There’s this colleague of mine who’s not very high up there on the popularity list in my office. Though indirectly, it can be said that I was the one who introduced her into my department, I find myself often trying to create some distance between me and her. For one, she really likes to complain a lot, and nothing is really up to her standards. When you wanna show her some nice stuffs to appreciate, you can be sure she’ll find some way to criticize it. Eating lunch with her is also another difficult task, cos she EATS SO SLOW!!!!! You know right, that when everyone in your lunch group has finished their meal and you are the only one still eating away, you’ll definitely feel somewhat embarrassed and try to speed up mah. But with this colleague of mine, humph! She will still happily dissect her food and take small dainty mouthfuls, when the rest of us wait around in the hot stuffy hawker centre. I know its bad, but I really can’t help feeling relieved whenever she says she will not join us for lunch, and I think my other colleagues also feel the same.

But, she does have some redeeming qualities lah. Despite being a super complain queen, she rarely gets angry over anything. There were times where I would say something to spite her for her complaining, but she never takes it to heart. That, I must admire her, cos I’m one who do not easily forget anyone who 得罪 me before. I can forgive, but I rarely forget that quickly.

Anyway, it was yesterday that I knew that my colleague actually has a family history of cancer. Her mum and mum’s siblings all suffered from the illness, and till date, my colleague’s mum is the only one who managed to escape death. Being directly related, my colleague and her brother are deemed to have a high chance of getting it too, and so, they have to go for those intensive body checkups and screening tests every year to see if they have the illness. I guess it is to help in early detection and treatment lah.

After hearing this piece of shocking information for the first time (she never once told me about it before), I cannot help but feel sad for her lar. Cos we’ll never know how it feels to see your aunts and uncles dying off slowly, and thinking that you may also suffer from this fate someday. And if you ever go into a relationship, how are you going to tell your other half about this illness, and you have to worry if he’ll still accept you and treat you like before. When I first knew my colleague a few years back, she was then preparing for her wedding, and had even applied for a flat with her fiancé (even ROM liao). Then out of the blue, the entire event was cancelled. I never knew the reason behind it and also did not want to ask her about it (was not that close to her then). I’m not sure if my other colleagues even knew of this, since it all happened before she joined our department. So now, I wonder if it could be due to her family cancer history? If it is, then it must have been terribly heartbreaking for her during that difficult time.

Does it really have to take such unfortunate circumstances and bad news to make me wanna treat this colleague of mine better? I feel so guilty for saying yes to this question. What kind of person does that make me? In an ideal world, I know we should treat everyone as equal, even if some of the people we meet are absolute jerks and irritants in life. Must these jerks and irritants also suffer from my colleague’s misfortune, before I know how to treat them like how I treat my good friends? This question was on my mind for a couple of days liao, and I still do not know how to answer it. It is easy to say that people who act like jerks do not deserve to be treated well, but by not treating them well, do we also become jerks in the process?

Anyway, I now only want to start everything afresh, and try to see my colleague (and other people I didn’t like previously) as how I saw her when I first knew her, knowing nothing about her faults and bad points. Perhaps in this way, I will then be able to focus more on her good qualities, and be more ready to treat her better.