I am Small

It was past mid-afternoon. I finally finished up two long lists of requests that were left pending in my inbox since yesterday.

Phew.

Time for a break! My throat had already gotten quite dry by then. I decided to have a break and take a sip of water.

I made my way to the dry pantry, took out a styrofoam cup and half- stoned while waiting for the water cooler to fill my cup full.

Done.

I released my finger from the cooler button, held my cup carefully in my hand and was about to turn and head straight back to my seat.

But today, for one reason or another, I paused, and decided to stay here a while longer.

I walked towards the high window at the side of the pantry, and started to observe the view outside from 19 storeys high.

The sky was dark, it looked like it was gonna rain. But the scenery was just beautiful.
Though there were only man-made structures and roads, they formed a complete picture.
A picture that I had never stopped to appreciate until today.

Looking down, the outline of the curvy roads created an interesting pattern. It had never appeared to me in this way when I cross them everyday.

I saw a superbus turn at the junction. It looked as though it was made of paper. And the cars that were cruising smoothly along the roads, they looked like little toy cars.
From this distance, frankly speaking a proton or a BMW doesn’t make a difference anymore. They are just- cars. Moving ones that actually looked quite cute.

For a second, I felt like I was a tall giant. My legs seem to stretch all the way to the ground from where I was- 19th storeys high.
I was at the top, over all those miniature things at my feet, and there I was looking down at them.

Then right across was a tall building that was undergoing construction. I detected some small movements at the top of it, and realised they are construction workers.
Ghee. But they look really puney. They look just like the size of my finger!

So… that makes me a puney as well, isn’t it??
Okay, so I am not some tall giant that I had imagined myself to be. I am only THIS big.
………

(I recall the last time that I sat in a flight. I was peering out of the window and saw another plane a distance away. Probably ‘a distance’ then was equivalent to thousands of kilometres.

I stared at the plane real hard for almost 5 mins… I couldn’t believe how the almighty SIA plane that I always admire at the airport suddenly appeared like a toy flying model.
It is so tiny amidst the towering clouds. SO TINY, it doesn’t look real at all…

There I was, only one out of the hundreds of people contained in this ‘tiny’ piece of metal. That made me realise how small I was- as small as a speck of dust.)

Small as I am, I am happy being small.
In being small, we can be big.

Small things may appear insignificant, but its value we tend to overlook if we only look at them from a single perspective.
Similarly, big things may appear big, but it might just be a fallacy.

In appreciating small things, I believe that small things become big.
It doesn’t cost us much, but what it gives back may well be much more than we expect.

Sometimes I question myself: should I try to become big? But I guess this is not what I am meant to be.

I will always be on the path towards learning to take pride in being myself. Take pride in being small because it is all these small things that make up who I am.

At the end of the day, it is not about how many requests I have processed, how many As I have scored, or how much money I have earned.

I would rather wish that it is about how many smiles I have brought to the people around me, and what kind of a person people remember Shan as (^-^)