Bobby's Log

Who is that?

2012-02-02T13:19:00.003+08:00

You may know me.
I’m your constant companion.
I’m you greatest helper.
I’m your heaviest burden.

I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am at your command.
Half the tasks you do can be turned over to me.
I’m able to do them quickly, and
I’m able to do them the same every time.

I’m easily managed, all you have to do is to be firm, with me.
Show me exactly how you want it done.
After a few lessons, I will do it automatically.

I’ am the servant of all great men and women.
And of course the servant of all the failures as well.

I’ve made all the great individuals who have ever been great.
And I’ve made all the losers too.

I work with all the precision of a computer,
and the intelligence of a human being.
You may run me for profit or you may run me to ruin.
It makes no difference to me.

Make me a strong part of your life.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Be firm with me and I’ll put the world at your feet.

Who am I?

I am HABIT

Five Regrets of the Dying

2012-01-27T17:46:00.000+08:00

Apparently, I'm all about happiness today.

It's strange that I'm a short while away from achieving what I have wanted to do for a long while, but all this time, I'm making myself unhappy.

Perhaps it was a sacrifice to pay to get here.

Perhaps I may have overestimated and underestimated certain matters.

But no more.

I am going to be living it, and it's all up to me.

None of these 5 will have their chance to haunt me.

Five Regrets of the Dying
By Bronnie Ware

Platinum Quality Author

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people have had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness

When do you choose to be happy?

2012-01-27T17:31:00.000+08:00

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.

I can choose which it shall be.

Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet.

I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it."

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx
1890-1977, Comedian and Film Star

Before speaking.......

2012-01-17T11:28:00.003+08:00

Someone who is about to admonish another must realize within himself five qualities before doing so [that he may be able to say], thus: "In due season will I speak, not out of season. In truth I will speak, not in falsehood. Gently will I speak, not harshly. To his profit will I speak, not to his loss. With kindly intent will I speak, not in anger."

- Vinaya Pitaka

RECIPE FOR A PROSPEROUS, PEACEFUL YEAR

2012-01-17T11:21:00.000+08:00

It's 6 more days to New Year!

Take twelve, fine, full-grown months, see that these are free from all old memories of bitterness, rancor, hate and jealousy; cleanse them completely from every clinging spite: pick off all specks of pettiness and littleness; in short, see that these months are freed as much as possible from the past.

Cut these months into 29, 30 or 31 equal parts. This batch will keep for just one year. Do not attempt to make up the whole batch at one time (so many persons spoil the entire lot in this way), but prepare one day at a time, as follows:

Into each day put
twelve parts of faith,
eleven of patience,
ten of courage,
nine of work,
eight of hope,
seven of fidelity,
six of liberality,
five of kindness,
four of rest,
three of prayer,
two of meditation,
and one well selected resolution.

If you have no conscientious scruples, put in about a teaspoonful of good spirits, a dash of fun, a pinch of folly, a sprinkling of play, and a heaping cupful of good humor.

Pour into the whole love ad libitum and mix with a vim. Cook thoroughly in a fervent heat; garnish with a few smiles and a sprig of joy; then serve with quietness, unselfishness, and cheerfulness, and a Happy New Year is certain

99% perspiration

2012-01-14T17:13:00.001+08:00

Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever.
Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination.

- Sir Frederick Treves(1853-1923)

Where is He?

2012-01-14T12:19:00.000+08:00

There was a little boy,
On the week's first day,
Coming home from Sunday School
And wandering on the way.

He scuffed his shoes into the grass
And found a caterpillar.
He found a fluffy milkweed pod
And blew out all the filler.

A bird's nest in a tree above,
So wisely placed on high,
Was just another wonder
That caught his eager eye.

A neighbor watched his crooked course
And hailed him from the lawn.
He asked him where he'd been that day
And what was going on.

"I've been to Sunday School," he said
As he turned a piece of sod,
And picking up a worm, he smiled,
"I've learned a lot from God!"

"That's a fine way," the neighbor said,
"For a boy to spend his time.
"Now if you can tell me where God is,
I'll give you a brand new dime."

Quick as a flash the answer came,
The boy said without complaint,
"I'll give you a dollar, Mister,
If you can tell me where God ain't!"

When we were young

2012-01-14T12:11:00.001+08:00

Remember when we were young? Life was so simple then...

Symptoms and prognosis:

1. Skippy heartbeat when you think of him/her.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Ventricular fibrillation and Myocardial Infarction.

