When does an opinion truly become yours?
3 years ago, I was on a first date with someone I met online through the Coffee Meets Bagel app.
We connected over our love for books and discussed life (as we nerds like to do on a first date haha)
At a playground below a HDB estate just beside Holland Village, we shared ideas and stories about what living a purposeful life meant to us.
At the time, I was desperately trying to find myself after a 3 year business partnership had broken down and had been reading books like Man’s Search for Meaning, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The Art of Happiness.
She seemed to enjoy our conversation and also shared some of her reflections on her experiences living abroad as a student in the United States.
Before we both knew it, it was 11.30pm and time to go home, before the last train departed. So I was surprised when at the end, she said:
“I really enjoy your company and feel you are genuine, but something about you doesn’t feel real…”
I reflected over what she shared and asked a few friends about it.
As an avid reader of many books, it became very easy for me to quote the views of those authors…
And to masquerade them as my own.
Yet they were not my own because I haven’t lived them yet.
The longest distance to travel in the world is from our head to our heart
