JEALOUS OF TIME

I’m often jealous of youths. Youth I live with, youths in my family, has a lot of time on their hands. They get to fail, yet it doesn’t have detrimental effects on people around them. They get to experiment and learn, slowly identify themselves, without having to worry if that will bring their loved ones down and ruin them. 

I lost that chance, that time I wasted.

I wasted my youth on boys, on gossips, on education. Wasted them on memorising terminologies and arguing in debates over issues like if traditional medicine really has a place in first world countries. I wasted my time over-analysing on who is better; OBGYNs or Doulas/midwives. Arguing over vaccines vs herbal approaches/other preventive approaches, careless to the ties severed in the process.

I argued with a lecturer before, and shamed her in front of the big hall, to prove myself right. It helped my ego, for a while. Today, that serves me nothing. 

I lost the chance, cause I could have spent more time on trying to understand myself, on building myself, and on building meaningful relationships with others. I could have learnt real values from the people I met then. I could have been more present, instead of hiding behind my books and projects.

Real values like inter-personal and negotiation skills that you can acquire only if you are observant enough, or care enough about others. Real values like understanding and managing emotions, developing high EQ, boosting creativity and above all else, empathy; values I today believe can only be acquired if you sit with people from different walks of life, only if you brave yourself enough to break the walls between each other. Only if you stop - stop for a while from your own dreams and desires, and look at life through the eyes of others. 

The little exposures i am blessed with today has shown me that. Books narrate, but when you speak with real humans sharing their own personal experiences, it.....opens you up, and the world that you thought you knew, expanded. People matter. Their thoughts matter. Their feelings matter. Their well-being matter. And from there it shapes the society that we live in today. 

I’m greatly jealous of youths, cause I wasted mine. 

And I cant get it back. 

And I’m losing the time that passes by.

But I still have what’s left of it. I’m still fully functioning and relatively healthy. My kids are still young and I still have a long way to go. Time, despite my treatment to it, is still on my side.

Until then, that is.