Of Long Walks...and appreciation

Of Long Walks...and appreciation..

I love to take long walks. Taking in the beautiful sights, observing how people interact with one another... strolling at my own pace and with my mini ipod playing my favourite tracks... to me, it's rejuvenating. Such strolls help me to clear my thoughts, reorganise my thinking, gives me ideas and solutions (sometimes) and helps me to stay focus on my priorities.

I can still remember how enjoyable these long walks were when I was in Europe last year on vacation with my colleagues. We walked in the cool summer breeze to some sidewalk cafes for our breakfast or lunch or tea break or dinner (or all of the above on some days.. hahah)... without any cares at all about work or anything else. After meals we would walk to some museums nearby, some nearby market place to buy fresh fruits to savour while walking or to bring back to the apartment, pay tributes to some shopping malls (we can't resist shopping...) or some tourist attractions. And we would walk back to Annie & Thomas' apartment at the end of the day. It was truly relaxing and I missed that!

So yesterday, after watching Pirates of the Carribean (Part 2) with Jonaphine, Gabriel and Junming, (Btw... side note: I thought Johnny Depp was very quirky & charming!! haha) I decided that I would walk to Lucky Plaza, replenish my toiletries and walk back home from there. While walking to Lucky Plaza from Cineleisure, the sun was a tad scorching but it was pretty shady so I thought... perhaps it's not as warm as I thought. When I was done with Lucky Plaza... I started my walk home.

Obviously, I thought wrong. With every step I took, I thought that I was about to faint with the sun beating down on me. I paused at Far East Plaza for a second and wondered if I should take a bus instead... at least it's air-conditioned.. at least in less than 10mins I would be home sweet home in such frying weather. Tempting...but I decided that I should continue walking anyway. The walk could do some (minimal) wonders to my physique as well as help me unwind. And so I did.

As I continued my journey with humidity as my main companion, out of the blue, the words of one of my HR clients that I work with came into my mind.. "Thank you very much on this complicated case. Appreciated". I shan't go into long details about the complicated expatriate case but it was really nice to have someone appreciate what you are doing. I wasn't expecting a thank you from her as it was my role afterall. But I would say her thank you to me was an incentive / bonus. There and then..it reminded me to always appreciate and thank people too for the things that they have done for me or just simply for just being a friend to me! Somehow, this reminded me of the parable of the 10 lepers where only one came back to thank Jesus for curing him. As I reflected on my relationship with the Lord, I thank the Lord for just being Him as I walked. Everyday, I revel in His unconditional love for me. Amazing what humidity can do! hahah..

Alas, I reached home. Probably lost 200grams of water weight from walking in that kindof weather ... cooled down... washed up and started to pamper myself with the toiletries I bought earlier... and felt... soOo good... Refreshed and had a sense of accomplishment from keeping to walking back home in sahara desert weather (singapore version) and more appreciative of the Lord as well as the people around me.