If Only for One.

Must.Get.Better.
It sucks to be sick. To have a medical condition that requires maintenance medication, doctor's visits and possibly blood tests more often than you're happy with. I'm not even talking about the 'need to be hospitalized' kind of sick, that would suck even more.  I mean the financially draining utterly frustrating kind of sick that means you take medication regularly or you die. Or if not, you end up in the hospital and incur an even greater financial blow.
Unless you have money stashed away in some bank account in Switzerland, have access to an unlimited amount of cash or gold, get funding from God or some higher power - even then - there seems to be better use for money other than doctor fees and medicine expenses. Oh. I forget, that's why parents like it when their children want to be doctors, for a "bright and assured" future of never having to worry about money. I'm not anti-doctor, in fact, my life expectancy has been given an extension courtesy of modern medicine and skilled doctors. The blood tests show that - despite all the medication I've had to take, my kidneys and liver are A-OK. But still. It sucks. Seems cheaper to be dead. Plus, you don't even need to pay taxes when you're dead. Sigh.
So. What's the point in all this? There are governments that are rife with corruption, leaders who misplace, mismanage and pocket funds that are meant to make people's lives better, people who are falsely charged, detained, spirited away and missing, taken away from their wondering and worried families, people who - trusted public officials enough to place them in positions of power - and there are those who have nothing. Nothing. No home, no livelihood, no family, no friends. Not much of a life.
What is the point?
If getting up in the morning is so difficult, think of the person who doesn't even have arms to push themselves up off the bed, or legs to walk to the bathroom. There are many reasons to be grateful about not being dead, although there are days when I am hard pressed to come up with one. This might just be one of them.  
But let me stop for a moment and remember some things. Just because you think your being on this earth doesn't matter, you never know that there is someone out there who'd rather have your life than the one they currently have. Someone who possibly looks up to you and wishes that someday, they can be close to being somewhat like you (this, provided you aren't a drug-lord, smuggler or a swindler). If the way you live your life becomes a good example for living well, then you have every right to walk with your head held high because it's hard to be a good person in a world that has seemingly lost its wits. So much easier to be angry, rather than to remain calm in the face of aggression; so much easier to give up and say - damn this all, I QUIT! It's more of a challenge to get up and face each day as it comes, with all the chores and demands that one's life brings with it.  It could be pain, it could be meetings to no end, it could be dealing with people you'd rather not be dealing with - it could be attempting what seems impossible within the limited time you have been given to accomplish something. Challenging. I am not the competitive sort, plus I hate to lose (then again, very few people actually enjoy that) so I can be accused of a certain Laodecian attitude. I do, however, due to a glitch in my personality, have it in me to get really worked up about certain issues - while I stay aggravatingly silent on others. I have my opinions, many I keep to myself, but certainly not all of them. I talk faster than my brain can process things sometimes, so my mouth gets me in trouble more than I care to remember. Must.Learn.To.Shut.Up.
But hey! this is a blog - so, it would be pointless if I didn't write anything, n'est ce pas?  
I remember having a chat with a very good friend of mine, many years back - who was not feeling like she was the best place in her life - and I recall reminding her - that she might not have any idea that there might be someone out there, some kid who knows of her, looks up to her and aims to follow her footsteps someday. If only for that one kid, then doing what she does should be worth it. She need not know for a fact about this kid, but the possibility of it is always there - especially if you are a relatively public figure.
Now, for the rest of us - there could be someone who knows of you, or even someone who actually knows you personally, that looks up to you - and you don't know it. Live in a way that sets a positive example whenever you can.
Who knows if just the sight of you is enough to brighten up someone's day?
A smile can make a world of difference, even if it is given to someone you don't know. So give them out - smile with your eyes, from your heart, because you mean it. Strangers are just new friends whose names you don't know. Just don't smile at new friends in dark alleyways, because that's just creepy and possibly dangerous, okay? =)

Mural @ Sunway Medical Center, photo by Mark Montalban 

If by being alive, you have the opportunity to touch a life, make a difference, no matter how small, in the life of at least one person - then maybe, just maybe, it will be worth it. ツ