Difficulties

Translated…

There was a classmate of ours that went to the States after he was done, serving his army terms, he had the right timing, and worked hard too, earned a sum of fortune, and he’d gotten to, retire early, and live the rest of his life in leisure.

After he retired, he’d started thinking about all of his friends in Taiwan, at first, he’d contacted some of his old acquaintances with e-mail. Sometimes, there would be, the families, gathering for a huge meal together, talked of how successful their children had become in life; sometimes, he’d e-mailed a picture of himself, playing golf with an American friend, and, bragged about how good his golf skills had become. And, because only one or two would reply to the e-mails that started with “Dear All”, he’d complained on it a bit, and, he’d consoled with everybody in his class, to retire early like he’d done, and said, that money is something you can’t take with you when you leave, that having enough would be fine, that having a dollar more doesn’t make you rich, and having a dollar less wouldn’t make you poor either.

people from all walks of life here…

Toward this, a member of the class stated it very well, these couple of years, the downturn in economy is hard-hitting, everybody is busying, making her/his own life meet, everybody has her/his separate sets of troubles, maybe, dealing with unemployment at midlife, crises in marriage, health problems, changes in the family; some were married later, and their children are still all in school, that they’d not even, dared thinking about retirement yet………this, is probably, the reason why, nobody DARED replied to his e-mail.

I’d recalled how as I was chosen as the head of the class in my freshman year, I’d often felt upset over how some of the classmates had, failed to show up to the class functions, but in one casual conversation, a classmate told me, that he’d not come to the functions, because he was, tutoring students, to make his own tuition. Back then, being young and naïve, I’d, come to understand, that everybody has her/his own, unspoken hardships in life.

sculptures on display, not my photo still…

Yeah, there’s something hard that’s, going on, in everybody’s life, from young to closing in on midlife, there are those, who’d not needed to worry about anything monetary, and some may still be, slaving in their separate nine-to-five’s. So, when someone didn’t return to your e-mails, or read the LINE messages but doesn’t respond, maybe, s/he is with her/his own difficulties, so, just share the news, and stop complaining.

So, this, gives us a closer look at how people have the tendencies of believing, that other people are having the exact same or similar lifestyle as oneself, which is, totally untrue, and, this just shows, that we may not know what’s going on in one another’s life exactly, so, we shouldn’t, jump to conclusions about how other people are faring better or worse than ourselves.