two when tee seven

Twenty seven. its a nice sounding age. "how old are you?" twenty seven. "please write your age". 27. its old but not that old. it looks good. it has a certain appeal to it. its weird i havent given much attention to it. i already have something planned by the time i reach 28. i also came up with something when i was 26. but i havent really given much thought how im going to use my 27th year.

the thought occurred to me while i was staring at the back of left hand inside my office earlier today. i just finished my lunch 15 minutes earlier when i felt my hands were drying up again (its the dishwashing paste i used when i cleaned my utensils after i ate my lunch). it has become a habit for me to look at my hand from time to time. i remember back in college, a classmate caught me staring blankly at my right palm during class. she just came back from the rest room and was about to go back to her seat. she was seated in front me. when i sensed someone was walking at my right side, i looked up from my seat and there she was, giving me a puzzled look. a look that says "are you high or something? why the hell are you staring at your right palm in the middle of a class lecture?" well, i was staring at it because the wrinkles on my hands indicate how old i am. seeing the wrinkly skin on my hands really makes me feel old and it immerses me in some deep thought relating to years and lifetime. 

seeing the wrinkly skin of the back of my left hand reminded me i just turned twenty seven. it made me realize i havent given much thought what i will do as a twenty seven year old guy. i already have plans until i reach 28 but those are mostly related to work. thats just one aspect of one's life. if twenty seven is some kind of bottle that needs to be filled up to reach age 28, the plans i have now probably just fill, at the most, half of it. i need to think of the other aspects that i will need to do to fill up my 27th year. not that its necessary to think about it but i think its better to have something planned than nothing. its easier to discard or revise plans along the way when something unforeseeable or unavoidable occurs compared to coming up with something out of thin air. some would argue life is much more exciting when one implements the latter approach. but at this age, ive realized that opportunities are lost through that approach too. life can be harsh. well, life is harsh. there's no such thing as a demandable right to be given a second chance. as much as possible, i would rather minimize my regrets. if i do need to do something regretful, i make sure im prepared for the consequences. im no longer that college kid who used to say that im ready to die any moment because ive lived my life without regrets. the older i got, the more i realized how many opportunities ive lost.

so how will i make use of my 27th year? well, the stuff i have in store for my 28th year needs some preparation and a lot of hard work to pull it off. so am i going to spend my 27th year anticipating the 28th? well, my work plans already intends to address this concern. so what i need are plans that will supplement my current plans and make things interesting.