As I look out over the stunning city view of Boat Quay and the Singapore river, the Fullerton Hotel and the latest developments of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resorts Hotel from my office in Singapore, it's hard to believe that I have the other tropical, jungle like 'Green Life' in Bali. During my month long stay in urbanisation, I breathe a sigh of relief while residing on the 10th floor of a hermetically sealed, air conditioned office which is bug, reptile and vermin free. I don't have to deal with snakes, rats, mice, frogs, termites, pre-historic looking insects whose trajectory just happens to coincide with mine, nor the latest outbreak of moths come to devour our clothes. Fed up with the sight of all my daughters wearing grungy tee-shirts with holes like emmental cheese, I've swapped them for brand new tee-shirts that for now will stay fresh looking in Singapore and yet will eventually take on a grey, off-white appearance when they return to their rural existence in Bali. 
I'm loving this sense of urbanised security where I know that we'll all scrub up clean, I won't be surprised by unfamiliar tropical creatures, power cuts or intermittent internet where the signal comes and goes as if it's dependent on the wind (which it most probably is). When I have moments of comfort and pleasure like this, I wonder what possessed us to move to Bali in the first place, and yet I know it has been one of the best learning experiences we have ever had. After 9 years of living in in Singapore, I became very comfortable with my lifestyle, so much so that I took its efficiency for granted. The antithesis of Singapore, Bali has given me the new found expereince of taking nothing for granted, dealing with the unexpected and being flexible when things don't go according to plan. Bali has taught me that you never stop learning. We are all still 'green' and there is always new knowledge and wisdom to discover. It's often when things go wrong or not as you had planned, when you learn the most.
Continuing the theme of new knowledge, our Indonesian team assistant gave me a wonderful Christmas gift. She gave me a wooden sculpture, hand made by the gifted, local Balinese craftsmen. The sculpture was of Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge and Arts. What a perfect gift. My assistant knows my voracious appetite for reading topics on personal development, knowledge and wisdom. She puts up with my moaning, sighing and somewhat impatient incredulity when peculiar things happen such as the vanishing snake catcher, who six weeks after the first sighting of a snake has still not turned up at our home, versus a 10 minute wait for 6 men in a van when a 12 inch, harmless snake was first spotted in our garden in Singapore! Perhaps the snake catcher has had an unfortunate accident in the course of his work. There's also the peculiar situation where our internet provider can not understand why for the last couple of months our connection comes and goes and we have to go slow for 20 or 30 minutes in our working day, while we wait for the connection to come back to us again. Will we ever get to the bottom of this? I do not know. Maybe a miracle will happen. Our assistant stays remarkably calm and it's as if she knows that I will eventually learn from all these happenings.Saraswati has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning:-
- Mind
- Intellect
- Alertness
- Ego
Adding to Shakespeare's words 'Let music [and knowledge] be the food of love'. We are never too old to stop learning. No matter what happens to you, whether good or not so good, accept the flow of wisdom and knowledge you gain and continue to grow as a person.
As my eldest daughter's (currently clean) tee shirt says:-
"Don't let today's disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow's dreams."
Merry Christmas and have a NoLimits 2011!
Janet
0 Comments:
Post a Comment