Nothing else matters...

I've read many a time that true wealth is contentment.

I don't know if it's got to do with age, or my contracting cancer nearly 5 years ago or a combination of both, but I must admit that for me, true wealth really is contentment. It's kinda funny to realise this only upon going through a life threatening experience. Sometimes, I suppose, one has to get a good knock on the head to know that what we have in front of our own nose is already good enough for us.

But the nature of man is such that it's never quite enough isn't it? When is it quite enough then? What does it really take for us to say to ourselves 'that's it for me...thank you, I'm done!'?

Laying on what crossed my mind as my death bed immediately after my first major operation back in December 2003, it hit me that when all is said and done - all I really needed was good health. Nothing else really mattered at the time...

This was a strange phase that I went through.

In a way, I cherished the idea that nothing else mattered because there and then, I suddenly felt contented. I mean, there I was, laying on my hospital bed - given 35% chance to live the next 5 years, and for the first time in many years, I felt contented. I actually felt good. Simply because all I wanted was good health, and nothing else mattered - absolutely.

I must say that I'd grown up since then.

I now wake up easily almost every morning between 3 to 4am to recite my night prayers to God. I now love my family more than ever before. I am closer to my daughters and understand them more than I ever did when they were growing up. I'm appreciative and thankful for my wife's relentless effort to make our lives better and better. I am more thankful than I've ever been in my life.

God is indeed great.


Nazlan.