The Road To Success

  On the 25th of September, I will have to attend some kind of compulsory course so that my Dip+ application may be considered. In fact, this is a great opportunity to take one more step to success. However, an embarrassing truth be told: After more than a decade, I have yet to actually know my success...

  Unlike many of you, I can actually get into a circle of deep thoughts about my own success. Like, this guy wants to deal with Forex. Then another guy aspires to be a certified lawyer. Yet 'success' does not necessarily have to be career and stuff like that. 'Success' can be when a man successfully proposed to the lady of his dreams. It can be, like a colleague of mine once said, "To always give your best in everything". Many of you have already arrived to such decisions, but why can't I find mine? I still find myself searching. Then isn't there an irony when my pals claim that I am a 'decisive' person?

  Maybe part of these isn't my fault; Fate roughened my path of 'success'. I remember once when I wanted to be a certified doctor, but was forbidden from choosing 'Pure Biology' because of that asshole who decided my courses. Even the reason behind my choice of Diploma in Business Administration is a mystery to myself. It simply happened so that I was given my choice which I did the online application while half-blind. When my pal, BX, suggested that Business Admin was actually quite a mundane choice, I knew I chose wrong. Again.

  Apart from career, I have this particular aspiration which is like three stacked mountains of Everest to scale. Even though I have an indescribable doubt on actually being successful, I cannot help but go on. Like a damaged sloop already out in the Caribbean sea: A very fragile romance. Even now, these words echo in my mind:

"Is she happy?"

  I made so many mistakes such as scolding vulgarities, giftng that pendant, accidentally opening my... 'shell' (Not 'pants', you pervs >_<), and even worse: She might already be in a relationship with someone else. The big mystery is: Why haven't I given up on her?

  I know there is a better answer to it than "I don't know"; I just cannot find it.

  Maybe I can give you a kind of childlike description to something like success for me? Something like: I stand on a grandly podium with something shiny and polished in my hands. Spotlights flashed on where I stood, with the audience a tidy maelstrom of mixture of my loved ones as well as strangers and acquaintances. Without a script, I speak through a microphone, and my voice echoes through huge speakers into the thunderous applause and roars...

  Something like that would be marvelous. However that isn't really my definition of success. I do know, though, that the time will come. The time when my path is revealed. When I can finally place my life at stake. To walk the journey. To success.

Eyes of a Dragon and a Demon

  In many Chinese folklore, a Dragon is depicted as a bringer of luck, harbinger of prosperity. It is said that families of any mortal subjects, peasantry or nobility, is truly blessed for perhaps a lifetime.

  On the other hand, most demons enjoy the misery of their mortal preys. They are always associated to havoc and misfortune. Some of us may even curse someone who did many unpleasant things or decisions that affect us as a demon. However, not all demons are associated to evil.

  Every single one of us who live can never be absolutely good or evil. We have all taken lives before, haven't we? (Ants) That is still a sin, although it is so small that it is barely noticeable. We have all done something evil before, didn't we? Maybe unintentionally stealing extra grams of sour plums because the store clerk accidentally gave you more, or breaking someone's spectacle by 'accident'. Apologies may seem to help resolve matters sometimes, but they can never change the facts.

  On the other hand, we all have perhaps did something good (As in a deed of virtue), from donating a penny to the students involved in community services who collect money for the poor, to saving the world from certain death. No matter how many acts of benevolence or malevolence we have done, there is no absolutes.

  For me, Bildungsroman certainly played a part in my... Statistics page, shall we say. If you ask me how many evil things I have done in my life, I cannot count. I did many things I actually regret doing. I am sure I did many things that had hurt others' feelings, even without me knowing. I can easily name one which only happened a few days ago. But then, I don't think I wanna...

  Ask me what good have I ever done in my life, I can name a few but not all. That is because unlike the acts of evil which I was actually 'blind' to, like many of you, I take pride in my deeds of virtue. Let me see... I did some community services with a few colleagues for the needy residents without expecting anything in return. I stood up for my buddies when they got into trouble. The best thing I have ever done, although not exactly a deed of virtue, is to stand up for myself and act with this almost-shameless courage, which was what I did in Secondary Two when I was able to muster my courage to start a conversation with someone special.

  Almost everyone of us have two eyes, right? Save the unfortunate people who lost one or both of theirs at some point in time. Oh no... Not that one eye is that of a Dragon, and one of a demon. Seeing things in a positive manner does not mean that the person possess the eyes of a Dragon. However, seeing things in a nihilistic perspective could point that one has the eyes of a demon, or an inner demon in him.

  Then how to tell of a person has the eyes of a Dragon? I don't know...

  But right now, I might be seeing what a demon can see: That something really important to me...  Something is slowly crumbling...