chang vs lendl at roland garros. perhaps the most talked about match in michael chang's entire history of playing tennis. he eventually triumphed but not before suffering severe cramps, executing the famous underarm serve and "forcing" a double fault out of lendl by standing practically at the service line. talk about drama, this is as dramatic as it can possibly get on the tennis court!
back to the present. both justine and david are through to the semifinals. henin-hardenne faces clijsters while nalbandian faces federer. the other halves of both sides of the draw have really opened up though.
had a chat with my sister the other day about stuff. one of the things that she happened to mention was how some people do thing becaus they feel obliged rather than because they want to. there is really a fine line between these two and it's understandably difficult even for an individual to identify the reasons that make him/her tick. for instance, when a guy decides to go shopping with his girlfriend instead of the seemingly prefered choice of playing soccer with his friends, does he do it because he feels that he is obliged to give up some of his time for his girl, or does he do it because he wants to go shopping with his girlfriend. alot of times i hear my friends saying, "i can't make it on that day, i've got to go (somewhere) with my girl/boyfriend". perhaps it has something to do with the way it's said, but to me, "i have to go" sounds more like one is doing something out of obligation. whereas if one were to say "i AM going" then that gives the impression of an individual decision without the influence of obligation. but of course, in our context, language more often that not, does not really carry the meanings they should because we dont treat the language with sufficient precision.
there are many times in our lives, whether one cares to admit it or not, where we agree to do certain tasks grudgingly. these are the times where the motivation behind our decisions are usually based on obligation. we feel obliged as elder siblings that we should give our younger brothers/sisters a chance to play with that new toy we just got for christmas. we feel obliged as friends on occasion to accept an invitation to an event another friend is performing at or organising when asked. we feel obliged as parents (not that i am one) to hussle in and out of the house on a saturday morning finding the right contact lens solution and chauffering our (again i do not have any) kids to their friends' house. do not get me wrong, i'm not saying that there is anything wrong if our actions are controlled like this on occasion. what IS wrong in my opininon, is our denial of that. sometimes we all claim to do things on the pretext of other more noble ideals rather than out of the simple feeling of being obligated to do so, and it is exactly this falsehood that makes the whole idea totally wrong. i feel that one should admit to oneself that we do indeed function like that on occasion and there is nothing bad about that. there may be instances where a melange of emtions governs the decision to perform an action, but when it is solely/largely based upon the social sterotypes that bind us into the performance of such tasks, we really need to take a step back to question if the action is worth taking at all. because if we do something purely out of obligation, there will naturally exist some feelings of disgruntlement which i feel is not worth the effort just to satisfy some socially-preset rules of our human to human interaction.
ok it's at this point that i realise that i'm becoming a little incoherent. haha! i'm hungry for my breakfast i guess so i'll just leave it there.