“Time means a lot to me… If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
Bruce Lee
This is a quote that had shown me the importance of living my life to its fullest extent. It has also shown me that time is something that is very limited in any lifetime, so that I should be doing my best to make every second of it feel worth it to myself. Thus, I believe in devotion. I believe in dedication. Devotion and dedication is essential if I want to provide myself with an adaptable and tolerable lifestyle that I want or wish for. Devotion and dedication being explained this way reminds me of a campfire, the starting of it, and the maintenance of the fire itself. Devotion and dedication becomes a necessity if I, or anyone, were to attempt to make a proper fire and keep it alive. This fire could represent a multitude of things too, like the bonds of friendship, my control of my own life, and more.
To begin, I had an old friend from Hawaii named Kai. A few years back, he was visiting his grandparents for several months who, surprisingly, also lived in Alberta. He and I used to hang out pretty often during his visit. We always made jokes together, had fun together, talked about controversial topics together, and more. He seemed like a fine and morally acceptable person to be around for a lifetime. But, unfortunately, family issues for me had arose and the time that I hung with Kai on a daily basis, began to shrink more and more. I had not told him about my reasons for hanging out with him less, but I still tried to allocate a minimum of an hour a day for him. This hour-a-day routine only lasted two weeks, before something catastrophic had oozed its way into my life.
It is nearing the end of October 2017, and the last month that Kai is staying in Alberta. Being around him was not fun anymore, but rather, very enervating and gloomy. The fact that I had decided to continue hanging out with him, had in fact, spoiled him. That was something I had learned right after I had left him for two days for a small family trip, when I found out that he had triggered one of our mutual friend’s depressive episodes. Well, things were a very steep hill at this point, because I had to choose between dealing with two old friends. Since I knew substantially more about Kai than I did about the other friend of ours, who was in a relationship, I decided to help Kai out. I believed that our friend would be able to recuperate from this with her relationship, so I left them in a pool of hope. I asked Kai questions regarding his depressive mood, and I got confirmation that all he wanted was attention. He wanted someone to be with, to play with, to communicate with, all on a daily basis. Out of loyalty, I blindly indulged him. I, like a sheep, followed him without any signs of hesitation, because I, at that time, thought that the time I spent with him, would actually help him. I had not realized what was really wrong, until I spread the word about me and my situation with Kai to my family. They told me that all I was doing was just satisfying his guilt tripping, and not really giving him any advice to tackle his attention-seeking depression. After I was made aware about how this looked from the outside of the picture, I began to think about what needs to be done, what could help him. My family argued that someone like Kai, as he was, was essentially at the point of being a lost cause, and that I should just stop being friends with him, since I would only be wasting my time.
It was the first time in a while, that I felt like I might battle with sorrow again. My family suggested that I should leave Kai in the dust, and part ways with him. And in this moment, since I felt that there was a need to clean some things up. I compromised with my family. Especially since I was told by an outside perspective, a problem that I could not see myself. I thought about what I wanted and how they thought I should deal with Kai. My compromised method was to not leave Kai in the dust, but to minimize my interaction with him when it came to spending time with him, and to maximize my advice that I give him that should be helping him fight against his desire for attention. I thought this would work, because Kai had been taking me for granted by expecting me to always say yes to his requests. I thought that this would be a justifiable way to show him that it is not possible for me to stick around as often forever, and that he should be putting in some dedication towards fixing himself and putting himself in a place where he is comfortable in life. All he was really doing was being childish and whining about how boring, empty, lonely, and silent his life was whenever I was not around. And it was always about whether I was around or not too. He told me his problems one more time the next day, and I got a little fed up; began to tell him upfront what I had thought about his behaviour and his attention issue that he was pushing onto me. His problems are not something that I should be solving for him, since it is only possible to do as much as extend a hand to help. That was the message I delivered. From then on, I had started reducing how much time I spent with him on a daily basis, down to the point where I had just ignored him. It hurt, yeah, because I was basically being a fool.
It is now the seventh of August 2019. It has almost been three whole years. Leaving Kai with my parting words as advice left a bad taste in my mouth, but I believed it was advice worthy for the best and the rest of his life. To my surprise, after three silent years without Kai, he comes back for a visit. This time, it was a visit for me, not his grandparents. He said he would see his grandparents while he was here. This was awkward, much like the first time I met him, except, this time, being around him was not enervating and gloomy. It was even more awkward for me, because I was a little anxious about what he would think about me. About me being unresponsive towards his cries for attention after the last message. People change, and that is an absolute thing. I understand that. What it felt like to be around Kai in 2016 was not the same anymore. The 2019 Kai is not in an adrenaline rush for attention anymore. He greets me, and talks to me as if his depression incident had never happened. He was fine to talk about it and remembers everything he has done, and says he regrets it, and understands what went wrong. He gave me news saying that he had found two companions to hang around and talk to on a daily basis. And I briefly congratulated him. Throughout these years, I had thought about how much time I spent dealing with Kai, helping him. And it was only until I thought about it, that I had not realized that my unique traits that carried me through those few months, was devotion and dedication. Devotion made me stay with him. Devotion made me compromise with my family’s suggestion. Dedication made me go back and help him when he needed it, even if he was not conscious of his own flaws. Devotion and dedication gave me hope that what I did would give him the idea of traveling to the light he only stared at. Devotion and dedication, ultimately, let me see that time is definitely needed to mend things, but time will not mend things if nothing is done to start that process. Since time is limited in a lifetime, I had learned that sitting around, whining, crying, and grieving about personal problems is just wasting the time I have left to live. And with that wasted time, I could have spent it all on trying to better myself and find firewood to keep my fire alive.