"The one about having time..."

"Take benefit of five, before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free-time before your preoccupation, and your life before your death."

- Muhammad S.A.W (pbuh)

There is this story I love; of a husband and wife, commenting on their neighbor's bed sheets as they spy her from their window. 

"She must have forsaken her pre-soak, the sheet looks dirty and patchy," said the wife.

The husband agreed to his wife's 'excellent' perception skills, and this observation (sans comment) continued even for months to come. Each day the neighbor's bed sheets kept on coming out dirty and patchy - until one fateful morning. 

"Wow, she must have switched laundry detergents, or even pre-soaked. Her sheets look strikingly bright now."

"Maybe." Answered her husband. 

"But it was probably clean all along. I just wiped clear all our windows today."

We sometimes forget of the transparent filters we apply on how we view matters in life. Our perceptions become heavily biased unconsciously by our own prejudice - and how we perceive time can also tread this very thin line. When we're at our happiest we often feel that we have all the time in the world . While this is a preferable state, we become vulnerable to taking things for granted. On the flip-side, when confounded of grave and dire times we begin to realize how little time we have, and how more little our grasps are on it.

"Two generations, linked by the same blood."

This picture is of my mother's father; my grandfather Hj. Salleh Musa. Here he braces his youngest grandson, Adam whom found a bouquet of balloons tied onto the ceiling quite to his liking. He (my grandfather) has been passionately known by his grandchildren as 'Aki' and he has always been acclaimed for his fondness and altruism in the family. This is a very recent picture of him, whom apart from a few age-related physical limitations depicts a man well into his 70s and could very well push 80.

I look at him and Adam, and I am reminded by how subjective time can be. You can be blessed with all the time one can receive, yet even the oldest of men claim it passes too quickly. Most of us complain, that today April beckons us - while we've only felt January come just yesterday. We busy ourselves with deadlines and schedules; work and errands, that sometimes even the most menial of tasks overwhelms us. I am guilty of this; many times have I breathed a sigh of disgust, complaining why matters meticulously planned often do not turn out the way I've expected - mostly due to insufficient time.

It's ironic to think that we hurry into growing up so much, that when we do we then yearn for it to slow down. When we were young, we wet our throats with water in gulps - just to realize in our old age, that gentle sipping does equally the same thing. When we were young we treat everyone unjustly, as if their lives truly depended on us - just to realize in our old age, that our lives depended on their care as much. When we were young we are quick to say that the whole world revolves around us - only to realize in our old age, that it is we instead who revolves around it.

That is probably why life - is lived in phases that revolve as circles. One day we find ourselves on top of things, while on another we feel the lowest we could ever fathom. Bad days remind us that there are good days ahead, and good days cautions us to be ready for the bad days coming. In retrospect, good days are meant to jostle the humility and gratification in us, while the bad days helps reminisce our faith and hopes. My wishes are for each and every one of us to be blessed with a fair share of good and bad days, and my hope rests on the sanctity that those days riches our lives and sculpts us to be better individuals insyaAllah.

Live as if there is no tomorrow, but dream as if you'll live forever.

-JeP