A Drama Called Life

Do you ever feel like our lives are often lived on either end of two extremes and seldom in between?

Some days, everything in life seems to flow your way. Things drop on your lap out of nowhere without you ever having to ask for it. Everything you think you want to happen just happens.  Like finding parking right next to the lift in Midvalley on a Sunday afternoon. Like going through nothing but green lights when you’re late for work; like planning a perfect day out and for it to turn out exactly the way it planned or better. Days that feel like what Paulo Coelho says in his books – that the universe will conspire to help you achieve your destiny. As if some giant wave is motion and it’s you riding on top it. You’re unstoppable.

Then, other days everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong, and will all go wrong all at once. It’s called Murphy’s law a.k.a Shit Happens. You get a punctured tyre in the middle of a lonely highway on a rainy day, your phone battery is dead, your spare tyre is also flat, you don’t have any money and all you’re trying to do is get home in time for dinner.  It’s as if the universe is taunting you, challenging you to see how far you’re willing to go, how much you really want it, daring you to just admit defeat.

Ever had days like that?

When you’ve experienced life on both ends of the extremes often enough, we all eventually start getting this feeling that life is a lot like this thousand episode Korean Drama that just seems to have some crazy thing going on every episode. This week your long lost third brother from another mother shows up at your doorstep with a baby in his hand. Next week, your long-time girlfriend leaves you for some Pakistani Shah Rukh Khan look alike. This time, you find yourself smack in the middle of a tussle in office with someone trying to politically assassinate you, next time you find yourself falling absolutely head over heels in love with the woman of your dreams but she’s married to your sworn enemy. OK, maybe not quite THAT dramatic but still……….. I do believe that at some point or another, we do feel like our lives are so filled with drama that someone should seriously write a book out of it or some sort of feature film. And in many aspects, that thought is not unjustified. Life IS stranger than fiction. Art imitates life, NOT the other way round.

But for all the ‘drama-rama’ that seems to make life what it is, there are also plenty moments in life that are more of an anti-climax.

Think about the last time you ever saw someone special to you, or when you were leaving from somewhere….was there some super lengthy meaningful farewell at the airport? Was there some dramatic confession the night before? Was there some floodgate of emotions bursting forward? Someone gave an inspiring speech? Did someone chase after you waiving farewell with tears in their eyes as the train you’re on starts to depart?  Chances are, there weren’t any right? For all the high drama that goes on one end, many other defining moments in our lives happen in not so glamorous ways. The last day of your student life, the last time someone broke your heart, the last time you said goodbye, the moment you figure out what to do with your life, the moment a life changing revelation came to you. In short - the last time a chapter in your life came to a close and a new one began….. They happen in such low key and unspectacular ways that you end up asking yourself “Was that it….? Is this how it all ends…..?  Just like that….? I thought there’d be…..…. MORE.”

And that’s the funny part about life sometimes, the dramatic parts happen at the least expected of moments and the moments that you think is going to be super dramatic just turn out to be so uneventful. You never know when drama’s going to hit you and when you’re just required to just grit your teeth, shut the hell up and get on with life without making such hoo-ha.

Maybe that’s why it’s is so unpredictable sometimes. And by unpredictable I really mean challenging. And by challenging I really mean interesting. And by interesting I really mean remarkable.

Because in this end, despite it all, that’s what life is to me – remarkable.