Be the lord of your own way

Joshua is my best friend from the university, who I’ve learned tons of those cool kids shit from. This guy proposed to his current wife few years ago and I knew I would be his best man cuz that’s what we’ve been joking around since college. After my wedding toast (I totally nailed it, FYI), Joshua has some words for me as well. He was speaking like, “Paipo is the most responsible friend I’ve ever known, cuz he’ll try his best to get things done no matter what, BUT never ever ask him HOW he did it, or you’ll be really pissed off lol”.

Since then, I’ve been pondering over what he said now and then and recently came up with some thoughts about life.

Life is not about living efficiently

From where I came, we’ve taught to do this and that in order to achieve something great, except that the “greatness” is defined by your parents or the society. In your social group, your friends may tell you what you’re doing is wrong cuz it breaks the group code or so. At work, your colleague may harshly say your way is stupid. Probably some advices are right, which can make your life more efficient, but I would say it’s your privilege not to take any of those advices. There is no wrong to do things in your own way, even if it’s extremely stupid. As long as you have a good reasoning with it(don’t forget “keeping ownership of your way” is also a legitimate reason IMHO), go for it. After all, life is short, even though those brilliant people may assumably be right about things, at your last breath, would you feel satisfactory and said, “I live efficiently and my life is worth having!” ? Is being efficient your life goal?

Think about time in the context of life

If you ever think about the purpose of your life, what would it be? I’ve thought about this for a long period of time and along the way, the concept of “time” always plays a crucial role. We all know two facts:

• You only have limited amount of time in life.
• Time of your life cannot be rolled back.

For me, in that sense it implies:

• Accumulate things itself is meaningless.

People have tendency to accumulate things such as fortune and are reluctant to give away things they own. However, considering any upcoming point in time, your life will end eventually and at the moment even god cannot measure what you’ve accumulated and make them a bit more meaningful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate to promote Carpe diem or YOLO. What I suggest is that don’t put the cart before the horse. Instead of treating accumulation of things as a result, you should see it as a measure to lead you to something bigger. For example, you might want to accumulate knowledge by learning things on the purpose of making your life more complete. You might want to accumulate money to do something fun (yep, I justified this goal). The point is to think about cause and effect when you’re determined to accumulate anything.

• Do it your way or never.

The second point connects back to the topic of this article. Every point of time in your life is unique. At any given time, if you decide to ditch your own idea and follow what others tell you which you don’t really like it, you’re giving away the ownership of a piece of your life in exchange for a bit more efficiency (allegedly to be brilliant). Most of time, I would say unless the ultimate goal is altered, even you stick with your own way, it can lead you to the same destination, except you own the whole journey. Considering the constraint of life span and the fact that life has its due day, there is no obvious gain and necessity to always do things faster; instead, you should find your own pace.

Pay respect to every individual soul

From time to time I feel some people who like to give life advice or comments irresponsible. They don’t know what they’re talking about and consequences their comments come along. At the end of the day, no one will be responsible for your life and you’re the one who pays the debt. With that being said, I always believe in the mighty mind of human beings and show my respect to every individual soul. As long as you’re not capable of thinking, you always make the best decision for your life, and even though afterwards you find it regretful, you still do. The fact is that you’re not out of your mind, so if you put yourself onto the same situation again, you’ll probably make the exact same decision out of all information you have, because that’s what makes you and who you really are. All in all, if it’s not your life, step out of other people’s way. Give friendly advice, but never interfere like you’re a master of life. Let’s empower every individual and let them be the lord of their own way!