SPACE

I used to like to be surrounded by friends. Don’t know since when I have become a ‘loner’ who appreciates a lot of personal space. Even though I still often hang out with friends, to chat, to share stories and laugh, but in the end of the day, I need time to be alone.

Crowded place often stressed me up. Especially places with no trees and plants, i.e. away from the nature. Everytime I visited places like K.L. or Singapore, after shopping or queuing up at the supermarket, boutique’s counters or the taxi stands, I often felt quite exhausted. My energy level went low, my body felt dry, my mind went slow and if I stayed at the place for more than a week, I’ll feel stress up and start to miss home. Same as when I was visiting my parents at the hometown, inevitably there will be lots of interactions day in day out, which left me with very little time to be alone, except for the bed time. Worse is when everyone is seeking for attention, or when they started to argue and seek for other’s support etc. I actually felt like running away. That’s why I only went back hometown once in a few months and often stayed for only few days long.

I think it’s important that we all have enough space for ourselves. In fact the more space we have, the more comfortable we are. Last year I visited Pig Pig’s house in Hong Kong. It’s really amazing to see a place of less than 800 sq. ft., can fit in so many people. There were more than 10 people in a small living + dining place at dinner time. I learnt one very important thing, i.e. in order to maintain peace among a bunch of people in a limited space, everyone needs to learn to have good tolerance, to wait for their turn to talk and to respect others. It’s in fact a good training ground for self discipline and self control. It would be a disaster to have a self centered or temperamental person among the group, peace can easily be destroyed. Therefore I salute Pig Pig’s family for being so nice, warm and loving.

Pig Pig is now back to Hong Kong for holiday. I’m home alone with all the space to myself and I noticed the difference. I started to have lots of time to think and to do my own stuff, such as blogging, watering my plants, cleaning up my house etc. Well, I kind of like it though. Guess I’m getting old…