
non-glamorous as one can be, sitting in my track pants, shoes off, baggy
jumper, scarf, messy hair, no make up and glasses… I feel GREAT.
I sit back and look around. This waiting in terminals is a
world I know well. I have never counted up the hours I have spent like this,
just waiting, but they are many. Too many to count or even remember.
It’s amazing how much waiting there is in a life of
movement. Surrounded by luggage, tired from crossing continents and time zones,
you just sit. You wait. You wait in transit, in the between, not always sure of
the next piece of the journey.
Waiting for buses.
Waiting for train stations.
Waiting in airports.
Besides this, there’s the other waiting. Waiting for visas,
that legal stamp of permission to enter a country as a guest and live there for
a year. Waiting for decisions that are being made apart from you. Waiting to
see what your near future will look like depending on this stamp.
And so I wait. 10.00 pm in the Changi Airport, thinking of
the life, MY life, MY future, (still)
trying to figure out what to do with my life… Am I going anywhere with this
thinking? Not really…. But I can summarise it as this:
We all seek happiness, simple as that. We as a human race
desperately strive to be something, to prosper, to be revered and if nothing
else to be noticed. But to what point? Happiness isn’t about fame, fortune,
money or the amount of things we possess, because those things will eventually
run out. We should live our lives to the fullest since life is short, yet ever
so precious.
My life philosophy is centered around three things; three
things that greatly govern my life, and the way I go about living it:
1.
Be who you are, not who everyone else wants you
to be,
2.
Work hard to achieve your goals,
3.
Never take your friends for granted, true
friends will be with you for life.
There’s a quote that says, “It is better to be hated for who
you are than to be loved for who you are not.”
In today’s society I see more and more people desperately
trying to conform the standards of others. We are simply too afraid to
distinguish ourselves from the crowd; to be anything but normal. Through one of
the most challenging times in my life, I came to the realization that by being
myself everything else became so much easier. Learning how to love ourselves is
an important aspect in life, but is also one of the hardest and most
challenging tasks. Learn to love yourself for the person on the inside, not the
person on the outside. Start loving your inside, then your outside.
No comments:
Post a Comment