One hundred

Today I've reached a new milestone. This is my 100th post. I know, to many people this is not something new, because everyone of them passes this moment at one point. To me, it's something I did not expect to see until a few days ago when the number crept up to the nineties. So it's a happy occasion and I hope to see the next 100.

Anyway, to continue on the last post, the thing about us adults is as we grow older, we lost capability to look at the same things anew every time. We are no longer, for the lack of better word, fresh. I remember a long time ago we were electing a new president for a club, and the person who got elected delivered a speech saying she can bring a new, fresh perspective on how to run the club. It's the same in the corporate world, a new person is seen as being able to bring new changes, to come up with different and presumably, better ways of doing things. And I suppose it's the same with us adults. Children ask the most surprising questions, and reply us with the most honest and creative answers. They are fun to be around, because we are attracted to their freshness. We like to be delighted by their innovativeness, straightforwardness, and their bright-eyed curiosity of the world because we no longer have those qualities.

Now new people on a job may be fresh, but like fruits and vegetables, freshness doesn't last long. In most aspects of life, be it friendships, marriages, careers, people eventually settle and form a habit. It's so very easy to get trapped into assuming we have figured out all our environment and there's nothing left to be explored. It's a tough challenge to look at your friends and think to yourself that perhaps what you have formed in your mind, the "idea" of this particular friend, may not be true at all. That's why people find it easy to open up to complete stranger and talk about their darkest secrets, aspects of their lives that their closest friends or family don't know about. Our friends and family have made up an "idea" of us just like we have made of them and we do not want to jeopardize those "ideas" of us we project consciously or unconsciously.

The same extends to our family and career. I suppose we will never "get" something as a whole. Our assumption of ourselves and our environment makes us resistant to changes and prone to denials. There will always be gaps left unexplored, rooms we overlook. If you look at things differently each time, sometimes the result might disappoint you, sometimes it might delight you, and a lot of times it might surprise you. It's tough, yet I couldn't help but wonder, what if we do that? Would it be tiring? Yes. Would it be overwhelming? Probably. Would it generate more questions? Most definitely. Would it be fun? Let's find out. The kids don't seem to have a problem having fun with it.