October last year my brother reached a milestone. He turned 30. It’s a scary thing to come to the point when you realise half your working life is practically behind you. But, he’s not the kind of guy to get scared. In fact, he did what he’s great at doing: he threw a party.
We call him ‘Chum’. I always found that his name suited him quite well. Turning 30 can be a pretty horrifying thing for most people but instead of crumbling at the thought of it he laughed. Would you like to know his secret? So would I. Whatever it is, he keeps it well and lives it every day.
Before he turned 30, his year itself was full and generous. He and his wife, Tan, would have experienced their best days and their worst fears realised. In a nutshell, they have received promotions and accolades or moved up to better roles; their first son, Heko (pictured above), fell into an ancestral disease and nearly died from a sudden spinal infection; they even bought their first home together.
There’s just one thing no one tells you when you buy a house: it’s not just the price tag that you pay for but all the other things that come with it too. So, after all the parties have passed and all the guests have gone, they looked down at all the receipts of things they’ve bought and money they’ve spent. It was a shocker.
Why is the title called ‘Finishing what you start’? And, what does that have to do with my brother and his great year? More than you think. Life’s like that a lot, I’ve found so far. At any point, something completely unrelated can become immediately relevant.
That’s exactly what happened with buying that house. After the honeymoon stage of shopping for furniture and holding BBQ parties for your friends passed, reality quickly set in. We now had a massive space that needed to be cleaned and painted very very quickly.
Our family immediately came together and formed a makeshift mechanical turk for that house. We started to prepare and paint that 3-bedroom house last September. It’s January now and we still have two bedrooms and a bathroom to finish.
It’s scary how quickly life can take you over and get in the way of your plans. So many things can happen between then and now that can keep you from finishing what you first began.
If you’re hitting 30 or buying your first home or coming into a new job—anything, really—just remember what you started and make sure you finish it before moving into the next thing. There’s something satisfying about closing off a book you’ve opened; and there’s something petrifying about looking back on things you’ve left undone. Check yourself today and start closing off the things you’ve left to the side.
