What's the point again?

At the end of the day, I am but human. I, too, grow old. I fall sick. I need rest. I need sleep. I need exercise. I need some fun. I need holidays. I need to make up for lost time with my family. I need space. I need peace. I need a life outside of work.

I can’t be expected to work like how I used to work 10 years ago. I have paid my dues. The late nights, the bags underneath my eyes with veins so red it looked like it was about to burst, the premature greying, the working over the weekends and holidays (if there were any), the constant worrying, the running around, the rushing – I did it all. All in the name of ‘career’. It’s not as if I got to where I am today without putting in real hard work. So don’t act as if I should be eternally grateful for what I have now. None of this was handed to me on a silver platter. I have sacrificed significant amounts of time and energy, at the expense of friends and family, to get to where I am today.

And it is still expected of me! It’s like every waking moment that I have I have to spend it on working. Why? Because I have nothing better to do in life? Because other people’s time are more precious than mine? Because I have targets to meet? Because I am being paid a salary? Why why why?

If the same is expected of everyone then I will not complain. But George Orwell was right – some people are more equal than others. Other people can go back at a decent hour every day, they are not expected to work weekends or whilst on holiday, they are given latitudes wider than the span of the Atlantic Ocean. And yet, they get the same benefits (if not more) than I do, so really, what’s the point of it all?

I am not a robot. If I am continued to be treated like one, I will break down due to over capacity and disintegrate. And I can rest assured that I will not be missed. On the contrary, I will be replaced by another unsuspecting robot.

No one said it's fair

Life is unfair. I know this. Mothers will always have their favourite child (although they will deny this till the day they die). Attractive people will always have it easier. As will apple polishers, people with influential fathers or relatives, people with money, people with power. For those of us who have none of these things except a pleasant personality and a heart in the right place (present company included), we will just have to continue struggling to survive. Nice guys always finish last. But I’d rather be myself and finish last, than be someone else and finish first.

Books

Books! I love books. Always have, always will. Damn the internet and it’s “but-you-can-find-anything-and-everything- online” zombie followers. Of course it’s useful. But nothing beats a good book. The touch, the feel, the smell, the comfort of a book cannot compare to anything else in the world.

The trick about reading for me is that I like to read what I like to read when I want to read. I can’t be forced to read something because everyone says it’s good or because it’s a best seller or because it’s the “in thing” to be reading a particular book. (This explains why I was never very good at studies, because I was forced to read all them geography and history books – let’s not even talk about chemistry and physics! This also explains why I don’t like work that much because again, I am forced to read things that I don’t necessarily want to read at that point in time.)

I love the English language. It’s not my mother tongue but it’s the first language I ever learned and I express myself the best in English. With the exception of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Moby Dick (my favourite book of all time!!) I prefer English authors. (No, I am not suffering from a colonial hangover.) From Enid Blyton to Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie and now Sophie Hannah and Val McDermid.

Apart from an intriguing story line that will take me to places I have never been to before (and some places I never will, except in my head), good authors also inspire me with their poetic prose, wit and artistic use of words. Some things are said so concisely yet beautifully, it lifts my spirit – “...would you bypass curious in your haste to get to furious?” (Sophie Hannah, The Carrier).

If only there was more time to indulge. Now isn’t that a complaint you often hear.