Living in the Now

Sometimes it is very hard to live in the now. I have been trying to do that, because I am prone to being someone who has had a "grass is always greener" complex. No wonder my family and I have moved countries three times in three years. Therefore, I don't profess Buddhist qualities and an ability to defer pleasure, as I can get caught up in the hedonism that exists somewhere near to the bottom of a bottle of wine just like the next weak-willed Irishman, but lately I have found myself looking ahead, both in terms of weeks and years. It is probably inevitable as the three questions as an ex-pat gweillo you get here in Hong Kong are "How long have you been in Hong Kong" (past tense), "How are you enjoying it," (present tense) and "How long do you plan to stay?" You are usually left with that last question hanging in your head after you have given the stock answer and with a lingering sense of justifying your decisions, attempting to rationalise in your own ahead just why you actually came here in the first place, and where you are going. It can be an unsatisfactory state of affairs going on in your head when you are not someone who has the five-year plan mapped out in detail, rather just sketched, rubbed out and put on the long finger.

Anyway, I am not trying to get ahead of myself too much, as there is living in the now to be done, or pleasures to look forward to in the short term. I got the hairdresser question today from an old colleague in Dublin "Any holidays planned"? And my answer?

"Yes, holidays in 5 and a half weeks' time, heading to some little island, kind of an odd place, with lovely people, who can have a laugh despite their problems, who with their newfound success 10 years ago, a bit like when they get the drink in them, lost the run of themselves. A beautiful place, a depressing mood, a bleak future, but a land of smiles and chat and lovely scenery and golf courses. A place of expensive property and unemployment (eh?).

It has a land border with a part of its larger and richer neighbour, which also has a minority coalition government and its own financial woes and 50% top tier tax rate, and over that border mad men walk down streets that don't belong to them, playing flutes, drums and pipes and ridiculous uniforms by day and balaclavas by night.

I will be in the West of that country for a time, passing to its border area for a wedding and on to its northern lands, which some call "God's Own Wee Province". Inevitably it will rain a lot, be 15 degrees cooler than my country of residence and we will get sick of the very people we have come to see!"

When you put it all like that, you wonder why you are looking forward to it?!