Insights into a Bimbo's Mind

My Bag of Coins

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Forrest Gump says, “Life is like a box of chocolates”. My version is, “Life is a bag of coins”. Well, equating life to a bag of gold coins really has nothing to do with me being Chinese and honestly I don’t even remember how and when this idea came about but I know that I’ve believed in this idea for as long as I can remember. I believe that we are all given a bag of coins from the day we are born.

Every time we have something good happen in our lives, we’re purchasing it with a coin from our bag. So if life was great in every area when we were young, it means that we’ve used a lot of our coins to purchase a wonderful childhood, and therefore might not have enough when we grow older. This goes to explain why some of the friends we use to envy when we were young, grow older to have less ideal lives, making us thank our lucky stars after all that we are not them. My bag of coins theory also explains why some people who have gone through a very bad childhood, goes on to have a better and better life as they grow older, because they were skimping on their coins during their childhood, and only started to use them as they grow older. For those whom you think life has been perfect for them since forever, if you look closer, you will always find a lacking area. They’re merely saving on one area to purchase for another.

Then let’s look at my very own bag of coins. I must have spent a lot of them on my childhood though I’m not completely sure if the happiness that constantly surrounds my home was purchased by my own or my parent’s bag of coins. According to my dad when he was young, he use to ride a bicycle for 15 miles everyday just to get to school. After school, he spends 5 hours cutting grass in the fields to earn his own pocket money. At night, he shares a very humble meal with 7 of his other siblings and back in those days, having meat on the table was a real novelty. And every night, the last hours of his day are always spent studying diligently under candlelight. Well ok, my dad's stories sounds suspiciously a lot like the stories we see on Indian dramas and might have been exaggerated or fabricated to motivate us kids to study hard but i do know that his life during childhood wasn't a bed or roses either. So, let's just settle with 5 miles and maybe 3 hours of cutting grass, ok? But still, compared to people in our generation, cutting grass after work? That's insane. After school, we went for piano class followed by a 2 hour beauty sleep. Therefore, I have a feeling that for the last 30 years at least, my family might have been riding on the bag of coins my dad have been saving up throughout his childhood, depending on how much he exaggerated.

Then comes my love life. Aaah.. that is one area I have no doubts. I’ve definitely been skimping them damn coins in this area because up till Narrrling, I must have never used a single one of them on my love life. Now thinking back, maybe for everytime I get shouted at in public by the asshole I was with for 4 years, I have somehow secretly earned 1 bonus gold coin and for everytime the asshole tells me I am stupid and fat, I earn 2 bonus gold coins and not forgetting the time he left the shopping complex without me because I was in a long queue, the time he left the restaurant without me because I ate too slowly, the time he shouted at me in front of his friends because I spilled sauce on the carpet and all the other mental and emotional torture.... All those coins I’ve saved up makes me doubly appreciate the Narrrling I have now who is constantly gentle and patient because those were surely hard-earned coins. And sometimes when I see Narrrling now, I almost feel like the 4 years of emotional torture I had to go through previously was worth it.

My bag of coins. I constantly wonder if my bag of coins is running out or refilling fast. At certain times when things happen, at the back of my mind, I can hear that jingling sound of coins that reminds me that if I’m not careful, it’ll run out. My bag of coin reminds me to live life moderately and that if something bad happens to me today, it means I’ve saved up something good for tomorrow and if I die without using them all, my children will inherit them someday.

And how about you? How have you been spending your bag of coins?

posted by Miki-C @ 1:38 PM