tunnel vision

if you'd been driving west along the SLE around 2am on thurs morning, and you'd slowed down and observed the forested hills around marsiliing really carefully, you'd have seen a bunch of army guys huddled in the jungle, weighed down by weapons and other gear. Those guys would happen to be on the first night of their field camp, and man, would they be tired.

I'm not too sure how I managed to last through this week's field camp. Was pretty exhausted and low morale most of the time, because of what I suppose can be termed as adjustment problems (see the previous post). Really hope things start to lighten up a bit this week, because I'll just snap from frustration otherwise.

a platoon mate of mine kinda put things in perspective for me yesterday. We chatted about volunteering for SAF missions eg. Aceh, and he was talking about how good it'd be if he could go work in the UN while as an NSF. To me, that's little more than fantasy, but his talking about it reminded me that yes, the world is bigger than I can imagine now, and there's still life and opportunities beyond NS.

its been hard to keep that kind of perspective while stuck in cadet mode almost everyday. I didn't even realise it until yesterday, but some kind of tunnel vision has crept in. Everything else seems secondary or remote, compared to the task of pulling through OCS. It's like no world exists outside camp and home and the friends I hang out with. Until these occasional reminders come by.

I suppose the moral of the story is this: don't be blinded by the constraints of your current situation. Life may suck now, or you may really dislike where you are or what you're doing, but remember that there's plenty of opportunites available in other places, sometimes even right under your nose. You just need to stop resigning yourself to the situation and start looking for ways to improve it.

the world is bigger than some hill slopes in marsiling.