The finish line

The title page of a first edition of The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. - Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

It’s time to examine the race we have run over the past year so we will be better prepared for the next

By the time you read this article, we will only have two weeks or so before 2014. Did this year zoom by or what?

But then again, there is a sense of dejavu when we come to the end of the year, every year.

While many employees wind down for the year and plan for their year-end holidays or start thinking about annual bonuses, not everyone feels the same. For business owners or people in certain professions or roles, the year-end is not exactly a time they look forward to. For entrepreneurs and people in sales-related roles, there will be a last push to meet the sales targets for the year.

The inability to meet those sales targets may not be an option sometimes. It can dictate the survival of a business or whether someone will still have a job. Or it can mean more growth for the business next year or more commissions and bonuses.

Also for business and department heads, year-end is also the time where they reflect, analyse the current year’s performance and plan for next year.

The questions asked include: Will we be adding headcount? Will we introduce more products? Will we venture into new markets?

Or will we be trimming down staff or closing offices and outlets? What did we do right this year? What did we not do right?

There is a sense of hope as we plan for the year ahead, but there is also sense of trepidation. The trepidation comes because we do not know what the future holds, as much as we try to find that out.

No one can be sure without a shadow of doubt what will happen tomorrow, albeit certain things can be predictable.

Recently I asked a friend in his 50s that if he was given the power to go forward in time to the day of his death or to go backwards to when he was born, which would he choose? He said he would choose to go backwards in time to the day he was born. He said it was so that he would be able to do it all over again and fix all the mistakes he had made. I asked the same question to several others and they all told me the same thing — they wanted to press the rewind button so they could perfect their past.

My choice is the opposite as I choose to be able to fast forward time to reach the end instead. No, I am not on a suicide mission. My choice probably has something to do with the way I think. If I am reading novels, I like to skip all the draggy parts and read the last page. If I am taking exams, I wish to get it over as quickly as possible so I know how I did. If turning back time means having to sit for my exams all over again, no thanks (even if I know the answers now).

Personally I want to reach the end with no regrets. To me, the finish line matters more than the starting point. Yes, the starting may not be pretty, but I’d like to be sure that I finished the race or tried with all my heart. Yes, the past may not be perfect, but at least, I have lived and learnt from it.

In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the novel’s protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge is given a chance to see his past, present and future by three ghosts. The glimpses into his past and present do nothing to stir him as much as the glimpse into his future. The story ends with a moral that while the past has come and gone, we still have the power to change the future by what we do in the present.

Perhaps it can be something we are doing now that needs to be changed.

Whatever it is, as we spend our last month of this year, let us live and learn from the past eleven months and do what we need for this month so we can finish strong for this year.

After watching the Life of Pi and Gravity, Jeanisha does not know which is scarier — being lost at sea or being lost in space. It is scary when we do not know what lies beyond or where we will ultimately end up. If you feel the same, talk to her at [e-mail].