2. Restless trembling of hands, feet and other body parts.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Parkinson's Disease

3. Constant smiling.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Bell's Palsy

4. Absent mindedness, inability to focus on tasks at work or at home.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Early Onset of Alzheimer's Disease

5. Weakening of knees and bursts of energy when she calls or comes over.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Multiple Sclerosis

6. Inability to stop thinking about her.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

7. Bruising on neck, and other tender areas.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Leukemia

8. Insomnia.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

9. Feeling that you can smell/hear/feel her when not in her presence.
Symptoms then: Love
Prognosis now: Schizophrenia

How much encouragement?

2011-12-29T14:33:00.001+08:00

Any industry, any company, is bound to have manpower issues.
It's the single one issue that is common to all.
A good staff is not good for always.
There's always the performance cycle of up and downs.
Only question is how much can you encourage that staff?
How long can you tolerate their down time?

Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The worst Xmas song, ever?

2011-12-26T09:08:00.000+08:00

The most insufferable Christmas song ever

Not "Last Christmas" or "Wonderful Christmas Time." It's the smug and egomaniacal "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

BY TOD GOLDBERG

TOPICS:CHRISTMAS, MUSIC, SATIRE

When “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” came out in 1984, I pretty much thought I was British. I dressed like the asexual keyboard player from the Cure, pretended to love everything Depeche Mode was singing about – because, you know, people are people – and pledged undying love for bands I read about in the obscure British magazines sold at Tower Records. (In fact, only since getting Spotify have I even heard an entire album by the Blue Nile and, it turns out they sound like every other band I pretended to like in the 1980s, except for Belouis Some, who were terrible on a whole other level.) So “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” combined all of the greatest things in my world:

1. British bands.

2. British bands singing morosely.

3. British bands singing morosely about hungry people in Africa, a place I was familiar with primarily through playing Risk, but which I nevertheless felt a great passion for. We must get these people fed, the world kept telling my 13-year-old self, and therefore I, too, felt this very strongly … for about two months, anyway, because puberty was making me very interested in a whole host of other things.

At any rate, I loved “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and routinely waited for hours for the video to show up on MTV or “Night Flight” or “Friday Night Videos,” hoping against hope that I’d get to see the extremely moving vision of Boy George dressed like an advertisement for bulky women’s housecoats (watch the video, people) or see the plaintive look in Sting’s eyes as he sang the word “sting” (again, check the video, it’s a moment of utter grace). But what I especially loved was the righteous anger of Bono shrilling, “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you …” So powerful, so wise!

It wasn’t until this month, however, 27 years in the dust — the song such an oldie it can be performed on “Glee” — when the song came on the radio that it dawned on me what a dick line that is. It got me thinking about the song in its entirety and what I’ve determined is that, of all the Christmas songs, it’s really the most fucked-up one that doesn’t have to do with the systematic bullying of a red-nosed reindeer. And so I present an annotated guide to how utterly corrupt “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is, in line-by-line fashion:

“It’s Christmas time,
there’s no need to be afraid.”

Really? No need to be afraid? Does cancer stop on Christmas? What about prostate exams? Have you even pondered how frightening it would be if you were sitting in your living room on the evening of Dec. 24 and heard something coming out of your fireplace and before your wondering eyes appeared some lunatic in a red suit? What about getting the shit stomped out of you at Walmart? No need to be afraid? You lie,Bob Geldof!

“At Christmas time
we let in light and banish shade”

OK, now, as it relates to Africa, wouldn’t shade actually be a better gift?

“And in our world of plenty
we can spread a smile of Joy
Throw your arms around the world
at Christmas time.”

Unless, of course, you try to throw your arms around a place that doesn’t celebrate Christmas — like, you know, large parts of Africa — and instead of spreading joy, you end up starting 25 years of sectarian civil war.

“But say a prayer,
Pray for the other ones.”

I’m gonna go ahead and presume “the other ones” are the godless heathens …

“At Christmas time it’s hard
but when you’re having fun …”

Like, say, if you’re Simon LeBon and you’ve spent the last 12 months sleeping with supermodels, or you’re Boy George and you just got done shooting up some great smack, or you’re the other guy in Wham! and you’re just biding your time until the gig is up and you can marry one of those boxy Bananarama girls and race cars for the rest of your life …

“There’s a world outside your window
and it’s a world of dread and fear”

Technically, the world outside, at the time of the song’s recording, was a London street — and in the video it looks like it was filled with fans who wanted everyone’s autographb… and, in fact, according to the video, it looked like everyone was having a pretty smashing time.

