It’s Just Stuff

Some fun I had, while I went missing virtually..

Awesomely cool!

I can’t believe I have started work for 3 weeks already. Time flies. Many things happened and rolled by faster than I can grasp.

First, it was work. The thing about being self reliant/sufficient is that sometimes our best effort don’t get us where we wanna go. Even by trying very hard, we fall short of our expectation. That was lesson #1 for week 1 of work- to be grounded in God and my being is not based on achievement nor merits.

Week 2 paints a tougher picture. What big shoes I hafta fill! Everyone have requirement of themselves. It’s just a matter of to what extend. In this, I don’t allow myself much room for mistakes. Also, the fight against the need for achievement is always raging in me.  All it took was just one mistake at work to shake me up. Thankfully, for all the reminders, I looked up and saw a greater purpose and meaning in life.

Week 3 seems like a whirlpool. I thought I have been at it for years. But c’mon it’s only 3 weeks so why am I fretting? One particular day I was super edgy. With many things in mind; circumstances just made me soooo frustrated. Imagine with me… Many people came by the office for training of some sort. All of whom do not have the pass to enter the office. Seated nearest to the door, it became my responsibility to be the bell girl. Fine, I resign to fate.. I didn’t choose to sit so near to the door.. For an undisclosed reason, I have 2 phones on my table of which it never fail to drive me up the wall, especially when they both ring at the same time! I remembered vividly, while trying to reply a simple email which shouldn’t take me more than 2 minutes, I opened the door at least twice, picked up the phone more than thrice, replied sms to various people, talked to colleagues etc… All in all, my simple task has been interrupted so many times that I think it took me around 15 minutes or so (if not more). How productive. Whoever said that technology makes us more time-saving and efficient should think twice about their statement. Is it not becoming a highly irritable distraction?

Amidst all the rowdiness, I found sanity in the Lord as usual and also from my daily reading of When The Game is Over, It All Goes Back Into The Box. If you happen to identify with me, please do yourself a favour and grab this jewel from the nearest Christian bookstore. I guarantee you will be savouring it from page to page.

Some of the extracts which is too good to miss…

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People go through life, get stuff, and then they die, leaving all their stuff behind. What happens to it? The kids argue over it. The kids-who haven’t die yet, who are really just pre-dead people- go over their parents’ house. They pick through their parents’ old stuff like vultures, deciding which stuff they want to take to their houses. They say to themselves, “Now this is my stuff.” Then they die- and some new vultures came for it. People come and go. Nations go to war over stuff, families split apart because of stuff. Husbands and wives argue more about stuff than any other single issue. Prisons are full of street thugs and CEOs who committed crimes to acquire it. Why? It’s only stuff. Houses and hotels are the crowning jewels in Monopoly. But the moment the game ends they go back in the box. So it is with all our stuff…

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Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sydney Harris

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I know of a few more dramatic examples of regret than the life of the great Scottish essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle. He wrote eloquently about the illusions of being Master of the Board: “Many men eat finer cookery, drink dearer liquors, but in the heart of them, what increase of blessedness is there? Are they better, more beautiful, stronger, braver? Are they even what they call “happier”? Do they look with satisfaction on more things and human faces in this God’s Earth; do more things and human faces look with satisfaction on them? Not so.”

To know this truth in our heads does not guarantee that we will live it. A few years before he wrote these words, Carlyle had married his secretary, Jane Welsh. She was highly intelligent and attractive, and she continued to serve as Carlyle’s secretary after their marriage.

Some time after their marriage, Jane became ill. Carlyle, who was perhaps not much tempted by money, was deeply devoted to his work. He did not seem to notice his wife’s ill health much. He was absorbed in what he was doing and allowed her to continue working. But she had cancer; eventually she was confined to her bed. Although Carlyle truly loved her, he found that he did not have much time to stay with her or much attention to give to her.

After several years of this, Jane died. The day of her funeral was stormy; they carried her body to the churchyard for burial through the rain and mud. Carlyle later returned to a house that was suddenly, shatteringly empty. Hw went upstairs to Jane’s room and sat in the chair next to her bed, the chair he had had so little time for. He noticed her diary lying next to her bed and began reading it. On one entire page she had written one single line: “Yesterday he spent an hour with me and it was like heaven; I love him so.”

A reality that he had somehow been too blind to see now revealed itself with a crushing clarity. He had been too busy to notice how much he meant to Jane. He thought of all the times he had been preoccupied with his work and simply failed to notice her. He had not seen her suffering. He had not seen  her love.

Thomas turned the page of Jane’s diary. He read the words that would break his heart, that he could never forget: “I have listened all day for his steps in the hall, but now it is late and I guess he won’t come today.”

He read a little more in her book and then put it back on the table and ran out of the house. Friends finally found him back at the churchyard kneeling in the earth at the side of her grave., covered with mud. His eyes red from weeping; tears were rolling down his face. “If only I had known, if only I had known,” he cried.

After Jane’s death, Carlyle made little attempt to write again. The historian lived another fifteen years but he lived them “weary, bored, and a partial recluse.”

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I wept.