A new kind of Monday

Today is my “Monday” at work since I was away attending training for the last 3 days. Stepping into office today, I felt my usual Monday blues, except I tell myself it’s only 2 days to the weekend. There are lots to catch up for the “lost” 3 days and more to catch on for next week when I’ll be away, freezing my butt off in Beijing.

As soon as I got in, I was quickly updated on what went on for the week and immediately got into gear to dive into work. As usual, there are the Urgent and Very Urgent matters at hand, but nothing that is Not Urgent. Anyway, the one aspect of my job that I like is that I get to talk with many people from different divisions because I need to deal with them regularly. I would feel rather bored if I had to stay within the boundaries of my own department and division.

So today I welcomed the break of roaming 2 whole floors to see everybody that I needed to visit to sign off my papers. It’s surprising how refreshing it can be for an otherwise dull and routine day behind the desk.

During one of my “stop-over”, another colleague waved me over to his work station where I spent a good 10 minutes chit-chatting. In the course of our conversation, he said in life we all need to be driven by something. If we don’t have a target to push ourselves towards, then life is boring.

He told me a story of himself as a fresh graduate and working the hard way to learn to become where he is now. And then he said to me, why not give myself an additional push to look forward to by doing something I cannot do. I sat back, thought about it, and decided I don’t need a push right now. I have many pull and push factors currently driving my life. Additional pushes may just throw me over the cliff. I told him frankly that now is not the right time for me. I believe everything has its own time and I’m already having a fair bit to deal with now.

The conversation ended with him asking me to think it through very seriously. What I was hoping to be carefree chats suddenly ended on a serious, future seeking matter instead. The famous phrase from Forrest Gump is quite apt here, "Life is like a box of chocolate. You'll never know what you're gonna get".

It’s another hour or so before I endure the traffic home. No hope for an easy drive home. But what I do look forward to is to have a cat snuggle up beside me, kneading me with her paws while I watch Alias tonight.