Just feeling like blogging a lot these days.

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.
- Tallulah Bankhead

I read that quote a couple of days ago and absolutely believe in that statement. I don’t mind making mistakes and suffering from it. At least having suffered from the humiliation and knowing you were wrong, you’d at least pick yourself up and do the right thing in the future. It also shows you have the guts to make mistakes and own up to it. I don’t regret anything I have done (or at least I try not to), but I sometimes wonder what it’d be like to go back into the past and do things differently. Heh, it’s not like computer programs where you have a convenient Undo button to experiment with stuff and fix it up later on. Life’s not like that, and it affects me in making me more cautious of decisions.

I used to make decisions knowing of the consequences of my actions. There has always been a simple formula, to do the thing that caused the least damage or harm to myself and other people. It didn’t matter if that meant reducing all the benefits that came with taking a risk on something that might have had a better outcome. It’s called gambling in a sense, but these days, I’m thinking of it more along the lines of calculated risk. Heh.

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Heh, looking at my room now. There’s a Playstation 2 sitting in the corner somewhere (friend just returned it). Have a 24″ LCD monitor that has the TV input jack so I can actually plug my PS2 (technically half mine) in. Used to have it plugged to the small TV in the living room and recalled freezing my butt off playing Final Fantasy X during winter. I’d have frozen toes and fingers, but I was so engrossed in the game I wouldn’t mind it at all. Friend joked to me to just drag the TV into my room and play in the comfort of my own bed. I could actually do that now, but life has gone pass just vegetating in front of a screen playing games.

Relating back to making mistakes, these days there is a stronger sense of responsibility towards things. I wonder, what happened to that kid in me who seemed so carefree? Contrary to the exterior, that was a time when I worried about the future, about my social life, about purpose etc. These days, there seems to be a vague plan for everything and one needs to be disciplined enough to see things through. Things seemed shaped more or less. No longer could I crash and make up for lost sleep later. Weekdays for work you have to have enough sleep, enough food to keep you going through the day. Weekends you just try to do as much fun stuff as possible until you realise another week has gone.

Working life gives you the capacity to afford all those thrills in life. However, with the new found financial independence, also comes with it the shackles of financial responsibility. Not that it sounds that bad, but I keep reminding myself of the story of the ants who worked hard collecting food in summer while the grasshopper lazed around basking in the sun. You can guess the outcome of that story.

Heh, I do believe the human soul feeds on being needy and wanting everything that we don’t already have. I guess it’s this type of thinking that keeps me grounded in reality and not demanding too much from others. Somehow, it also provides you with the capacity to give instead of receive.

I think.