Philosophical mood induced

I feel compelled to post an entry today because after three pretty hectic weeks I finally had time to take a step back and look at how things have gone. In case some of you are wondering what I have been up to, since I don’t even log in to msn for very long or join the daily dota sessions anymore, I have been keeping myself busy trying to catch up with my work and studying for some mid-terms. Besides that, I have also started training for the marathon by waking up early every morning for a run. So my daily schedule goes something like this: wake up at 6.30, go for run, breakfast, shower, study until 11.30, sleep.

Not very exciting, but I actually kind of enjoyed this lifestyle. For one thing it gives me a goal, something that I can work towards and look forward to. Well, the last of my tests ended earlier this evening (didn’t exactly do very well for either of them, but no point lingering over it). And, having ran through a niggling pain in my right knee for some days now, after this morning’s run the pain got so bad that I could hardly climb up a short fight of stairs without stopping every two steps for the pain to subside. So it seems that I would probably have to rest for at least a day or two (hopefully not more). So, I would no longer have to do the two things that I have done almost exclusively for the past three weeks. After I reached home today, I wandered around in my house wondering about what to do: I don’t have a test to study for, and I don’t even have to sleep early since I can’t run tomorrow morning. But it seems to me that there wasn’t anything worth doing. The drive and concentration that have driven me on for the past three weeks have gone. In the end I settled for watching TV.

It seems funny the way things either never happen, or they do so all at the same time. It either doesn’t rain or it pours. Ok, maybe what really happens is that it either doesn’t rain/it is drizzle we don’t really care about, or it pours enough for us to want an umbrella.

What is this thing about goals really, I wonder. Back in the secondary school days, I never really had a problem with this; I lived day-by-day, and still I was pretty satisfied with how life just rambled along. So why is it what now that I am always constantly searching for a goal in life, trying to look for the meaning of life? Maybe because I have seen more of this world to wonder where is my place in the larger scheme of things; or perhaps simply because I need something to organize my life around: something meaningful, something useful, something to look forward to, something I can work hard and strive for. A carefree life with nothing much to do is something many people long for, yet a life without any direction hardly seems an attractive proposition to me. My father put this into perspective for me. He is 65 this year, well past the official retirement age of 62, and his body is no longer like before; yet he is reluctant to sell his shop and retire, instead opting to work 12-hour days everyday. He once said that if he were to retire, he wouldn’t know what to do everyday. Well, you give me three months of holidays, I wouldn’t know what to do everyday as well, not to mention the many years of post-retirement.

And I realized that working hard towards a goal can be quite therapeutic as well. Take running for example. Gradually increasing the distance ran, and seeing my timings improve everyday gives me a sense of satisfaction little can compare with. Now, I look forward to my runs every morning to kick-start my day, and would feel uncomfortable if I had to stop doing so for a day or two (as I am feeling now). And when I run, I try not to forget to enjoy myself and to look around and smile and wave to people I see running in the same place every morning.

So tomorrow I go a-searching for my next goal in life once again. Let’s hope life has some exciting projects for me, and I can enjoy myself, enrich myself and smile and wave to people as I work towards them. CHIONG AH! GO GO GO!