The Mood: Air – Johann Sebastian Bach – YouTube
You know what? By doing my organizing business, I can finally help people getting on their new path of having a happier life. I can be there at that turning point when they need Hope, Support, and Encouragement. And I can be the facilitator to help them materialize their wish, to share their understanding and mine. I learn so much from each person I met, either from socializing effort or from business contact. I am finally getting on my path of realizing my own most precious childhood wish, the one I had since I was 5 years old.
People say that dealing with Death could change a person’s perception of life, and pay more attention to his/her own life. I went through that change before I even understood what Death meant. It was a traumatic experience.
I don’t remember what my mother did on my 5th birthday. There was just the two of us. But somehow she made me feel something special was happening. I remember we had a conversation, probably the first serious conversation I ever had in my life. She told me that I was 5 years old, and that I could now spread out my whole hand and proudly say “I am 5 years old!” But I was clueless what a ‘year’ is.
After clearing up the concept of day, week, month, and year, I realized that 5 years was supposed to be a very looooong time. Suddenly my consciousness awoke, looking at my mother: “Where have I been the past 5 years?!!” My mother told me of some previous events. I didn’t remember. It felt as if we were talking about someone else. So I wished that I could remember each day from then on. And in a way I did. I tried to feel, understand, and remember everything of my daily life. That was extremely important to me since I didn’t seem to remember anything of all those first 5 years of my life.
At that time, I was very shy. But I was not stupid. Unfortunately a shy person with a sharp tongue in the kindergarten could only earn me scratches on my face, instead of helping me to make friends with the children of my age. So I end up with having only one true friend. He was a 63-year-old man whom I could have the pleasure of enjoying a good debate. I remember once it even ended with me being in tears while insisting that I could make him cry. He was my first friend, my best friend, and my only friend. But soon he died.
I didn’t see him for few days, so I asked my mother where my friend, that old gentleman, had gone to. She told me that he went to the hospital.
“When is he coming home?”
“He is not going to come home anymore.”
“Why not?”
“He is dead.”
“What does it mean that he is dead? Where is he going to go if he doesn’t come home? Can I go visit him?”
“He is going to be buried.”
“How is that going to feel like? Isn’t it going to be cold and uncomfortable?” I tried to imagine how it would feel if I were dead or buried.
“It will not be uncomfortable for him. He would feel nothing, like in sleeping.”
She really thought that her explanation was going to ease my fear about Death. Instead, I couldn’t go to sleep for the next few weeks fearing that I might not wake up the next morning.
I was devastated. I no longer had someone who I could talk to, who could give me meaningful answers. Most of the time people gave me answers as if they had never thought of the matter seriously. I felt lonely. I remember the days and months of endless Q&As with my mother. I remember my extreme anxiety and nightmare while trying to understand the scary concept of Death, while dealing with the lost of my only friend. I was so scared I promise myself that I would not waste my life, that I would make every minute of my life as good as it could be. But, what can be considered good?
When I was 9, someone told me that my existence was an accident and pure luck. It was hard to comprehend the concept of none-existence of me. Eventually I felt grateful to my good fortune and I wished to do good for my fellow human beings as a way to showing my gratitude for the gift of my life. I wanted to do things that, without me it would not have been done. That was a very childish desire, to be so unique that I was irreplaceable. As you all can imagine, accepting my common place among human was not easy. I learned and assimilated as much as I could from everyone I encounter, and learned about myself by watching me from inside, and outside. But I never managed to abandon my childhood wish — to do good for someone the way only I can.
And it seems that this wish is finally coming true, little by little. The hardship of my life has made me unique. Who I am and what I learned from my years of struggle is now helping me to understand, accept and connect with others when they are having a hard time in life. Recognizing the fact that each painful event in my life had helped to build a particular quality in me, I became grateful to all of my past trauma. I am happy for who I have become, and that I can make a living by helping people around me, and even help some of them getting on their path of having a happier life.
In my Organizing business, I keep on meeting people who really enjoys our conversation about Life and Happiness. And they are happy that they have found someone who would integrate thought organizing into home organizing. I even have a short term monitoring program to follow up with my customers on a regular basis until they form the habit of keeping things in place. Keeping an upbeat spirit works like magic. Though the path is not always easily found, yet there is one.
I want to make a lot of friends. Now that no one is going to scratch my face when I talk, I can expand my world beyond my current circle. I want to warm up my environment so I don’t have to feel cold any more. And I want my friends to be happier because of me, even if it is just a little bit.
How often does a child’s wish come true?