Thought of the Day: Linked Up

I don’t believe in coincidence. Nothing happens by chance. If you look back at key moments in your life and think ‘Wow! I’m so glad this person appeared just then’, well just accept that that person was meant to be there. And if he hadn’t appeared, someone else would have, to give you the same opportunities you were always meant to have.

Many people have proven pivotal for me in these last few years. Right now as I type this, I am sitting in my new home in Penang. I moved here just a few weeks ago and this really isn’t my home as such: it belongs to a friend who has gone overseas for work and rather than let the place sit empty, he’s let me live in it.

I can also easily trace back the string of events and the people associated with them, that has led me here. So let’s work backwards.

This place belongs to Newton whom I met when he was a partner at Pedal Inn in Georgetown and I stayed there for a few weeks while doing my Senyum Sajalah Exhibition. I did Senyum Sajalah because my friend Clifford was involved with the Camera Museum where it was held and he extended the invite to me. Clifford thought of me because I had taken some pictures of him and his wife. I was doing photography because of an idea my ex-client Louise Tan had planted in me while I was wandering around between focussed careers. She asked me to take pictures of her PR clients, I did and the idea of a company to do photography was born. That company is Chronicle People of which my friend Johann Annuar and I are partners. I met Johann because I needed advice on cycling through Malaysia and sought out my friend Joe Nathan who introduced us. The idea to cycle through Malaysia was because of Bill McDannell who walked across the US to petition against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ride was made possible because my friend Johari Low started the wheel turning by saying he’d support me and because my ex-colleague Andrew Wilson asked a very important question of me “In 5 years, would I be happy I’d done the ride, or regret not having done it?”. I was even cycling again because of my wife who reintroduced me to cycling after many years away from a bike.

Each one of those links is no different from the links on a bicycle chain - if any one had broken, the entire sequence would have been altered.

"...ask yourself what each person means to you and how each person in your life makes your life different."

The thing is though, if any one link had broken, I do believe that some one else would have stepped in to bridge the gap.

If Louise had not asked me to shoot her clients, someone else may have asked me to shoot his family.

If Bill McDannell had not walked across the US, I might instead have read about Rory Stewart walking across Afghanistan.

And so on…

I believe that every single person in my life is there for a reason. And I believe it is the same for you too. It may sound predatory, selfish or self-centred but it really isn’t: so ask yourself what each person means to you and how each person in your life makes your life different.

Then ask yourself what you may mean to each person in your life and how you make that person’s life different. For of course, you are placed in that person’s life for a reason too.