Another wonderful Xmas and New Year holidays spent in Shanghai visiting my dear friends and also a visit to Taipei for the New Year count down. I had the chance to go to my father’s grave site and paid my respect for I have not been there since 2004. The grave site needed a major clean up and some serious repairing work and I was able to make the necessary arrangements and took care of everything needed to be done. I felt good about it and it was a ” mission accomplished” event.

I must say I have been very fortunate in these past 25 years making a good living and be able to travel the world visiting friends. I sure treasure all those magical moments sharing laughs and having deep conversations at times with my friends. I have nothing to complain about and definitely no regrets in whatever I have chosen to do with my life. I made lots of bad decisions in the past but I value those painful lessons which without it, I would have never made it to this day. I am very thankful for the kind of life that I have and I am living lt to the fullest every day. Come to think of it, the kind of life I have today is like a miracle considering how miserable I was in the very beginning at a young age. This seemingly long lonely journey I sailed, struggled to survive filled with hopelessness have finally paid off. I never thought I could ever make it in this world, but this nightmare has ended a long time ago. ( No more cloudy days). I must admit I do have flashback at times when those miserable moments came back to haunt me, but these days I have learned how to block them out in a way so that they don’t bother me as much anymore. I cannot change what’s in the past and I do not dwell on it any longer. I cannot worry too much about the future either for life is unpredictable. Life is short and I treasure the very present moment for it is real. I am living life and living at the moment before it becomes the past. Time is precious and it awaits nobody. We all live to die ( inevitable), but not too many people who died have really lived. So where do I go from here? What are my New Year resolutions?

As occupied as I am trying to keep up with the daily demands and responsibilities from the society, I rarely find time to greet people. I often rush from here to there attempting to accomplish as much as I possibly could and I get extremely irritated when being interrupted. What I need is to slow down a little while trying to take the time to listen, understand and be more connected  with others.” Hey David, why take things so seriously?” Life is short and I need to chill, relax and smell the roses along the way. These days I am traveling quite extravagantly visiting good friends without any other agendas in mind other than be with them, sharing my thoughts and ideas while enjoying those magical moments spent together. We need to leave fond memories for others to remember us by when we are gone and that is the best thing we can do. Life is unpredictable and I do not want to regret and miss the opportunities to do the things that I want today before it becomes yesterday. Tomorrow may not come around for me. Life is precious!

Here I wish all my friends a wonderful and a happy New Year ahead. May all of your wishes come true and that we have further opportunities to continue sharing our fiestas together along with all the laughs and tears just like what we have done in the distant past and I believe it’ll get even better. Just remember, life is short, unpredictable and precious. In the eyes of this vast universe, life seems to have no purpose, but we need to create our own purposes in life to make it worth living and we only live once. I hope my New Year resolutions will inspire you to create meaningful purposes within your life and that you live it to the fullest every day before time runs out. Ah, now I can hear the sound coming from what is hanging on the wall, the clock is ticking!!!