When I was 17 years old, life was so simple then. It was all about studying and having fun, not much of a pressure I guess except for examination times burning midnight candle and having palpitations so often when sitting in examinations. Not much of entertainment at that point in time, no facebook, no twitter, no internet, no computer, no hand phone, no sms and thus life was less complicated and more enjoyable if you really love nature because our entertainments were all about playing games, fishing and swimming at the river, jungle trekking and so on.
As my house was located just at the side of our paddy field, naturally it became the play ground for me and my younger brothers and no joke, you can have a lot of fun there, fish-catching during rainy season and playing football or flying kite after harvesting at dry period. We used to do a lot of high-jump practices at the paddy field using the bamboos as pole and bar and heap of paddy straws as pit. Believe me, there was hell lot of fun playing in a paddy field, it was actually better than theme parks. Very often, we went back home with an itchy body after sunset and whatever unhappiness during the day could have easily been forgotten after some enjoyable moments in the paddy field.
I don’t remember having much stress when I was a young boy but as I’ve said, it was a much simpler life at that time, as long as we have enough food to keep our stomach full or half full, some cloths to keep us warm, I don’t see why should a person complaining. Although I did envy my friends who were living in bigger houses and their fathers driving big cars while my father was riding a Honda cap selling fish and vegetable in the kampong but my parent gave us a safe shelter and enough food, and to be honest, that’s all we needed. Although there was no KFC or McDonalds, my grandma could fry a better chicken than KFC and until today, those long gone dishes prepared by my grandma who passed away years ago were still the best food that I’ve ever tasted. Even though now we can afford to go to expensive restaurants and eating abalone, shark fin, expensive seafood and etc, etc, but I doubt these expensive delicacies are tastier than those home cook prepared by the people that we loved.
And during my young days, I’ve never heard of any teenagers committing suicide. Never heard of young people jumping from a high building to kill themselves but maybe at that time there was no so many high rise building around. But come to think of it, life becomes more and more complicated as human being advances. For instance, facebook is a good invention to allow a better social communication but sadly, it can also become a tool to churn out domino effect, negative one especially.
Not too long ago, a guy committed suicide simply because of a failed relationship and he posted some disturbing comments on his facebook saying that he was going to kill himself and he did. A few days ago, another 17-year ago girl posted similar thing on her facebook and she jumped from a second floor at her school and died due to serious head injury reportedly also due to a failed relationship.
Wow…….when I was 17, the thing that I scared the most was to see a dentist or doctor, tooth extraction was a nightmare, and when I saw nurses holding a syringe for injection, my ball shrunk but nowadays, youngsters are so daring to jump from a high floor to kill themselves and I wonder if a person can have the gut to face death, why are they not having the courage to solve whatever challenges or obstacles, we only live once after all.
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