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1. In a scene from the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tuco (played
by Eli Wallach) is washing himself in a bath when a bad guy appears and starts
to intimidate him at gunpoint. As the bad guy is talking away, obviously thinking
that he has gained the upper hand, Tuco fires a shot with his gun concealed
under the bath foam. Having shot down his adversary, Tuco says: “When you have
to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” Somehow I’ve always thought that Tuco’s words make
sense. If you intend to do something, then just do it. If you keep holding it
off, you might not be able to get it done in the end.
2. Holding off doing something is one of my bad
habits. One classic example is how my newspaper collection ended up in ashes. As
a teenager, I delighted in reading short stories. Back then Berita Harian was
publishing short stories on Thursday. Its weekly, the Berita Minggu, dedicated
a few pages to short stories and poems by local writers as well as articles concerning
literature. The daily also dedicated a full page to students’ contributions. I
was quite a prolific contributor then.
3. So I made a point of buying the daily every
Wednesday and Thursday as well as the weekly every Sunday, paying for them out
of my pocket money. I started keeping all the papers I’d bought and began
stacking them up on a disused crude workbench I got from somewhere. They piled
up over time and eventually grew into two stacks of old papers about a metre
high.
4. From the start I thought of making cuttings
out of my collection of papers to keep all the short stories, poems and
articles for my future reading or reference. As days went by, the stacks of
yellowing papers remained untouched on the old workbench. I was quite
comfortable as long as my stacks of paper collection remained safe on the
workbench and I was quite certain I’d find the time to begin my paper cuttings
one day.
5. Then came my teacher training days. I was
quite busy with my studies and assignments during my two-year teacher training
period. In the first year I attended what was known as the regional training
centre when I had to teach on weekdays and attend courses on weekends. In the
second year, I continued my training at a teacher training college in Cheras,
Kuala Lumpur. All through my training days, I had almost forgotten about my
newspaper collection.
6. One day, during a long
vacation, I thought it was high time I set to work doing my paper cuttings. As I
took a look at the stacks of old papers, I noticed something odd about them. There
were traces of earth plastered on one side of one of the stack of papers. My
reaction was to lift the corner of the stack. My goodness! There was a swarm of
white ants underneath! The stacks of papers were infested by white ants! I had
no choice other than to get rid of the old papers. I moved them to an open
space outside the house and burned them to ashes. Well, there goes my paper collection
…
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