I am feeling emotionally and mentally angry because having to live with relatives and an aging grandmother under the same roof there is a prerequisite of being a good guest and when there is only the right to use and the absence of the right to own and address several burning issues within the house and under the roof there are times when I am burning and seething (slightly) and the things that help me to cope is to slow things down including my work and romantic endeavours. I am facing 84-year old feeble old lady at the household and other than coping with anger and disastisfaction and internalising it there is only so much a grandson can do in order to firstly abide by her household rules which has come to a point now where I do not even own my money and romantic relationships and surrender several rights as if living like a prisoner under a prison warden who supposedly has fifty years more life expeirence than I do.
The young kids in the household are growing and they need to have hopes of the future while the old in the household whether 40, 50, or 60 are still wishing to stay employable so that they do not risk being accused by others of being useless and as such if everybody wants to be the super useful and self-sufficient person it ends up as me having the play the role of the fool!
.. Yet accomodating is what I am taught and brought up for the past 30 years living under another's roof where my own parents are said to be either controversial or rogue-ish.
Having understood the challenges of living with one's own parents -- there are so many growing young adults who live with their parents and wish so much to move out and have their own house while I have never lived with my parents in 30 years of life the exact opposite how am i supposed to judge if your solution which is to get married and move out with your own kids any better than my method which is to simply stay single and stay self(un)employed at home just serving time like a prisoner.
A prisoner gets paid daily meals and strict supervision from the warden so do I. If he has savings that is his business if he has not again his business after he gets out of jail if he does it is still back to figuring out how to strike a living himself with whoever remains beside him after completing his time.
It reminds me of a period of time when I was serving my NS as a 19 year old at Mindef where I was locked behind a secret door for 2 years doing military work and every day I have to face the same people who were claimed to be either medically misfits or old-and-unwanted civil servants. Time passes still and who am I to judge if it was a good or a bad episode where rats fell from ceilings? The sun rose and set almost 10+ years ago and today it still does from what it seems to be and I still breathe the same air and eat through the same mouth so am i supposed to lament when I already have enough which is a body that is capable of feeding itself and excreting through the toilet channel and not anywhere? Is it about finding and getting a job, a wife, a house, or the next upgrade or the more fanciful car?
I recall my ex-boss already told me striking clear from her perspective of a woman way back in 2007 -- that a man once he hits his 40s even though bald and ugly will still be thinking about the things he craved for when he is in the 20s and if I am forever going to be like that sick of what i have and chasing after what i do not already have i might as well just sit down and enjoy my instant noodles first and is that a genuine problem or is it just in my imagination that instant noodles are delicious when taken hot?
As my zen teacher will conclude, "It is not what u do or do not do that is the problem it is what I do and do not do that is MY problem!"
Lionel