Thought of The Day

There I was, trying to catch up with my breath sitting on the bench panting. My T-shirt was being given a pre-soak with salt water before laundry. There's really no feeling more alive than oozing out sweat like the faucets are broken in a hot Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon is one of my favourite times of the week, playing games of badminton with a group of friends. But it's also times like these that I realise I'm middle-aged. But that's not the thought of the day. That thought announced its grand entrance a few years ago when I hurt my back lifting something I lifted with my little finger way back then.

With no regular exercises in the past, fifteen minutes of running and hitting the shuttlecock is all I can afford before passing out on the court.

So there I was, panting and celebrating the survival of another round of 'gruelling' game of badminton - of which running is to what the youngsters call strolling, and smashing is to what they call stroking - outside the hall. There were a few guys from another group chatting not far away from me. Some of them were drinking, and two of them were smoking (yeah, beats me too). But that's not the thought of the day.

Then a few of them stood up and walked towards the hall. It's a badminton hall, so all doors would be closed to prevent any draft into the hall. But some of them were left unlocked and unlatched to let the players in and out. The doors opened outwards and there were no handles on the outsides of the doors, probably to prevent unauthorised breaking in or whatever.

After the first few of them entered the hall using a slightly ajar door, they closed the door. A few minutes later, the last two followed. And before they reach the door, my fingers were feeling a bit tingly thinking how they would try to pry and pull open the doors with their hands. But that was me, definitely not the smartest guy in the world. No, that's not the thought of the day either.

As the guys approached the door, one of them raised his hand and, to my surprise, gave the door a slight push. The laws of physics are the laws of physics, they stick. As the door was pushed, it hit the frame and bounced back, leaving it slightly opened, and in they went.

There I was, panting still, hitting an imaginative slap on my sweaty forehead - "How clever!"

As in many other cases, little things in life can teach us a lot of other things about life. It would seem obvious that if we want something in life, we would think of all ways to pull them towards us. But sometimes, the most effective way is not the most obvious way, and it might need a little out-of-the-box thinking. From this observation, it would imply that sometimes, to pull something towards us, we need to first give it a little push, like ..., or as in ..., you know, in those situation where ... hmm ...

I'm very sure the above lesson can be applied in some real life situation, but my thinking train was a bit slow, especially when I was trying to chase back my breathes. As I said, not the smartest guy in the world. And that's also where my train of thoughts was derailed by the thought of the day. The one that gave the light bulb above my head a ten-thousands-watts glare -

"Hey, I have a subject for a post in this blog!"

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