“Where the only water flowing is
the bitter sting of tears”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Sting sings this line in what is a fantastic merging of the real world and the world where a guy named Gordon gets to name himself Stingb… and then gets to, ironically, sing the word “sting” but make it, you know, really serious, because it’s a dreary allusion to how dry it happened to be in Africa that year.

“Where the Christmas bells that are ringing
are the clanging chimes of Doom”

Just so we’re clear here, if they don’t know it’s Christmas, why would they have Christmas bells? And why ring in the doom when they are clearly already doomed? Wouldn’t doom just walk right in at this point? No bells needed.

“Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.”

Ah, yes, the crux of it all. If there’s one thing the Bible teaches, it’s that you should thank God for other people’s suffering. Now Bono is a goddamn hero, we’re told, since he’s spent the last 30 years standing on moral high ground – a moral high ground paved with the money of kids like me, who didn’t know what the fuck “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was all about, but who were, like, totally in support of it – though one has to think he could have looked at the line before he sang it and suggested a rewrite. Maybe something along the lines of “Well, tonight thank God you have food and clean water and a slight disposable income which allows you the opportunity to buy this great song on the latest technology … the cassette tape! Get thee to Sam Goody!” If this song were written today, Justin Bieber would certainly have something wise to say, like, I dunno, “Well, tonight thank God you’re not a Kardashian.”

“And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time”

This is egregiously stupid. It never snows in Africa during Christmastime, because it’s the summertime there. Most specifically in Ethiopia – which is what this song is actually about, the famine in Ethiopia – it’s the start of the driest season. And it’s not as if people were starving in, say, South Africa, or else why would everyone have to get together a few months later to pledge that they ain’t gonna play Sun City? – but beyond that, it just doesn’t snow in Ethiopia. Ever.

“The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life.”

A shitty fucking life, as you’ve made abundantly clear!

“Ohh….
Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”

No, because they are starving to death. And also, depending upon where they are in Ethiopia, they may very well be Muslim.

“Here’s to you…
Raise a glass for everyone
Here’s to them
Underneath that burning sun
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”

How grand. These rich former colonial oppressors are raising a glass to the Africans, who don’t even have any fucking water! You’re just sipping on wine like it’s nothing! You bastards! Send over a bottle of water!

“Feed the world

Feed the world

Let them know it’s Christmas time”

And here the real, dark truth of the song reveals itself. It’s not just about feeding the Africans, it’s about feeding the world and, in addition, letting the entire world know it’s Christmastime. This happened once before. It was called the Crusades.

All that said, still love the song. For real. Very catchy.

The Handshake

2011-12-23T09:53:00.000+08:00

An excerpt from The Richest Man in Town by V.J. Smith

It’s amazing what can happen just by paying attention. Besides, I never thought I would have a life-changing experience at Wal-Mart.

I don’t remember the exact date I met Marty for the first time. Up to that moment, nothing that day seemed particularly important- certainly not what brought me to the store in the first place. Like a lot of people who want to get through a checkout line, my thoughts were on speed, nothing more. The line I was standing in wasn’t moving as quickly as I wanted, and I glanced toward the cashier.

There stood an affable-looking man in his seventies. Slightly stooped and of average build, he wore glasses and a nice smile. I thought, well, he’s an old guy and it probably takes him a little longer to get the chores done.

For the next few minutes I watched him. He greeted every customer before he began scanning the items they were purchasing. Sure, his words were the usual, “How’s it going?” But he did something different-he actually listened to people. Then he would respond to what they had said and engage them in brief conversation.

I thought it was odd, but I guess I had grown accustomed to people asking me how I was doing simply out of a robotic conversational habit. After a while, you don’t give any thought to the question and just mumble something back. I could say, “I just found out I have six months to live,” and someone would reply, “Have a great day!”

This old cashier had my attention. He seemed genuine about wanting to know how people were feeling. Meanwhile, the high-tech cash register rang up their purchases and he announced what they owed. Customers handed money to him, he punched the appropriate keys, the cash drawer popped open, and he counted out their change.

Then magic happened.

He placed the change in his left hand, walked around the counter to the customer, and extended his right hand in an act of friendship.

As their hands met, the old cashier looked the customers in the eyes.

“I sure want to thank you for shopping here today,” he told them. “You have a great day. Bye-bye.”

The looks on the faces of the customers were priceless. There were smiles and some sheepish grins. All had been touched by his simple gesture-and in a place they never expected.

Some customers would walk away, pause for a moment, and look back at the old cashier, now busy with the next customer. It was obvious they couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened. They would gather their things and walk out the door, smiling.

Now it was my turn. As expected, he asked me how I was doing. I told him I was having a good day.

