A fifteen year stretch

It has been 15 years since the first post on this blog, and I can now look back and close the loop on some things.

In 2012, I was poised to leave home to study overseas and was feeling apprehensive: home was comfortable, and I wrote a post to that effect. But once I ventured out, I remained away for 5 years to the point that what had once been uncomfortable became the norm, and I didn’t want to return. With some reluctance I eventually did return and settled back to the formerly ‘comfortable’ home, but it took me some time to come to terms with it. In hindsight, I guess it’s not the place where one is that matters, but how one makes the best of things every day.

The year 2012 also marked the end of my full-time military service. For the two years in which I served, military service was the entirety of my world. Even in my free time, my conversations with friends and family would end up as a discourse on military life. For most enlistees, it was a love-hate relationship (the consensus was that it was a waste of time), and I wrote a poem expressing my thoughts: when our time in service is over, do we dispose of our uniforms and say good riddance to the experience? Last month, I returned to camp for a two-week stint, which made me recall how much I had enjoyed those two full-time years. I also chatted with a service-mate who shared that he had considered signing on to the military back then as a career (I had wanted to, as well). It shows that I’m not alone in thinking that, notwithstanding all our complaining (I had named the poem “Army Fatigue”), there can be meaning in a role that seems purposeless – again, it’s about making the best of things. It’s easy for one to see how enjoyable something was once it’s over, the challenge is in enjoying a tough time while you’re in the midst of it. I’ve taken that thought to my current workplace, which is also challenging though in a different way. After my two years of military service, I did indeed shred the mud-stained uniforms (as I wrote about in the poem) but there are many other mementos of army life that I still hold dear.

In 2013, army life was over and I had a foot in the door of the legal profession. I wrote about my vision and qualms about law practice – why did it have to be conducted in such a rigid way? It felt that law firms maintained the ostentatious front of being as exclusive as possible, as though the posher the place, the more one could expect that they knew what they were doing. Surely in a profession that has at its heart the need to be in the shoes of the client to advocate for them, empathy and understanding are key – and the wall should be broken with the profession taking the first step to meet the client on terms comfortable to them. I’ve now been able to answer my own question: yes, law practice can be different. We can meet the client in the middle. As to the exact details, I’m working out exactly how every day.

And with a few life lessons done and dusted, perhaps it’s time for new adventures.