And then what happened? 

The four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear, the ones that show that it’s working and that pages will be turned 

And then what happened? 

The four words that children ask when you pause telling a story. The four words you hear at the end of a chapter. The four words spoken or unspoken that show you as a story teller that people care. 

And then what happened ..

For as long as I can remember, probably in 5th grade when I finished elementary school, I started asking this question, and I’m still asking it today: I’m gonna finished Primary School, Junior highschool, Highschool, University, go to work, and then what happened …? 

I have always been thinking about this in one angle: “ Why do I we have to live and probably. .. die. Then that’s it ? “ It’s sort of like a very sad and tragic way to look at the problem. 

I looked at my own narrative again, pay close attention to the question. Perhaps, the importance from the question that the 10-year-old me does not lie in the steps like school and work. Perhaps, it lies in the last four words: And then what happened? 

Perhaps, I asked this question because I care, I care about what’s gonna happen. As the writer of my life story, I guess it’s very important that I care. Because if I don’t care what’s gonna happen, nobody else will. If it doesn’t matter to me what happened next, nobody else is going to give the smallest toss. Without me noticing it, I have imbued that care into my everyday life. 

Personal Development this one of the important value that I like about myself. Someone told me that I perceive and judge myself by how much I have changed over time. I pondered for 2 days, and I believe that it couldn’t be more true. “To grow” is a value that is closer to my heart. 

I have a little secret that I never told a soul on earth, every year, on my birthday, I would spend the time, probably about an hour, comparing myself from last year, how much I have become better, what I know more than I was last year. For as long as I can remember, not a single year that I failed to  surprise or applaud myself. 

Coincidentally, my partner told me today: “ With all the thing you have done, the thing that you do best is study, you study well, get really good results, you enjoy studying” . 

Not only is this the first time he has told me about this observations, but also the first time I ever heard about this through my life. I pondered on this idea for awhile, and I’m pretty positive that this statement is true. Perhaps, my entire life up until now is driven by this cause. 

My struggle for living was not exactly “living” but my struggle was for finding the answer for “and then what happened”, what will I study next, because it seems like “the theme” that is essential to my life long question is about “ studying” . I seem to define a human path of life by the path of learning. 

PS: short note today, I woke up with a bit of headache on my left side, lots of sneeze, some mucus. I was a bit terrified, so I took out the bottle of fish sauce and smell it, to make sure that I’m not losing my sense of smell ( one of the indicators for Covid-19) , I didn’t, the fish sauce suddenly smell so heavenly as if I was smelling it for the first time.