Popiah-making and a lesson in life

My mum wanted to cook popiah last Sunday. Obviously that meant ME had to do all the marketing and ME had to do all the preparation work and cutting of the vegetables. I’m quite particular that the vegetables for the popiah must be cut rather than grated so I spent at least three hours cutting stuff like french beans and turnips. By the time I finished cutting, my right arm was all sore and aching. My mum did the cooking after I finished and she commented that the turnips were well-cut! ^_^

After all that hard work, I was finally savouring my popiah. As I bit into my roll of popiah, shreds of vegetables fell off but I picked them up and put them into my mouth. Not a single teeny weeny bit of vegetables was wasted. Why? Because I had just spent hours painstakingly cutting them! Suddenly, it dawned on me that this is the way I have been living my life. I had little or no regard for things that came easy to me but things that I had to slog and work hard for, I treasured them more, even if it was just a shred of turnip. My popiah-making actually taught me a lesson in life.

I have been living in my rein-free comfort zone for 16 years. I have so much freedom in life, I take a lot of things for granted. During the last week of Dec 2008, I decided it’s high time I revoke this unappreciated freedom from ME. I can’t see the light at the end of my tunnel in life and it scares me. A symptom of mid-life crisis? At age 42, I have decided to give up my business and my directorship in my brother’s company, to rejoin the civil service. I’m going to become a teacher.