“What a mess! Go clean your room. Today is Chinese New Year’s Eve. If you stay messy today, you are gonna be messy for the whole next year!”
“Alright, mom.” I roll my eyes behind her.
Even though I thought I kept a tidy enough room, with my 25 years of experience dealing with her, I know that talking back is useless, so I start “cleaning up” my room unwillingly.
I start by throwing the dirty clothes off my bed, picking up books on the floor, then mopping the floor. Unexpectedly, the mop hit something hard under the corner of my bed.
This brought me a surprise.
Since I was a kid, I had a box to keep all of my junk and memories. But unfortunately, due to moving house a few years ago, this box was gone. I was sad at the time. However, I've just found it on the day of Chinese New Year Eve, deep under the corner of my bed, full of dust and a little rusty.
Cleaning off the dust, I searched in the box. Inside it, all of my junk piled up like a historical layer of garbage because I often would randomly throw things in it. Thus, the most “recent” junk was gathered on top, most of which were related to my adolescence. Out of all things on the upper layer, the one thing that had the strongest memories tied to it was the pile of outdated lottery tickets.
I still remember that when I was 20, I dreamt of winning the lottery.
I was frustrated, scared, and exhausted in my early 20s because of many challenges I went through. After failing my public exams, failing my relationships, failing in almost everything, I was like an old man that just wanted to live an easy life.
The fun fact about humanity is that humans are the only species who use money every day. Once you have plenty of money and you can buy almost anything, life will be easy. The piles of outdated lottery tickets was evidence that I tried hard to live life the easy way by earning money the easiest way.
Looking at those tickets, I think I am achieving the goals I had in my 20s.
Now at my 25, I am working as a property officer: a boring job with a decent salary. Every day, I would encounter 3 of the same problems from different residents.
“There is water seepage from the upper floor.”
“I can’t afford the management fee.”
“I am moving in/out.”
And I always have the same response.
“We will send someone to fix it.”
“Turn the left corner to Social Welfare Department.”
“Sign these papers.”
Besides the banality, property officers have a decent career path. Most of my coworkers have worked in this field for 10 years, yet haven't had a single promotion. To be honest, this is a really easy job, and certainly well-paid.
However, I can barely say that I am happy.
Putting that thought aside, I kept searching through the box. In the middle layer, I found some love letters which reminded me of my first date.
When I was around 15, I dreamt of having a relationship because things started were getting complicated for me at that time.
I remember when I got into secondary school, studying became much harder, and I couldn’t stay at the top of my class anymore. Meanwhile, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't be compared to all my intelligent classmates. Slowly, I was afraid to challenge myself and made excuses for failing because I did not try, even though I was not incapable.
And to deal with the challenges in my life, I wanted someone to stay with me. Therefore, I had dreamt of having a relationship.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I met someone at the age of 18. But my love story turned from Jason Mraz - “Lucky” to Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”. Just like what Ed Sheeran said in “Photographs”, “loving can heal” but “loving can hurt”. And I was deeply hurt.
After my first love, I understood love was also too hard for me, and I would rather just stay single. I wanted everything to remain as simple as it could.
I didn't want to go through the letters, so I put them aside and keep searching. At the bottom of the box lay a diary of my young self, a rocket toy and some science books related to the universe.
I look at the rocket, it was a really old and cheap plastic toy, but my child self really treasured it and saw it as precious. Because when I was a kid, I dreamt of being an astronaut.
I took the rocket out and played with it a while like I was a child. Then, I opened up the diary.
“Isn’t it fascinating? I am so happy there will be outer space above the sky! And no one knows what it is! It is like an adventure, and only the astronaut will be capable of searching for it. No matter how hard it is, I am gonna be an astronaut.”
Reading up the diary, I am surprised that the younger me is different from the current me. He is happy and willing to challenge, unlike the current me.
“Hey! I told you to clean up your room, not make a mess!”
Seeing me putting all the stuff out of the junk box instead of cleaning up, my mother was angry. Thus, I stopped thinking about it and to continued to clean my room.
After the cleaning, I wandered around, confused about the difference between the younger me and current me.
A bunch of children were yelling at the park.
“I am going to catch you all!”
Suddenly, a kid fell, and others laughed at him.
“Ah, Hahahaha!”
“Ouch. Ha! That’s nothing. I am going catch you guys!”
The kid stood up and started playing with his friends again.
Seeing the children playing happily gave me an idea.
We are moving so far away from our youth, that we almost forget how happiness was so easy when we were young. Maybe because we were not afraid of getting hurt or challenged when we were younger, we would simply stand up and try again if we failed. And once we conquer the challenge, happiness follows.
Maybe life is not all about being easy. Maybe it’s time for me to make a change.