when

the oxford dictionary defines ‘when’ as such:

1. at what time, on what occasion
2. at which time

this word is used ever so commonly. i know i must say it a thousand times a day. literally.

it is used when asking a question or when someone is depicting the time of which an event/occasion takes place.

which brings me to the matter of time. of the when, the what, the who, the where, and the how. journalists know these all important five words. it’s crucial when delivering a story. it’s also important when you are painting a scene, or constructing a map of your life.

this is how i see it:

the when
time is of the essence yes? timing is also everything. you miss an opportunity, and it’s gone. you screw up a date and there goes your ‘first impression’. or maybe you decide to get a new hair cut, or buy a new dress and it makes you feel good instantly. the when, is all about the constant chasing of time. the ever-knowing race to the finishline and all that’s in between. so when are you going to decide when? maybe today, tomorrow, or perhaps it was yesterday and you forgot. we have plenty of time, or so we think. every second, every nanosecond, every tick of the clock counts. so make it work.

the who
we are who we surround ourselves with. it is true. recently in the papers, there was an article about how people who hang out with happy people feel happy constantly even if they are not usually happy people. i hope that makes sense. okay let’s put it this way, our friends are our mirrors and i’m sure we see bits of them in ourselves and us in them. it works that way because birds of a feather flock together. but we do have a choice. we can decide who to include or remove from our lives. we cast our own actors, and as we direct the play of our lives, we determine a bit of what happens next, simply by process of elimination or inclusion. it’s a chain reaction really.

the where and the what
these two very similar. it’s about putting together a place and a situation. one without the other would just bring about a blank page. at any point in our lives, wherever we are, we are in situations. complex ones, angry ones, happy ones, sad ones, romantic ones, spiritual ones – you name it, you’ve been in it. then there’s situational awareness – being conscious of the place and space you’re in and working around it. we’re hardy mammals. like animals of the wild, it is in our blueprint to fend for ourselves, to fight for our happiness, to defend ourselves when wronged and to deal with difficult times.

the how
i believe this is the important bit. this element of knowledge changes everything, and sets us apart from apes, chickens, fishes, frogs, cows, chickens and so on. we have an innate ability of assessing situations and knowing how best to tackle them. okay granted that we know exactly what we want, anything is possible. just like how man created airplanes, invented telephones, and came up with vaccine for small pox. however, it’s always the ‘HOW’ that stumps people. it usually happens when emotions get in the way. the thing with us humans is that we are emotional creatures, we can feel 8 different feelings at a go, we can be thinking one thing and feeling another. we sometimes are so clueless that we dare not admit it. and when thrown into the deep end, sometimes, just sometimes, even those who can swim are at risk of drowning.

drowning. being sucked under an entire behemoth whirl of a situation.

that’s not a nice place to be in.