the beginning of the rest of my life

It kind of sucks when you have a new blog and nothing to write about. So I am going to write about the book I read over the weekend: Mitch Albom's the five people you meet in heaven.

Synopsis (because I do not reinvent the wheel):
On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie, a lonely war veteran, dies in a tragic accident trying to save a litle girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.

Since I picked up the book from the self-enrichment section of Kinokuniya, I guess I shall list out the ways that it has helped me. Or rather the lessons it is trying to teach.
1) People (even strangers) change the course of your life in drastic ways
2) There is much unhappiness born out of misunderstanding
3) Take pleasure in the sacrifices you make for others
4) Life is short

I quite enjoyed the book, and I would definitely recommend it. The lessons are not profound, but they are conveyed in a very touching manner. It has some elements of Chicken Soup For The Soul, Tuesdays with Morrie and Speaker for the Dead all rolled into one.

I suppose the book was especially meaningful to me because I often ponder the first point above. I am definitely in a very privileged position now and it would be folly to think I made it on my own. There are so many of my friends, teachers and mentors who have helped me to where I am today, as well as one particular acquaintance (I could hardly even call him a friend) that shaped my life's path at crucial junctures not once, but twice. And he doesn't even know it; but I always remember, and someday I will thank him.

I was also reminded starkly of the brevity and fragility of life today when a tree almost fell on me. No wind, no rain; just the sudden rustle of leaves and the screaming of wood. It's amazing I heard anything at all, seeing as I was in the car with the music on and I was on the phone. I looked up and saw a wall of green bearing down on me, so I braked.

It was a really close shave. By close, I mean some of the peripheral branches actually took some paint off my bumper. My mind was a blank (certainly not flashing before my eyes) as the foliage came crashing down in slow motion, showering me with leaves and bits of bark. It was not really a tree, just a big branch; but it was a big branch that obstructed both lanes. A metre forward and I'd probably have lost my engine. Another metre and I might not be here blogging..

"It is because the human spirit know, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.

"You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people dies instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a moment after you are gone, or a plane crashes that you might have been on. When a colleague falls ill and you do not. We thing such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.

As a good civic-minded citizen, once I was out of harm's way I decided I should report the matter to the relavent authorities since the branch was blocking the entire road. I don't really know who to call, so I called 999 - and after a few rings they hung me up. I've never called 999 before, but if I ever have to again, I guess this has somewhat dented my confidence in our mah dahs. I'm just glad I wasn't being mugged or robbed.

I actually went back to the scene to take pictures but through supreme clumsiness I managed to lose them. So I guess this entry will henceforth serve as my only record of a very memorable non-event.

I still remember another time 8 years ago in the Mandai forest when a big thorny branch also hit me on the head. Thankfully again, no injury. But if my life ever comes to a sudden end, I infer by linear regression that it will probably be a tree or a grand piano and not a bullet.

The book was getting me thinking about what meaningful things I would like to accomplish with the rest of my life. The tree kind of drove the point home.