Well I have been trying very hard to be the new me. I even came up with a nice acronym to better label my quest. The acronym is SNUGGLE and it stands for: Sims, new, universal, good, given, lovingly, everyday. So what this is about is the fact that everyone right now is feeling horrible, broke, and in a state of despair. We all need to give good feelings and give smiles and try hard not to get down or give a lot of our anger and frustration out to the world. Let's face it, when we glower at others it is a glower we are going to get back. Let's try to smile. Let's try to offer a kind word. Let's try to SNUGGLE our way through this global depression.
So day one of my quest went something like this. Bad luck for me. I have long feared that if I ever lowered my guard to the teeming masses around me that bad things would happen and sure enough, they did.
It began when I heard some people outside my front door. In front of our gate we had put our trash can out for the garbage collection. I have some plants close to there and so when people look through my trash I usually water the garden with my supersoaker and if a few sprays of water go errantly onto the people looking through my trash well I say "get away from my rubbish", but today I did not get out the water gun. I walked out to see who was out there.
A young girl of about 5 began to shout, "the farang (foreign devil) is coming grandmother run." She might have been sprayed before I can't be sure. "No," I said, "what are you looking for?" She held up a cardboard box. I knew this was my chance to do something nice. I ran inside and dumped out all of my wife's things, anything that was in a box and took the boxes out to the bewildered old woman. She nodded and smiled and I felt very good.
Later I was driving to badminton practice and saw the little girl and her grandmother going through the trash of one of my neighbors. I rushed to the V-SHOP and purchased 2 cokes because it was boiling hot out and I knew they would need something to drink. I took them the cokes and was thanked. The old lady then dumped out the coke, crushed the cans, and put them in her recycle cart. But okay, she seemed happy with my donation.
So now, as the Thai folks would say, I had offered some nice boons to the universe and it would seem that I should have a better day or perhaps some good luck. Nothing could be further from the truth.
At badminton I purchased 1 water and and a tea to quench my thirst after working out in 95% heat. I had a racket bag, my gym bag, and was trying to make change for the drinks. My hands were full, so I payed and then gathered my things and walked out to my truck. After I had pulled away and was nearly dead from thirst, I reached into my bag to find nothing to drink. I had left the drinks on the counter and the Thai workers, being too shy to say anything to me, had watched me walk out without saying a word.
It got worse. Monday I caught my first head cold of the year. I take about 2 sick days a year, and usually these are sick days where I need to get something done and just can't make it in, but by Tuesday I was so sick I couldn't breath. I missed work, and stayed home to rest. But it gets worse. It is currently HOT in Bangkok. I decided to recover in my movie room. Where better than this? But when I turned on the air-conditioner I heard a whirling sound and then a BANG. The motor had blown.
I guess the moral of the story is this, no good deed will go unpunished. If you want to snuggle those around you, don't do it with hopes of something good happening for you because it won't. Do it because you want to help others, because actually since I started this things have gone horribly. I am still sticking with it. I've got to try.