I was just having a conversation with an imaginary friend today. He's well-accomplished, distinguished, well-known, respected and well-acknowledged. He's everything I'm not.

My imaginary friend has everything I don't - public recognition, external affirmation, positive strokes (well, we never have enough of these anyway). He is thus assured of his worth.

I must tell you, I don't like him. But since it was my day of rest, I decided to entertain him for a bit. Just to see what he might say to put me down. (You see why I don't like him.)

He spent hours on end telling me how successful he is in life, how he has become everything I'm not. And he told me how I'll never be like him, that my life is a dead end being where I am now.

Out of courtesy, I listened painfully to the thousand and one things he had to say. I felt myself shrinking as the minutes passed.

But finally, it was my turn to say something, so I answered:

Everything you are now, you will lose someday. Everything you have become, you won't be anymore someday. You'll be forgotten, you'll be ignored, you'll be unappreciated.

The only difference between you and me is that I never had it to lose, so I'll never have to cling on to what I don't have to lose.

And whatever has happened to me will happen to you someday, except that it has happened earlier to me. That way, I have a longer time in life to work it out and die being comfortable with myself.

Something in me wonders if he's really imaginary.