Living on Borrowed Time

Wednesday, 28 March 2007
9.12pm
Koningsstraat, Amsterdam

I was gazing outside the window. Staring at people walking by on Willemsparkweg. A mother biking with her baby strapped behind her. A student with his huge backpack. An old lady with groceries.

They age. People, I mean. You are born, raised by parents, you go to school and, if you are blessed, you get the chance to grow old. It is one of the rare deterministic paths all human beings go through. Regardless of race, belief, nation or gender. We all grow older.

Do you fully realise how true the sentence 'we don't own our body, we are borrowing it' is?

That everything will die. Yor muscles will disintegrate and your body will incur more fat - if you're unlucky, maybe around your heart. You will wrinkle. You will lose hair. It is a fact that everyday, we lose our body bit by bit.

I suppose if dying is inevitable then we are living on borrowed time. Each moment we have we can never get back. It really makes you wonder if you have been conscientiously using the limited amount of time you have.

It was yesterday that I told Arya, to which he did not argue (intermezzo: this rarely happens). "If you have a child, don't miss him/her growing up. The moments you spend away from them can't be taken back. It is just that one time you have with them and you can never have it back. Be a good father. Watch your children grow and be there for them. (mulai ngelantur) It doesn't mean you should stay inside the house and do nothing. But you should really, really be there for them." And he just listened to me and nodded. Perhaps I was more talking to myself than to him.

The things we do and let go because we are so sure we can have them back.

I understand fully that we all have our costs and benefits. The things one person holds most precious might be another's trash. People might say I am letting go of a great career by holding back and getting married. Others might say I am taking hold of my serenity. To be honest, I just want to be happy.

To be content of what I have and not reel for the things I can't. Whether it's going back to school, making money or building a family: whatever you are trying to get hold of must be worth more than what you are letting go. If you keep 'looking over to the greener side', perhaps you opted for the less of the two choices.

Because believe me, if you are happy, nothing should make you question the worth of what you have.