lessons

i met a malaysian indian man during my work over the weekend. 25 years old from perak, already been working here for 3 years. he showed me a picture of his girlfriend and proceeded to tell me that the girls from his hometown are all very pretty, and how he gave the phone number of one of the girls in his hometown to a local boy he previously worked with.

he told me about his girlfriend, "i really love her and she also love me. last time i had another girlfriend but only she love me, i don't love her." he was rather surprised that i haven't had a proper girlfriend at my age. "just find any girl, ok-ok one, then if you love her, can already."

said he plans to stay here for another 2 years, save up and then go home to marry his girlfriend, and maybe continue working in his family's cow farm. afterwards, we saw a fat kid with a girlfriend in tow, sitting on a curb smoking because he seemed too tired to walk. "see, even that fat guy can get girlfriend, why you cannot?" he asked me.

speaking to him reminded me that perhaps life is, and can be, very simple, but we just choose to complicate it a little too much for our own good. complicate it to the point where it is impossible to get right, and then we're stuck in this mess that we created for ourselves.

happiness is very subjective, so why not make things easy for ourselves and just chill? i dare say this friend of mine would be much happier in his farm with his wife than the average singaporean in a 9 to 5 job earning more and living more comfortably. why? because he chose to be happy.