Emotion

I am writing this blog after a week of seemingly overwhelming hassles.

My classmate had delivered her baby, went home and, alas, suffered from secondary postpartum haemorrhage (excessive bleeding after childbirth). I rushed to hospital, trying to get help for her, and ended up at home at five in the morning. I had less than two hours' sleep before going back to work. As I walked to the train station, the vendor machine swallowed my coins but did not deliver me a can of coffee that I badly wanted. I went to the convenience store to buy another one and then almost tripped on the stacks of newspaper on the ground. As is often the case with bad luck, the story never ended until we got another blow, say, from the unrealistic remark by the insane Prime Minister at my workplace.

A friend was kind enough to offer me the solution by sharing his own story. Like most men (you know what I mean), we can be pretty stubborn and argue fiercely until we are blue in the face. This time, to my surprise, he quoted me in a composed manner the advice he learned few years back (when his face was blue, of course), "A man would not react to a dog on the street when it barks on you." I hardly had a clue which dog he was referring to – be it the vendor machine or the Prime Minister. But there is the moral: we can forget the moans and groans, and focus on the big stuff instead. It might have been years before my friend could tell anyone of his story and see any humour in it. But in a way it was this tiring week, for all its rough-and-tumble life, that was my awakening – at peace of mind.