Just Face It

From a safe distance at a neighbourhood food court, I was queuing behind a lady with a heritage-looking tingkat, when she turned around. Looking at her eyes, I surmised she was smiling widely beneath her mask, and nodded in polite response.
She hesitated, moved to face me directly and said, “I recognise you. How are you?”
“I am ok,” I replied.
“You are wondering if you know me,” she laughed a little. “I come from a time when we greet one another. Same kampong or not, we are all friends.”
She is a handsome looking woman with a sturdy voice. Her English is Cantonese accented, clearly enunciated.
What she commented next was engaging. “The world has stopped. Slowed down. For me to catch up.”
“Maybe to catch up with you,” I ventured.
From her eyes, I saw her masked smile again.
“We will be ok. This is new to me. I have never experienced something like this in my life. My generation, the government call pioneer generation, most things were new in our time. We just face it.” There was an energy in what she said and how she said it.
With porridge in her tingkat, she walked away with a slight lift in her steps. For some people like her, there is a build-in positivity that comes from living life.
Her ‘Just Face It’ is perhaps the genesis of Nike’s ‘Just Do It’.