Temporary

Temporary is a common word we use and hear of in our daily life . How often do we say to our friends, don’t worry, that’s only temporary, very soon everything will be all right. The car breaks down because its battery is dead and you are now desperate to go to work or to go and meet someone. What do you do ? Call for the mechanic who normally fixes your car or for AAM if you are a member. They will, after some time, come over and fix the problem with a new battery and you are back on the road. Thus temporarily you suffer inconvenience. Once at the office, the electricity breaks down and all the computers are out of operation or the computers all cease to function online and your work is interrupted - worse still if you happen to be working in a bank, your customers are all lined up for their needs and you are not able to fulfill their requests. You know of course it is only temporary breakdown and soon enough everything will be well again.

You look for a job and you are offered one but on temporary basis only because it is either to relief someone who is on leave or the need of the employer is only temporary since he cannot ascertain what he really requires to complement his work load or his financial status is not that stable just yet to employ a permanent staff. Or you could be put on hold temporarily for the job application until such time when the employer is ready to employ you. It is a temporary situation but most definitely a set back all the same to you because you need that job.

You are a regular usage of the club’s tennis or squash courts and yet on this particular occasion when you and your regular friends are ready and really looking forward to a good game for the day you find that the courts are under repair or something that disallow their usage for an undetermined period of time. You realize of course that this is only temporary but upsetting nevertheless to your high expectations of the day. Hence you proceed to the rest room to do the needful and there is a notice that it is temporarily closed. Another upset to you.

You next go to the library in the hope of getting that or those special books or magazines that your friends have recommended that you should get hold of, but to your disappointment the library is closed for the day for a minor renovation work or the items you are looking for have yet to be returned by the last borrowers. Well ,you console yourself. I will have to wait then. After all it is not going to be that long to wait knowing that the borrowers are due to return them the following week. It is a temporary set back to your expectation then.

You decide to take a break with a light exercise at your favourite treadmill machine only to find that all three of them have been sent for minor repaires and that they should be available the next day and so you decide to go for an alternative gym equipment that you also like which is the bicycling machines, but then on this particular morning all the six machines are being used and worse still others are waiting in line for their turns and this is all because of the inavailability of the treadmill machines.

As is your regular morning habit and routine, you look forward to reading the early morning papers but on this morning the papers are not there. You wait for some time for the delivery boy in the hope that he will turn up with your newspapers and after quite a while he still does not appear. You begin to wonder now and then suddenly it dawns on you that there will not be any papers for the day since it is Hari Raya, or New Year’s Day when the newspapers company itself is closed for the day. You thank yourself that it is only a temporary setback to your days need.

You are very comfortably settled to a good movie when it is total black out. There is no electricity as a result of power failure for the entire city. No one can tell you just how long this black out will last but you console yourself it must be temporary only. Of course you also know that at one other occasion when the same thing happened to you the power never came back and the cinema operators refunded your ticket money, although you had then waited for hours before the bad news was made known to everyone. You then notice a big notice outside the cinema hall which stated " We Regret Our Cinema Is Temporarily Closed Due to Power Breakdown ".

Four years ago or there about Arman Jennrich and Farah packed up in the States , selling their apartment and most of their household effects to come home to our country to try to make a home for themselves. It was a great move by them that clearly affected Arman’s parents as evidence by the letters that both Arman’s dad and mom wrote to us then. Whilst we were all jubilant with this great decision of theirs, we could not help feeling sympathetic with Jim’s and Joanie’s feelngs. Anyway, both Arman and Farah began to make themselves settled in Kuala Lumpur by moving in into their own apartment which is just around the corner from our house. Farah got herself a job as a music teacher whilst Arman busied himself to look for a job that suited his job experience.

In between this search for a job, Arman busied himself by helping to make our house more cozy. He influenced us to have an automatic gate so that we would be more secured from intruders such as the episode of the robbers that came into our house earlier on. He helped to paint and repair our drain pipes and even built up a reflexology footpath, but of course all these were done with the able assistance of Saroji and Irman. Overall Arman really made our living more pleasant, to which we ever remain grateful to him. It was most unfortunate that all his search for a decent job remained unsuccessful but for one where he was temporarily employed to manage a television production company. His salary was barely enough to enable him to stabilize his planned settlement and before long he was jobless again when the job contract expired.

It had been two solid frustrating years for Arman with the only consolation that they got a baby girl Aisya Iman. At this point the inevitable happened. Both of them decided to move back to the States when Arman got the assurance from his former employers that he was readily welcome back to their fold with a promotion on top of that. Thus the family now left us for the States. Hence that is one clear incidence of what temporary is all about.

Whatever we do in life is always temporary. We are in a seemingly permanent job to which we excel and enjoy but sooner or later we will leave it for a better one elsewhere or we retire when the age limit for retirement is due. In retirement we will be tempted to venture into doing business either with friends or entirely on our own. For a while everything might seem exciting but eventually you might decide to forget it all due to some reasons or other. Temporarily you say to yourself I do need that long awaited rest after all. You now devote your time to the young families all around you , more especially to be with your grandchildren now. It could be fun most of the time especially when they were toddlers but soon enough they all become grown up and your presence are no longer in demands by them now since they all have their own interests and directions. Just where do we go from here ?

Life is indeed temporary. The happiness, the sadness , the hardship, the wealth or the success that you experience in the course of your life from the time of your birth are all temporary. The only permanent place that you will have will be when you die and even then it is only temporary as the Quran says because comes Judgment Day we will be called upon to response to the Almighty’s call for one final moment to determine just where we will eventually be permanently placed. That could be the only permanency then.

The message here is. Whatever happens in our life time, always remember that it is only temporary. You can have a lot money each pay day but in no time you are broke again but then you have the consolation that it is only temporary until you get your next pay just as you had then temporarily enjoy life with that money earlier on in the month. There is no running away from temporary situations in life, be they good or bad. Now that we know and realize that nothing is permanent in life, you make the best of what comes before you and enjoy it while it lasts because sooner or later it will change for better or worse. Such is life. Everything is temporary, beginning with the night’s darkness to that of the brightness of the day, but they are both temporary.

Thus every happiness is accompanied by sadness, every success is accompanied by failure, every trial has its tribulation, everything we see and have will undergo changes for the better or for worse, just as the saying every sky has its silver lining and life must go on until its inevitable end, but it is to always remember that everything is temporary in life. We have seen and witnessed the poor become rich just as the wealthy become poor. The healthy become sickly just as the sickly become healthy. At the end of it all, it is only temporary and hence we should all expect these happenings in our life time. To all of us, let us take life as it comes. God created the day and the night for a purpose to permit us time to work and to rest and to give us the assurance that there is always a tomorrow for everything that we do and wish for in life. In short
ENJOY LIFE as much as you possible can because life itself is TEMPORARY .

God Bless !