satisfaction.

this is my submission for the mph search for young malaysian writers contest. this is long, so...i'm not sure if i should release this wholesale or just release it as a series. but...here we go. the whole thing. all one thousand words of it.
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Satisfaction. You'd think that these days, it'd be easy to be satisfied. That pacification would be the new tool used to dispel any notions of conflict. Being young and idealistic, you'd normally think that the world is in your hands, yet, it wouldn't take all that much to keep yourself satisfied because you'd think that you'd have everything you'd want. Only that nobody ever taught us how to be content. Maximizing your satisfaction would become your life's goal, whether or not you'd want the perfect partner, more of an allowance to save up so that you can get your mitts on the best cellular phone, a car so that you'd be one step closer to total freedom and so that all of the good life that you'd desire would be yours for the least amount of work possible.

Our parents have endlessly chided us on about our habits. Going out only to come back late at night. The company that we keep. Academic progress. In all of this, the mess that we call life...do we even have the time to look them in the eye and honestly tell them that we'd do our utmost best, and be filial, responsible children and attend to our God-given duty? Or would we just shrug, look away and pretend to be listening, while secretly complaining about their desires behind their backs? Can escaping from what's expected of us and then turning to the things that we really want to do bring satisfaction? Ask yourself if you would feel content with your life if you chose liberty over submission.

The answer, friend, most probably...would be 'no'.

Satisfaction varies from person to person. Our goals, our dreams, our aims and objectives in life...they change, everyday. They differ drastically, not from another person's, but from our own dreams from yesterday. I believe that pursuing satisfaction is a wild goose chase; a farce. I'd rather chase dreams that I know I'd want to believe in, because chasing dreams would be less futile than claiming that we can be satisfied with our lives. Life is cyclical; life is oft-repeated. Satisfaction, sadly, is not. It's ever-expanding. Growing. It gnaws at you. Once you've had some, you'd always want more. To repeat an often heard phrase: "too much is not enough". And, sadly...it never is.

We always have our elders remind us of times when they had little. There're those humourous tales of how they had to walk kilometres and kilometres to school, how little they had, and how much the value of a ringgit was 'back in the day'. My father's family stayed in a zinc-roofed kampung hut. Now, I'm staying in a terrace house in a respectable suburb. Other tales aren't so enlightening. Remembering the Emergency period brings about grim memories. Tensions rise, tensions fall...but undoubtedly, you sense that these people, and their stories, were all told at a time when life was much simpler; the complexities of the modern world were still decades away. Everyone was happy. Everyone was content. More importantly, nobody ever thought of having more. Whatever they had was truly enough. And they appreciated it, and never took it for granted.

Fast forward to today. The world's getting smaller. Some have cited that it's the end of our society and our culture as we know it; a good work ethic and the occurrence of the upholding of moral values have eroded because the integration of certain negative elements have entered our world, holding it in peril of changing. And on top of it, the youth are regarded as being lost. Materialistic. People long for a change back to the old days, where everyone was courteous and where a true testament of harmony was seen. The truth is, despite the bounties and the riches that have graced us, we're still not satisfied with what we have. It doesn't make a difference if you're young or old, father or son; you live your life everyday with the assumption that you'll be getting more tomorrow.

You blame us for not being satisfied? You blame us for tilting the world off its axis? You blame us for introducing negativity? Frankly, you live in a dream. Stay stuck in your dream; life has come and gone for you. There's a word that can be used to describe how things move on, how desires have overcome contentment, where the realization that materialism is key to progress. There's a word that acknowledges that these are the signs of our times; that you can never stay happy for too long in one place. The word is 'change'. Life is all about it.

Satisfaction is a state of mind. But in a world like today's, ask yourself this: would you really want to be stuck in one place all the time? I dare you to move. I dare you to join the crowd. Embrace change. Make change. Be all the things that you were scared of. Take the chance to escape from your comfort zone. Be not afraid of not being satisfied; for satisfaction will only last for so long before you feel empty again. There's a void within us that can never be filled; but at least we understand that. For that matter, we've always understood it. But not many were willing to acknowledge it. There're still many who don't.

Are you really content with what you have now? Have you ever wanted to strive for more? Life is never at a standstill. If anything, life is a constant. It's going to move on, regardless of what you desire of it. Let your desires speak for themselves. Satisfaction is a dream that was swept away long ago when the world decided to move on. Maybe you missed that moment while you were sleeping. Maybe you were worried of the change that would occur. Maybe, just maybe, you weren't enticed at all. You wanted to be strong. There's no need to be afraid. There’s no need to look back. Believe it.

Ask for more.