Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Curtains—2014

Turkeys, as we all know, are experiencing a lot of stress at this time of the year. They probably haven't had a good night sleep over the last couple of weeks. If only animals could plan ahead, they would have gone on a strict diet since at least 6 weeks ago. But alas, if animals could plan, this world would be a very different place. Heck, it seems to me that many humans have no clue whatsoever about the concept of planning for the future anyway!

I was at a shopping mall around noon today for a last minute bold adventure to buy presents for Mia and JJ, and I had quite a revelation. Over the past few months, too many people have been complaining that prices of goods are escalating fairly quickly. Each day, one can see many, many people grumbling, typically through facebook, about the present government. If there is anything in the least that is bad, it must be because of the present government. Even if it rains heavily and some places become flooded, that too must have been because of the government!

The people are suffering the high cost of living; they are barely making ends meet. And soon, GST will come into force. Which means even more expenditure. Banks are tightening up, and it will be harder to borrow money. Hard times are coming.

But today at the mall I can testify that there was no sign of poverty and suffering. Everybody seemed to have plenty of money to spend! Major shopping centres are offering huge discounts for the festive season. By the way, "huge discounts" actually means prices of goods have come down from "exorbitant" to "expensive". Surely you did not expect it to reach the "cheap" level, did you? When the price of an ordinary office shirt is over RM100 after a 50% discount, you know that things are not looking very bright for the near future.

So here we are, at the final week of 2014. It's amazing how fast all those months have zoomed past, and we are once again all excited to cross over to a new year. I bet many of you have come up with the New Year's Resolutions; others might be in the midst of composing one right now. Well, I don't have any new year's resolutions—if I want to get something done, I just embark on it and try to get it over with as soon as possible. There is really no need to wait till a new year for things to happen. After all, in the vast majority of cases, resolutions such as "wanting to lose 20lbs"; or wanting to "exercise 4 days a week"; or "wanting to quit smoking", to name a few, are just for the first few weeks of the year. I shall not have any of those!

Anyway, to my loyal readers, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. As I said earlier, things are not looking very good for 2015, but please don't get all stressed out like the turkeys. What's life without challenges, right?


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