I recently had the worst day of my life, yet. Contrary to my expectations, it didn't take a massively horrible event to ruin my day. If life is all about the small things, a bad day, which is an incident of life, is also all about small things.
On a Tuesday morning, I woke up feeling heavy, exhausted, weak and confused. It was one of those days when I had to use sheer will power to form a simple and coherent thought. After performing the arduous daily ritual of bathing, dressing and eating breakfast, I stepped out of my building to wait for a jeepney. For ten minutes, I stared at the four-lane road and watched a few private vehicles as they passed me by. It seemed like all the jeepney drivers decided to take a day-off.
I had only thirty minutes left to get to the office, which is in another city. I decided to take a taxi. I was confident that I would get there in time because the road was wide open. As I sped towards my destination, all the missing jeepneys appeared one by one. They began to overtake the taxi I was riding and clogged the areas near the traffic lights. The taxi driver tried to beat all the red lights but the traffic conspired not to let me arrive at the office on time. Vehicles would suddenly materialize from all the sidestreets imaginable and swamp all the lanes before us whenever we were at the brink of making it before the lights changed.
After shelling out 87.50 pesos and nearly bursting a vein from all the strain of controlling my road rage, I was a minute late. It meant a deduction of a few measly centavos, which was largely disproportionate to my taxi fare.
I was in the midst of ranting to my officemates about the traffic situation when I was called to a meeting. It was bad news. Upon hearing it, I smiled and clutched the corners of my seat. It was the only way I could restrain myself from laughing hysterically and screaming "Things just couldn't get any better!". I felt like I was a character in a very bad sitcom.
When I got back to my cubicle, I felt numb. As I stared at my computer, I contemplated on the Sisyphian nature of life. All effort is futile. All of us are flies sinking in the porridge of meaninglessness and pointlessness. Human life and human achievement are transient.
Christabel, attempted to cheer me up by telling me that the universe could have been trying to protect me from a fatal vehicular accident by causing me to be late for work. Christabel is a Libran and therefore sees the glass as half-full.
After work, I attended one of the bi-monthly meetings of my club and basked in the presence of positive and successful people. I was reminded that there are still good things out there and they make life worth living. If small bad things ruin a day, small good things can fix it.
I ended my day by going to the wake of a person who was murdered and had 19 stab wounds and a slit throat. Life can take sudden twists and turns and worrying too much is a waste of time since you can die at any second for the most stupid reasons. The universe runs on its own logic and rhythm and the fluctuations in our lives are the adjustments the universe makes to maintain balance.
