Friends - cultivate your hobbies early, plan to do things for life

            


 A good friend of mine reminded me yesterday that the well-off people are more 'kiasi' meaning scared to die when they are at the end of life. Why ? Because they have worked so hard to achieve all the material trappings that life has to give, beautiful houses, boats, planes, cars, holidays, that they never
want to let go.

         Compare that with the homeless, down and out, poor people. When you have nothing, what are you afraid of losing ? We came into this world, naked, with nothing. We leave this world, also with nothing.
Yet, the world is driven by businesses, and building empires that enrich the leaders of the 1st World. How wrong a focus we have in life !!

        The leader Alexander the Great, when we found out that he was dying, made strict instructions to his subordinates that his casket must show him with his hands open and face up. Why ? So to tell every one, that he left with nothing. This great conquerer of much of the European and Asian world. On the other hand, the Egyptian pharoahs, were so obsessed with their riches and things on earth, that they built for decades pyramids which would house all their many earthly treasures, including killing their many wives and concubines plus have thousands of  slaves put to death together with them so that they could serve their master in the afterlife.

        I think, all of these practices are works of people who have lost their direction in life, thinking only of their magnificence and glorious existence, megalomaniac, or requiring a pychiatrist to bring them back to the real world.

      Belief in a religion would help all of us adjust to the light speed of progress in this world, work would give us a sense of purpose, having a family would teach us sacrifice, and impart a  sense of responsibility and selflessness, and plan to have hobbies as well as make the effort to give back, however little you can, to the less fortunate.

       I am blessed to have wonderful parents, a supportive wife, and 2 heirs. I am most appreciative of my position in life. I have a number of hobbies, and finally, I want to give back, because at the end of the day, what matters is not so much what you achieve for yourself, but what good you can do to enrich the lives of others.

      Seize the day, friends and readers of this blog.