I am learning more and more, day after day, that work is sacred. Work can protect us when stuff goes wrong, teach us to face calamities with calm and always with a battle plan, even if the strategies change at every move of your pieces across an unknown chessboard. Work can be a welcome distraction, some task and toil that takes us away from our troubles.
Work is sacred but it is also a reminder we cannot escape what we need to face. The office does not stay open forever. Closing time. Go home. Take a vacation. Be with yourself. Be yourself. We need to resolve things eventually. And we will.
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Copyright © 2011 Kenny Mah Ying Fye. Photography by Alek von Felkerzam.
Kenny Mah believes in the good in people. He has been blogging for over ten years. No, his hands aren't tired. Yet.
Yeah – working also pays a salary, hehe! :P
@Pureglutton: Oh, yes! Utterly essential if one wants to bring home the bacon, hehe.
work helps provide me with some small measure of discipline, but my hours spent in the office are probably the unhappiest ones of each day. am still waiting for some long-lost relative to pass away and leave me millions of dollars :D
@Sean: Perhaps you might consider finding this long-lost relative first? Then options for his/her timely, er, untimely demise may be considered.
thinking of the effort of trying to find that relative makes me feel lazy already. heh.
watching cnn’s reports now on the japanese quake/tsunami. did you ever visit miyagi/honshu? very scary and sad footage.
@Sean: But think of the millions! Maybe you can invest a little of your future fortune and hire a rich-relative-hunter?
I’ve just heard about the tsunami from my colleagues. Never visited Miyagi/Honshu before but this disaster is awful. My prayers go out to those affected.
then imagine the effort of having to ingratiate yourself with this long-lost relative (who could turn out to be as temperamental as ebenezer scrooge, pre-visit from christmas ghosts)! sounds even harder than my current day-job! :D
okie, so what’s your away-from-kl schedule like this month? if we keep talking about which eatery to visit but never schedule an actual appointment, your katherine hepburn memoir will turn yellow and get devoured by silverfish :D
@Sean: Politicians, celebrities and criminals – vs. – half-expired and doting relatives. Hmm, I think I know which one I’d pick.
My schedule? How about your planned-three-months-in-advance dining calendar. I’ve been trying to get a spot on it for AGES.
Poor Katherine Hepburn. Death by silverfish.
celebrities? i can’t remember the last time i managed to rub shoulders with one on the job. might have been chaka khan in 2006 (and those were mighty broad shoulders too) :D
allegations that my schedule is filled in advance are grossly exaggerated. i have march 14-17 and 21-24 completely free right now! you have so many options :P
wouldn’t you be worried that the silverfish in the hepburn bio might breed and spread to all the other books on your shelves? *evil grin*
@Sean: Oh my. Chaka Khan! Did you sing “I’m Every Woman” to her? Tell me you did! Hehe.
Ooh! March 14-17 might work. March 21 I’m judging at a business plan competition, and the rest of those dates I’m in Singapore.
Not really. My very presence drives the silverfish away. Mommy Nature’s Law: Bookworms trump silverfish! Hehe.
well, she didn’t even sing to us! (it was at a press conference) and anyway, i’m too shy. i don’t even ask for autographs :D
okie, you choose and lemme know then. even the final week of march is wide open for now :P
hmmmm, should i test your theory and plant a few silverfish in the book? maybe young silverfish trumps old bookworm! :D
@Sean: You could have sung to HER! Why so shy? Didn’t you regale us with tales of your wondrous singing prowess many a time.
Hahaha, I feel so honoured. This time I get to choose. Can we make it a lunch at Village Park? Hahaha…
This bookworm is evergreen, I’ll have you know. Old? Hmmph!
it’s fine for me to sing to people who can’t sing, but it’s different trying to sing to someone as amazing as ms khan. after all, i have to acknowledge that i’m not the world’s best singer :P
hehe, you’re only allowed to choose the day, not the location! and you’ll note that only weekdays are available, so we’d never be able to make it to damansara uptown for the nasi lemak on a working afternoon :D
evergreen? isn’t that the title of a barbra streisand song? and she definitely is one old dame :P
@Sean: But surely not too far from second best? Ahem.
Oh why ever not? Surely you have the flexibility due to your impressive position within your firm. Ahem ahem.
The dame may be old, but not this song of a true gem, i.e. me. Ahem ahem ahem.
oh, for such a high compliment, i might grant you the gift of a song during our next meet-up. choose any mariah, celine or whitney number, and i’ll humbly attempt to oblige :D
hmphh. perhaps the better, truer reason is that village park still does not see it fit to serve booze with their food (didn’t they read our debate all those months ago about which wine to pair with nasi lemak?) :P
back in ye olde england in the 16th century, the life expectancy for men was around 35 years. by those standards, ‘old’ would be a mild way of describing you :D
@Sean: Uhm… I think someone of your vocal calibre should reserve your talents for auditioning celebrity judges like JLo and Steve Tyler, mayhaps?
Oh we can always try smuggling the booze in Ribena bottles like you handily suggested, no?
I’m nowhere near 35 lah. Much, much younger. You’re nowhere near 35 either, are you? Much, much… in the other direction… *whistles chirpily*
Holidays r nice. I wish it could last foreveeeer.
@J the chocoholic: Holidays are lovely, aren’t they? But they last forever, and that’s good too. Cos if they did, we wouldn’t enjoy them half as much, would we?
*winks*
The sacred nature of work is best preserved when it is true in itself. Such work more than pleases everyone, even the most difficult employer, because it brings with it the air of authenticity-its true merit.
Off topic, fill your weekend with prayers for the tsunami victims.
@jemima: True work, as in doing truly good work, that’s the goal. So it becomes more than a mundane job, but a life of service and contribution.
Our prayers are going out to the tsunami victims, including our friends and their families in Japan.
“Be with yourself. Be yourself.”
After all and all, it is the only safe place to rejuvenate you from all the hard work and expectation of life.
I hope all is well. Hugssss
@rachel: We are our own sanctuary, aren’t we? That’s the place we wake up with every morning, and the place we return to at the end of every day. We are our own best company, if only we would be aware of it, to see that it is so.
All is good, clearer than ever before. Every day brings new insights, my friend. Hugs!
work to some extent helps us to get away from troubles but my work has got no bonus, no holidays and no sick leave, how ah??
@lena: Oh dear. No bonus, no holidays and no sick leave? That’s terrible. Uhm, change jobs?
On second thought, this sounds suspiciously like my mom and sister’s jobs (they’re homemakers)…
as a good friend says…work sets us free :)
@rokh: So true. Work is sacred, work is true, work shall set us free to do what we do! *chuckles*