Dear Boys,
Your dad isn’t lucky, he is just extremely observant.
I will not hesitate to pick up any coins I see on the floor, and I have picked up quite a fair bit of them. Irrespective of denominations, I will pick them up, primarily because these coins are the lowest, smallest member of a million dollars, and to ignore them, you ignore your destiny to be wealthy. More importantly, you need to treasure and value whatever small fortune that comes your way, it is an attitude of gratitude.
During a chit chat in the office with my colleagues, we strayed into this conversation, and one of my colleague remarked that she didn’t used to pick up coins, but learned how to appreciate them when she was a 10-cent short,buying coffee. She only had $1.10 and the coffee cost $1.20.
Tough life.
I shared with them my 20-cents worth of this perspective.
20-cents is because that was all we got to buy a bun.
Many years back, I had to walk back from from Jalan Eunos to my home in Bedok, with my mum. We didn’t have enough money to take a bus back, and walked a 6km journey. Thanks to google map, I can approximately retrace those steps and come this is estimate; I was probably 14 years old then.
It was in the evening, and thankfully, it wasn’t too hot. We didn’t feel poor, despite of not having even enough coins to take a bus back! My Mum and I took it as a kind of stroll back, from my dad’s warehouse, in Eunos, back home.
As we strolled through the Kembangan district, admiring all the landed properties there, we came across a small attap kampung house, where a mama shop is. We wanted to get something to munch and we dig for what little money we had with us. My Mum dished out a 10-cent from her purse, I dug into my pockets, and lo and behold! Another 10-cents! Together we pooled together and bought ourselves a cream bun. By the way, I bought one just for nostalgic reasons, it costs 70-cents now.
Of course I didn’t tell my colleagues the whole story, I told them the 10-cents plus 10-cents part. I also shared with them, at no point in time, my Mum and I felt poor, lousy or sad. We were quite spirited as we share the bun, and continued our journey. My colleagues were, naturally, silent like vegetables. This side of Randy, they never knew and I don’t think they have ever heard stories of such ‘poverty’ in Singapore!
My past made me who I am, I know with a 10-cent, I can still survive and be happy about life. It makes me appreciate every little thing I have. Poverty is really a state of mind, and I’m thankful, I don’t reside in that state. I’m always grateful for all the small serendipitous gifts I get along the way, little kindness means a mountain to me. And major nastiness in my life, I hunker down and weather the storm, knowing it will pass. To me it is all the small things that matters, because when the time comes, it will be the small things that makes or breaks you. After all we are all made up of small things!
theaikidad 