like a spinning top

Have you ever seen a spinning top? How the top player will unleash it from its strings and see how it just keep spinning and spinning and spinning until it finally stops spinning and falls still on its side. Have you ever wondered how amazing it is? I have seen a top being spun by a professional top player and I've got to admit its quite a feat to let it spin for minutes!

A spinning top can metaphorically describe two things. At least the two immediate things that spins into my mind. Number one, how a spinning top can represent the world and number two, how a spinning top can represent our lives.

I think you can very immediately understand how I metaphorically link our world to a spinning top just by how our world physically spins during our every second living in this world. Its just like how much energy our world has, spinning itself around the sun.

I am not sure if you figured out how I relate our lives like a spinning top but let me take the liberty of explaining how I see it. Have you noticed how a top almost spins aimlessly around the floor it is spun on? If you haven't, you can easily search it on YouTube. If you have, you might already know the direction I am heading towards. The spinning top is you and me whilst the floor the top spins is like the world we are in. The energy we exert out in the world - for some its the energy is trying to keep our jobs, for some its the energy spent reaching out for the next level, for some its the energy spent taking care of the family, for some its the energy spent on staying healthy, and you can already tell there is an infinite ways we exert our energy.

There something else to take note too - its the top that spins around the floor. That's just like us revolving around our world and not the world revolving around us. Like a top that's spun on the ground, there is no guarantee we end up where we want to be just like a top that's forced to spin on uneven, undulating ground.

Now, when we take a step back, you are going to see how a top, the world and us are alike. When the energy runs out, everything just stops. A top falls to a stand still when all its kinetic energy is used up. The world official dies when it stops spinning. We will be lifeless once all our energy is used up.

The world we live in isn't infinite. Everything is finite in quantity and someday when we finally drain it of its resources, it'll stop spinning in that sense and that's when we finally arrive at the end of the world. The earth as we speak about it is a ball filled with resources that bring us our food, water, electricity, etc........ but as we abuse it, it will bite back us we the increasing number of natural disasters which signifies the drastic changes we have forced our earth to undergo.

We like our earth don't run on infinite energy. The harder we fight for what we believe in or are we set out to do, the faster we get tired and burn out. Just like how we can throw a top to spin as hard as we can, the energy keeping the top spinning will eventually run out. A pace too fast for us to handle will only spin us out of control into a crashing stop.

Like a spinning top, we should preserve the world for us and for our generations to come. Like a spinning top, its not how about how fast its spins, its about how long it can keep spinning.

So how long will you spin?

All it takes is a little encouragement

"A Life at Work" by Thomas Moore is currently the book I am reading. I have reached about half way so far and it has really given me a lot of in sight about my destiny or at least pointers to get me on my way to figure out what my life work is (i.e. your ideal work, work that fulfills you from the inside, food-for-the-soul kind of work). It's still a work in progress thing for me; a long way from reaching the full discovery point (if I ever reach it). Your life work can be as simple as helping old folks in need in a nursing home to something as simple as being a life guard. Simplest of work can be the most rewarding to a person's hear that's deep down. Of course, there's no denying that it is different for everyone. But sometimes, if not all the time, all it takes is a little encouragement from the people around you. Sometimes it is as simple as, "a job well done chump!" or "way to go bud!" or "you hit the home run mate!" or even

one foot in the past, another in the future........ what about the present?

All of us go through a cycle, what we commonly call - the past, present and the future. It can probably be summed up by this simple phrase: " we come from the past to be in the present and look forward to the future ". Now, what I want you to do is take a step back, or just give your mind a minute or two to digest the above mentioned phrase. Ask yourself if it applies to you. Really ask yourself; and I mean REALLY ask yourself in the most honest of manner, whether it really applies to you. You may find it difficult to arrive at a 'yes' and even if you do, you probably find yourself in a paralysis state of mind trying to justify the 'yes'. If you really ponder about it, you are likely to find that most of us would find this phrase more relevant instead: " we come from the past and look forward to the future " You will find many of us either hang on to the past or look far too forward into the future, or likely for some to even be dwelling too much in

Quick update.........

Having graduated last year in August and taking a break in Australia visiting my brother for a month, I really felt good about everything. Things just got better after that, having landed a job at Ernst & Young! :) Aaaaaahhhhh.... how fast time actually goes by! Passing the 10th of January 2007, I have already been working for 3 months. The feeling of getting older and learning new things everyday at work brings about a feeling of satisfication. Although, work is generally tough and tedious (what do you expect in the auditing line?). I must admit though, when I fast started off I did feel demotivated and some what unhappy with the job having to go back home at 3am and back to work by 8am the next day. I did think about quitting at that time........ :( However, a miracle happened to me! That miracle brought along a girl named Vern Cheng. Without her support, I would have struggled a lot more. After work, just seeing her brings about a feeling of happiness and a feeling of being cont

The Path of Time

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