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Me and Myself

It was meant to be just a poster showcase, an event to display our efforts working with an external industrial collaborator, but it was still a milestone, one of the final milestones of what was once purported to be the most fun periods of our life; university. Once all the excitement from the innumerable selfies, the last taupok in uni, all died down and I made my way back home, I was overcome by a huge surge of sorrow, a dawning realisation that it was all going to be over. 

Out of nowhere, there was a gaping hole in me that needed filling.

Not that I have any regrets about university, similar to the one I had about college. I entered uni with the intention that the rigorous academic life I imposed on myself would not be repeated, but I would take the opportunity to try my hand at anything and everything. Though I struggled initially, I eventually achieved that goal, learning some valuable lessons about life along the way. 

However, the greatest achievement about this period are the people I met and the friends I made. Though it is also the same reason for that inner hole. The thought that after all the good times, everyone is going to set off on their separate paths, to fulfil their individual destinies all across the world, to start their own families. It might be years before I see many of them. Some I may never even see again. 

It reminded me of sentence I once came across in a book I read quite long ago. 'Mother, father, brothers, sisters, friends, relatives, colleagues, why do we meet if only to part one day?' It made me question why I always pointed to them as reason to be grateful everytime I hit a low point in my life. When everything was going wrong, there was always comfort in knowing that I had all these people around me. They were my pillars of strengths, but never did I once consider that these pillars would not be there forever. 

Maybe they are not our greatest strength. Maybe our greatest strength is us and ourselves, nothing more. All that we possess or we assume we possess, be it people or things, are transient and the only thing that will be by our side from birth to death is us. Maybe the first person that we needed to get to know, to love and to support, but perhaps we never did, is just us.

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