This is a true story told by a friend of mine. It happened to one of his ex-colleagues. Let’s call this ex-colleague Debra .

Debra’s father passed away few months ago. During that time, she was all by herself. Her mum passed away few years ago, and the entire family consists of her father, her elder brother and herself. Unfortunately, the elder brother had an argument with the father and left the house. He went to chase after his dream and became a chef in a famous restaurant.

When her father passed away, she has nobody to turn to but her elder brother. Unfortunately…he could not be reached. She asked for help from her friends, my ex-colleague included and they tried to track him down. He changed a lot of jobs and to their surprise…he’s currently in Middle East…and could not be reached. So Debra was all by herself…and few of her friends who are trying to help out.

I’m sure some of you might have heard stories like this before….stories where people, due to a misunderstanding or miscommunication, or due to their own ambitions (like chasing after money, materials, etc)….. often neglect the people who are precious to them. Some even missed out on the chance to say goodbye to their loved ones…..and could only live in regret.

To be honest, this is not the first story I’ve heard. There was this lady who called to a radio station many many years ago…crying…and said that she could not bid one last farewell to her father who passed away while she was working and earning money in Europe (she wanted to earn more to give her father a better life in Malaysia). But in the end, all those money didn’t really matter because her father was no longer around.

Sad stories, yeah. But they all serve an important lesson to all of us – cherish our loved ones while they are still around. Be there for them when they need you. Any material and any amount of money does not matter as much as the welfare of your loved ones. And most importantly, make sure the decisions you make will not create a life full of regrets for you later on.

And to Debra (not her real name, and she doesn’t know me), I hope you’ll be strong. You still have plenty of good friends around.

As for Debra’s brother….it’s good to chase after his dream and ambition….but how would he feel, when the news of his father’s passing finally reached him…maybe 6 months later?

Most people dream of many things but most do not dare to take actions. They prefer to wait for that one golden opportunity – the opportunity which will propel them to stardom, to become a millionaire, or to be what they believe they should be.

So they wait…and wait…and wait….ignoring other opportunities which appear around them.

And it won’t come as a surprise if I tell you that some people actually spend their entire life waiting for such golden opportunities. 1 year become 5 years…and 5 years become 10 years….and so on. By the time they realized, it’s all too late and they would’ve wasted much of their life waiting for nothing.

Do you want to end up this way as well?

To be fair, sometimes there’s no harm to wait for a better opportunity or a better option. But the key here is not to wait too long or become too obsessed with that one ‘golden’ opportunity. Waiting is okay, but you have to know when to stop waiting and call it quit. I know it’s not easy to give up on something you strongly believe in…but at times, that will be your best option.

Let me give you a simple example (used by the radio One FM). Lee brought Muthu to visit a client. Upon arriving at the lobby area in ground floor, they found out that the lift has broken down. Muthu, being the lazy person he was, decided to wait for the lift to be repaired since the client’s office was located at the 12th floor. Lee, on the other hand, had a feeling that the lift would be out for quite some time. So, he took the risk and used the stairs. In the end, the repairman was not able to fix the lift on the day itself and Muthu was penalized for not attending the meeting with the client.

As you can see, Muthu did not want to take the risk and grab the available opportunities. He strongly believed that the lift would return to normal soon. So he waited. Lee took the risk and went for the other seemingly better opportunity – to use the stairs. True, maybe the lift would return to normal once Lee went for the stairs but it was a risk worth taking.

Last but not least, I hope that everyone who reads this article will learn to be more open-minded and pay attention to the countless opportunities which present themselves to us in our daily life. The opportunities that we strongly believe would work might not work at all and the golden opportunity that we believe would come might not come in the end. So, there’s really no point for us to be stubborn and hold on to something which is not going to bring us anything good.

I know it’s easier said than done. But understanding such situations/cases will certainly help (at least for me).

Every now and then, the radio station One FM will talk about some important life lessons. One of them is about choices in life.

Do you still remember when we were kids, most of us would have the ambition of becoming a scientist, a doctor, a policeman, a nurse or a teacher? These are the popular occupations for kids. And people may sometimes wonder why must it be those few and not other occupations like programmers, accountants, financial controllers, etc? Well, simply it’s because we did not know those terms yet at that time. We made our decisions based on what we knew.

Same thing goes for everyone when we grow up. We decide and we choose based on what we know at one point in time. And sometimes, we will encounter a better option after we made the decision. So, some of us would start to blame ourselves, and feel bad over that “silly decision”.

What I can say is, there’s no such thing as a silly decision. Everything happens for a reason. If you never try, you wouldn’t know that the first decision you made is actually not a good one. And also, if you haven’t try the new and seemingly better option, how would you know that it will actually be better?

So before you make a decision, think about it and ask yourself plenty of questions. Will you regret? Do you think you can live without this option? Or do you think you should wait for other better options? Maybe you should go out and explore the world. Learn more things, gain more experience and meet more people. That way, when the time is right, you will know whether the option in front of you, is actually the right one.

Until then, don’t rush into making a decision.

p/s…….. but if you really made a decision and it seems to be a wrong one, just don’t worry ya. Things will be better, I’m sure. And don’t regret over what has been done. Learn so that you can prevent history from repeating itself.

p/s…….. also, sometimes exploring and waiting are good for us, but there are also times when we need to be fast and grab the opportunities which may only come once in a blue moon. So explore, think (carefully and quickly) and decide. I know it’s pretty subjective, but this is how our world works anyway.

Figure that picture paints a thousand words. So I drew this simple comic (yes, stickman) to express what I wanted to say in this article.

I am someone who loves kids but I find it hard NOT to slap a small boy who I met few weeks ago. For me, it’s normal for kids to be naughty, playful ….and heck, you can run around all you want but when you don’t show respect for your elders, that’s it. And to call your elders STUPID, IDIOT (no, he didn’t call me those), or even punch and hit the elders….I think that’s a bit too much.

Yet, this is not the worst I’ve heard. A friend recently told me about her mum (she works as a part time helper for those rich aunties who have just given birth…er…forgot what’s the name of the job) who ended up getting blue black because the rich auntie’s 5-year-old boy did a flying kick on her. The same boy went on and slapped, kicked and threw stuff at his maid (not my friend’s mum). All these were done right in front of his mother and the mother did not say anything at all.

I really wonder what is wrong with these parents? I know they love their children so much that they do not want to punish them. But do they think such sickening behaviors will help their children when they grow up? I seriously doubt so. Kids nowadays do not know what is the meaning of respect especially respect towards the elders. This is fast becoming a very serious problem in our society….. and if parents do not want to teach their kids properly….what do they expect the school teachers can do? Everything begins AT HOME. If the first stage fails, don’t expect it to proceed to 2nd stage (school).

So people, I do hope all of you reading this will be a responsible parent and teach your kids properly. Respect is a very important thing in our world. Without respect, things will go out of control very fast. Let’s try to learn how to respect one another…our family, friends, elders, colleagues, teachers, etc….and together, let’s build a healthier and better society.

p/s…… you know what…a friend of mine told me this story about his niece. His brother is actually a very rich person and you know what his brother told his niece? “Don’t worry if you can’t get good result in exam or if you are lazy to study, papa has enough money for you to spend for your entire lifetime”. =_= no wonder we have so many spoilt brats nowadays.