“That’s good,” he said. “I’m having a good day, too.” I glanced down at the name tag on his red vest, the kind experienced Wal-Mart cashiers wore. It read, “Marty.”

I said, “It looks like you enjoy your job, Marty.”

He replied, “I love my job.”

Marty told me how much I owed and I handed him some money. The next thing I knew he was standing beside me, offering his right hand and holding my change in his left hand. His kind eyes locked onto mine. Smiling, and with a firm handshake, he said, “I sure want to thank you for shopping here today. Have a great day. Bye-bye.”

At that moment I wanted to take him home and feed him cookies. It was as if Sam Walton had come back from the dead and invaded this old guy’s body.

I left the store, walked through the parking lot and got into my car. On the drive home I couldn’t shake what had just happened. I had been in that store a hundred times and had never walked away feeling like that.

Who was that guy?

He did something different-he actually listened to people.

75 cents

2011-12-20T20:12:00.002+08:00

Seventy-five cents was the most significant amount of money in my life. I worked as a youth for my father. He operated a successful business and he believed in giving his children an allowance. We were "allowed" to work for whatever money we got.

I earned 25 cents an hour. The minimum wage at the time was $1.65 but I was my father's son and he didn't have to pay me minimum wage. I was underage and was not supposed to be legally working said the government. My father had other ideas. If I could spend money, I could work. I was perhaps 12 or 13. The company had an accountant who handled payroll. His name was Mr. Bill David.

I was smart enough to know that my wages were below everyone else's but I often worked harder. One day I went to the accounting office and asked Mr. Bill David about a raise.

"How much do you want?" Mr. Bill David asked.

I was hoping to move from 25 cents an hour to perhaps 35 or maybe even 40 cents. I was smart enough to know to ask for more than I thought I would actually get so I threw out this ridiculous figure.

"I would like one dollar an hour," I boldly stated to Mr. Bill David. I was expecting riotous laughter at such a ridiculous increase.

Mr. Bill David's answer shocked me. He said, "OK."

Thus, in the span of a few seconds, I had the largest percentage monetary increase of my life. A whopping 300% increase. I was elated beyond measure and no amount of money since has excited me as much as that 75 cents.

It taught me seven lessons.

1. Don't let another person spend your money without accountability. It wasn't Mr. Bill David's money so what was it to him if he gave me a 300% instant raise.

2. Aim for the moon. You just might hit it.

3. Increases in material stuff has a decreasing effect in its ability to bring joy. Never again was I so elated over money. I have literally not been nearly as excited over 75 thousand as I was that 75 cents.

4. Somehow, even with big increases, we still shortly thereafter seem to feel underpaid.

5. Expenses rise to meet income.

6. Income does not necessarily rise to meet new expenses.

7. Mr. Bill Davids are rare.
~A MountainWings Original~

Thought for the Day

2011-12-18T16:37:00.002+08:00

Looks like I'm headed for another career change in 2012.
Lesson learnt: Do NOT be a minority shareholder unless you're comfortable with NO control of the company's direction.
Whatever I choose to do, or wherever I'm going, I'm going to need more than just courage. But nothing can be done without guts.

Courage is the greatest of all the virtues.
Because if you haven't courage,
you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Thought Of The Day

2011-12-13T20:11:00.000+08:00

Thought Of The Day
A mother should give her children a superabundance of enthusiasm,
that after they have lost all they are sure to lose in mixing with the world,
enough may still remain to prompt and support them through great actions.

Julius C. Hare (1795-1855) English Cleric

Isaiah 43:2

2011-12-13T20:09:00.001+08:00

When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shall not be burned; neither shall the flames kindle upon thee.

-- Isaiah 43:2

Be Careful What You Plant

2011-12-12T20:07:00.000+08:00

This is an old story, but I like it very much.

A successful businessman was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. "The young executives were Shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still Nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure. Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure!! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer! His name is Jim!" Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
If you plant goodness, you will reap friends
If you plant humility, you will reap greatness
If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective
If you plant hard work, you will reap success
If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

Steve Jobs and the 7 Rules of Success

2011-12-10T20:15:00.001+08:00

Steve Jobs and the 7 Rules of Success

By Carmine Gallo|

Steve Jobs' impact on your life cannot be overestimated. His innovations have likely touched nearly every aspect -- computers, movies, music and mobile. As a communications coach, I learned from Jobs that a presentation can, indeed, inspire. For entrepreneurs, Jobs' greatest legacy is the set of principles that drove his success.

Over the years, I've become a student of sorts of Jobs' career and life. Here's my take on the rules and values underpinning his success. Any of us can adopt them to unleash our "inner Steve Jobs."

