Blank Piece of Paper

Almost a dozen years ago, I graduated from my bachelors degree and returned home to my country. Before I plunge into the working world, I spent time catching up with old friends and easing back into the Malaysian lifestyle. I also made a couple of trips to visit my university friends up north in Perak and Penang. One of them was a train ride to Taiping when I encountered an elderly man who decided to sit right beside me even though there were many empty seats around. I had wished for a quiet long ride to be by myself to think. But this man started talking, and he talked to me throughout the whole long trip!

He wasn't very old but experienced in life, obviously rode all the ups and downs along the way. He gave me lots of advices, some nonsense but some wise. One of his philosophical sentences was unforgetable:

'Your life right now is like a blank piece of canvas. You can draw anything on it, anyway you want'.

That was over a decade ago, wow, talk about time travel! But I felt like I haven't drawn anything. I've been practicing but haven't create any masterpiece! Recently, my dentist told me that it's possible that I grind my teeth while sleeping, and my mom said that's due to stress and pressure. I was thinking to myself "What stress? I haven't started anything!"

I read a quote in a Michael Gerber's book this morning:

I believe there are two ways to look at a blank sheet of paper. The first way is that the blank sheet is the most frightening thing in the world because you have to put down the first mark and figure out what to do with it. The other way is to look at it and say, "Wow, I've got another blank piece of paper. This is the greatest opportunity in the world because I can now let my imagination fly in any direction and I can create whole new things." I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that the blank sheet is the greatest opportunity in the world and is not frightening at all. 

- Masty Sklar, Executive VP/Imagineering Ambassador, Walt Disney Imagineering 

What masterpiece am I gonna carve? Somebody said the only shot you've ever got is the next shot.

Let the writer pens down his best ideas.

Let the alchemist transform the metal into gold.

Let the rainmaker bring in the torrential flow.