On The Train, Oct 31, 2006

I decided to continue reading iWoz, sort of a biography of Steve Wozniak the co-founder of Apple, when I boarded the train home. I was really into it and reading earnestly until I forced myself to write this. It was not something important that I had to write but is just that I need to write something. I looked up and two gentlemen seating in front of me were staring at me. I guessed they were wondering what I was typing and judging from the body language they knew somewhat that I was blogging the ride home. The train was a bit packed today and the composition skewed towards 20 something with tired and boring looking faces. Some of course had their head down sleeping.I was reading Dave’s blog this morning and he mentioned Led Zeppelin’s Stairways To Heaven that I happened to have in my laptop so I just popped it on to amuse myself.

Have you seen a worried sleeping face before? I witnessed one on the train today. This Chinese lady sitting in front of me on my right had her eyes closed trying very hard to go to sleep it seemed. However, her face was showing someone that has the biggest problem in the world and was worried sick of it. I thought if she was like that in her sleep I could not imagine when she is awake. The worried face eventually disembarked at Kajang and for her sake I was glad. I was beginning to worry that her face would change the whole complexion of the train. It was so sour and cringed that I though she would squeeze the train dry. Well that’s life; every single individual in the train has a very interesting story to them. Some has just had the worst day of their life and some conversely been the best and some may have been unchallenged and were bored to death at whatever they were doing for the day. But looking at the faces they were mostly pretty tired and not happy. Is this what work has been doing to all or us? I do not know really but what I know is looking at how fast things are moving, or should I say flying, we are actually putting ourselves under a lot of pressure all the time. The sad part is I am looking at these sour and unhappy faces just after three days of Eid holidays. I think we have two options:

1. To learn how to make our work enjoyable and meaningful, or
2. To learn how to divorce ourselves from work and thinking about work once the clock strike 5pm

The most important thing of all we have to be fair to our family who expects us to come home smiling to have quality time