Do We Learn to Live for the Moment, Only When the Sky Falls?

Houses seriously damaged in Gorkha, the epicentre of the 425 earthquake

At around noon on 12 May, I was in a restaurant in Pokhara. Just as I was looking at the menu, I felt some shaking coming from under my feet. Having experienced the 425 earthquake and a number of aftershocks, I knew clearly that it was an earthquake. I said to my friend instinctively, “Earthquake!” and ran to the restaurant garden.

I took it for granted that it would just be a small aftershock, but when the land shook - it felt dizzying as if in a rough sea just as I experienced on 25 April. I knew something was wrong and mumbled several times, “Oh my god!” Looking around, the canopy of a nearby restaurant was rocking violently, and the white spherical lampshades hanging under it were all jumping up and down. I checked if the garden was safe, and whether there were tall buildings around. At that moment, I only saw a few tall trees and, just when I was wondering whether to move to the more open lake, the shaking stopped.

The customers and waiters who had escaped from the restaurant to the garden looked at each other and were stunned by the violent shock. This time it felt similar as 25 April, although much shorter - presumably for only about 10 seconds. Later, it was learnt that the earthquake hit 7.3 on the Richter scale.

My friend was too shocked for words, but I was starving and ordered food as normal. I noticed that even after the 425 earthquake, I still believed that life and death were all destined, and would not let things prevent me from enjoying life. Had I not seen very bad things in life? No, but I had always been optimistic - I believed that if my time came, there could be an accident, even walking on the street regardless of an earthquake.

We were surrounded by the earthquake victims as we distributed goods in Uttamtari, a small village in the epicentre.

My friend started to reflect on life - he realized that death could really come to us anytime. He said, “Yet so many people in this world delay seeking happiness! For example, many of my peers went through a year’s tough training at work after graduation. They thought: ‘I would be free and happy after a year.’ However, after a year, they wanted to get hold of the golden opportunity after the training to look for a good job. They would think: ‘After working for a period of time and earning enough money, I would be happy!’ He thought that these people were deceiving themselves - the happiness that they imagined might never realize as death might occur any moment.

I asked, “If you were to die soon, is there anything you regret or you want to do?” He replied, “No regrets, but if I really were to die tomorrow, I would like to call some special ones and chat with them.” I said, “I think you should make these calls now.”

One of the mottos in my life is: “Live each day like the last day.” So if I were to die now, I have absolutely no regrets.

The clear eyes and the genuine smiley faces of the villagers were not at all affected by the earthquake.

Perhaps in our life, there are many things that we want to do - to change the world, to change the people and the things around us, to change history, to change all the things that we do not like. However, if we were to have only one day of our lives left, what we would want to do would basically relate to us… to express to those we love how much we care about them, to do what we enjoy the most, to have our favorite meal, to spend this last day in the way we like the most…

Therefore, all the changes in fact come from within - only when we accept ourselves, and do not limit ourselves as to what to do, say, or how to express ourselves, will we see the world changing in the way we would like it to be, and start to like the people and the things around us, and stop blaming. Then, we should all be able to die without regrets, and have no fear wherever we are, earthquakes or no earthquakes.

As time passes, we store up more and more fear, and can hardly live for the moment. Looking at the smiley faces of the little angels in the children’s home every day, not at all affected by the earthquakes, I hope to inspire everyone through their smiles to live for the moment.

Thanks to a former Hong Kong volunteer for getting these little angles the jerseys with their names printed on them; all troubles are far away just looking at their smiling faces.

Translated by Elaine.