Eiffel Tower

I was invited to give a talk recently, similar to this last year, and was tasked or asked to ‘motivate’ the speaker. To avoid boring them to death and lecturing them, I decided to give a parable. I think it’s quite interesting so I am sharing it here.

There are two towers, one is more well known, which is the Eiffel tower, while the other is lesser known, the Alor Star tower. The latter however is situated in my hometown Alor Star and is just a few kilometers from the house I grew up in. On a good day, I probably can see the tower if I stand in an open field. The tower is not that tall, but similar to Eiffel, public can go up the tower and dine in it. Unfortunately due to being so close to my home, I’ve never went there myself. In contrast, I’ve been only two times to Paris, but on both occasions, I went up the Eiffel tower.

When I read on online forum like Tripadvisor or Facebook, it is quite common though that people don’t really visit the places in or near their hometown. We humans tend to think the familiars are always going to be there, and we will always have the chance. As for me, I have always thought that it is a bit silly to waste time and money going up Alor Star tower, since I can already see the things that can be seen, down below. When I got married, and were discussing places to go, my wife suggested Alor Star tower but I dismissed it off right away. Now, staying abroad, it is very unlikely that I will be able to go there, since if I go back to my hometown, the schedule will most likely be packed, and who knows whether I will live long enough to be able to go back to Malaysia?

Using this parable, I said to the audience that we must take the chances and appreciate the everyday tasks, as the same thing will not happen again in the future, and there will be time that you wished you have done or focused more during your work. I myself wished that I was even more fastidious during my study years (which I was wishing to end quickly then).

After giving the talk, I then related the parable above to my wife. She then naturally said I-told-you-so that we should have gone up Alor Star tower. Alas, if we had done that though, there would be no parables to write!

Thank you for reading.