Such is the Irony of Life

The other day, I had a discussion with a friend who's expecting a baby very soon. We talked about how we often are prone to guilt or self-criticism even though others in our situation would perhaps be patting themselves on the back. Is guilt a Chinese thing, a Catholic thing, or perhaps a female thing?

I often talk to people who are older and wiser, so that I can gain their perspectives. Maybe, just maybe, this way when I am on my deathbed, I will not regret that I have lived my life chasing after the wrong things, and ignoring the truly important things. As it turned out, the theme is pretty universal - don't pay so much attention to success in a conventional sense, as it will not matter at the end of your life. Instead, relationships of all kinds are what sustain us through thick and thin, and therefore require the most effort and dedication.

Of course, it does not mean that we simply give up on our careers and go volunteer in Africa or India. After all, we still have a lot of practical bones in our bodies. But we do have a sense of disciplining ourselves, judging ourselves, and evaluating ourselves from all kinds of imaginary angles. As a result, we constantly feel that we have fallen short of expectations. We want to live our lives to the fullest, as if there is some arbitrary judge out there that will eventually give us a grade on how we have lived. When it comes to choices, we want to make the best choice, because we don't want to have any regrets later. Yet life is unpredictable by nature and we have to make so many choices, big and small, constantly. Whenever we make a choice, we want to make the best choice to make sure that what we get is worth what we will be losing, but often which may not seem so valuable now but perhaps become extremely valuable later on. So perhaps we blame ourselves later...

There are other people who don't reflect on life so much. They do what they want, take credit for their successes, find reasons or excuses for their failures, and never think about what will be most important to them on their deathbeds. I used to think that these people should watch "Citizen Kane" so that they have a longer-term view about life, and not have so many regrets at the end of their lives that they have to whisper their own version of "rosebud" near death. But then, we human beings hear what we want to hear. The message of "Citizen Kane" has been internalized by people like myself so many times that we even need an antidote to ease off on that message. And those who are busy with their short-term goals, will ignore such messages or perhaps sleep through such a movie, and deal with the consequences on their deathbeds. Such is the irony of life.