A chat with a Commissioner For Oath...

My work requires me to see commissioners for oath regularly mainly to assist clients in swearing and affirming statutory declarations, affidavits etc etc.

This evening, I was asked by my boss to bring a stack of statutory declarations to see a commissioner for oath for affirmation. I went to see one near the town of Berkeley and his name is Mr. Soo.

When I knocked the door and went into his small office room, I was shocked as Mr. Soo looked so different. His body had shrunk at least half in size and he had aged so much since I last saw him! He had turned into a very old and fragile man.

He told me, slowly, that he had gone through a by-pass surgery because he had cardio-arrest recently. He told me he almost lost his life and he felt lucky to be alive. “If there was a delay of more than 2 hours, I would have died there and then…” he said.

To my surprise he unbuttoned his shirt and showed me his scar. It was nearly a foot long, from slightly below his throat down to his chest. “The pain was unbearable…” he recalled. He told me that now he has to be extra careful with his diet and could not engage in too many outdoor activities.

He looked at me and asked me how old am I. I said 26 this year. He fell back to his chair and murmured, “How wonderful if I were only 26 and had all the energy you have…” He went on telling me that health is something we mostly take for granted but can be taken away from us so easily and without warning.

I left his office once I made the payment. Before I closed the door, he spoke softly, “young man, do whatever you want to do now, don’t always think you still have a lot of time left…”

On my way back to the office, I tried to digest what he had told me. I am young and healthy and of course I always think that I still have loads of time ahead of me. So things that I want to do can be always postponed. Sicknesses like cancer and heart diseases sound so alien to me. Am I not thinking so all this while? Am I not taking my health, energy and youth for granted?

As I reflect on my current lifestyle, I realize that I have been wasting my time! And I see a lot of young people like me wasting their precious time too! We think that working and making money are so important that a minute without generating money is a minute wasted. Some friends of mine work from 8am to 12am, 6 days a week! What happen if one day (hopefully not so near future but who knows?) our health is taken away and we are left with just a few things to do before we leave this world? Only then, we repeat what the commissioner for oath told me that we only wish we had more time?

When I left his office, these words still lingering in my ears: “How wonderful if I were only 26 and had all the energy you have…”