Beauty World (and Thanks)

I’ve just returned from a company-sponsored dinner and musical (Beauty World). Beauty World‘s a local musical, and though I wasn’t expecting much from it, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This was the first time I attended a musical in ages, and the first one I’ve watched at the Esplanade. Though I wouldn’t be able to justify spending $102 on it, if you have the opportunity to go for it cheaply (or even free), do not miss the chance to. It’s catered strongly toward a Singaporean audience, with generous amounts of Chinese dialect and local humour thrown in; with that it mind, it’s also notable that there were plenty of caucasians in the audience as well, many of whom appeared to have enjoyed it.

Revelation

But what I want to write about here isn’t about the musical, but rather how halfway through the show I felt a strong sense of gratitude. It was during a scene where the actors lined up in a row, one behind the other, before running out in separate directions. This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it done and I have, in fact, seen it done plenty of times.

But the thing that stood out this time? the realisation that they were lined up directly in front of me; in other words, I was seated facing the absolute centre of the stage. And it was right there and then, that I realised I had arguably the best seat in the house.

I started thinking about the events leading up to where I was, not just where I was physically at that time (i.e. the Beauty World musical), but also where I was along in life. I started to think about how fortunate I was in so many areas of my life.

• How fortunate I am to have got a job in HVB (HypoVereinsBank). It pays extremely well (more than I could have hoped for), great benefits (including this musical!), very challenging work (I think my proficiency in MS Excel went from “OK” to “Advanced”!), wonderful colleagues (the very ones who urged me to attend this musical, without which I most certainly wouldn’t have gone), and the fact that I actually look forward to work each day.
• How fortunate I am to be studying in Australia, and doing, by my standards, very well academically. Studying in Australia has also enabled to meet a girl whom I feel so comfortable with, with whom I don’t feel like I have to impress (but would love so much to), and whom manages (so far!) to tolerate my sometimes extreme habits of thrift and PMS-like mood-swings!
• And I’ve always felt lucky to have some of the running genes from my dad, who was himself an avid runner in his younger days. Without much training at all, I have managed to be “above-average” in my running; with a little training, I have managed to participate in several competitions (just making up the numbers, no doubt, but still darn exciting). (Of course, his running genes came intertwined with the genes for his thinning hair!)
• I can’t think about my dad’s running genes without thinking about the brainy genes that my mom passed on to me. Though most of the family’s smarts went to my sis and bro, enough of it made its way to mine, I’ve received more than my fair share!

There’s probably plenty of other things for me to be grateful for. But the point is that it just all came to me in the middle of the musical, like an epiphany one gets while meditating.

I pray I am able to receive such feelings of gratitude everyday.