1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better." Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, "I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.

2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Don't lose sight of the big vision.

3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn't have any practical use in his life -- until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don't live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.

4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the "A-Team" on each product. What are you saying "no" to?

5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?

6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can't communicate your ideas, it doesn't matter. Jobs was the world's greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It's so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don't care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you'll win them over.

There's one story that I think sums up Jobs' career at Apple. An executive who had the job of reinventing the Disney Store once called up Jobs and asked for advice. His counsel? Dream bigger. I think that's the best advice he could leave us with. See genius in your craziness, believe in yourself, believe in your vision, and be constantly prepared to defend those ideas.

Think like a Champion

2011-12-10T13:52:00.001+08:00

Think like a Champion

Composure, poise, and presence. Champions maintain balance under the most extreme adversity. They do not panic. They are able to focus, stay relaxed and continue to walk the walk. They stay positive and act confidently to handle stress.

Self-confidence. Champions believe in their capabilities and know what they can do. They maintain this sense of self even under pressure or when things are not going well. They remind themselves they have succeeded in tougher times than these.

Eternal hope. Champions fight to the end. They never give up. They continually seek ways to win and experiment with tactics to turn things around in their favour. They truly believe that there is a way to win and they just have to discover it.

Pacing skills. Champions know when to take a break and relax. They know how to control the clock so they can rest. They know that working non-stop leads to burn-out. They have the experience to know when to cruise and when to turn it on.

Control factor awareness. Champions know what they can control, what they can only influence and what is out of their control. They focus only on those things within their control or influence and let go of the rest.

The ability to learn. Champions absorb experience very rapidly. They learn from every outing, good or bad. They seek feedback from others and consider all sides to infuse new techniques and methods into their play. They see what needs to be done to improve and win.

Coachability. Champions are coachable. They seek help from those who are more experienced. They form collaborative partnership with those who can help them. They appreciate the art and science of coaching and make it an integral part of their training programme.

A strong work ethic. Champions know that hard work leads to confidence and the belief that they deserve to win because they have paid their dues.

Commitment. Champions dream big, and they make pact with themselves to reach those goals. They stay on track in spite of setbacks. They continually remind themselves of their goals and readjust those goals as they are met. They make a commitment to train hard and follow through, no matter what.

Champions give their best in everything they do.

Saying NO

2011-12-10T13:50:00.001+08:00

When we can say no, not only to things that are wrong and sinful, but also to things pleasant, profitable, and good which would hinder and clog our grand duties and our chief work, we shall understand more fully what life is worth, and how to make the most of it.

-- Charles A. Stoddard

Be Grateful

2011-12-03T18:37:00.001+08:00

Even though I clutch my blanket and growl when the alarm rings, thank you, God, that I can hear. There are many who are deaf.

Even though I keep my eyes closed against the morning light as long as possible, thank you, God, that I can see.
Many are blind.

Even though I huddle in my bed and put off rising, thank you God, that I have the strength to rise. There are many who are bedridden.

Even though the first hour of my day is hectic, when socks are lost, toast is burned, and tempers are short, my children are so loud, thank you, God, for my family.
There are many who are alone.

Even though our breakfast table never looks like the pictures in magazines and the menu is at times unbalanced, thank you, God, for the food we have.
There are so many who are hungry.

Even though the routine of my job is often monotonous, thank you, Gord,for the opportunity to work. There are many who have no job.

Even though I grumble and bemoan my fate from day to day and wish my circumstances were not so modest, thank you, God, for life.

Prayers

2011-12-01T14:09:00.001+08:00

A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert like island. The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agree that they had no other recourse but to pray to God. However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food. The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land and he was able to eat it's fruit. The other man's parcel of land remained barren!

After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife. The next day, there was a woman who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, again there was nothing!

Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. The next day, like magic, all of these were given to him. However, the second man still had nothing!

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could leave the island. In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to receive God's blessings, since none of his prayers had been answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven booming, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"

"My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered and so he does not deserve anything."

"You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings."

"Tell me, O God," the first man asked the voice, "What did he pray for that I should owe him anything?"

"He prayed that all your prayers be answered."

For all we know, our blessings are not the fruits of our prayers alone, but those of others praying for us also.

"What you do for others is more important than what you do for yourself"

This Too Shall Pass

2011-11-29T11:23:00.001+08:00

Times are tough.
Sounds so cliche, but the feeling is that it's never been THIS tough.
Businesses are taking a hit, but like FDR said, "if you gotta hit back, don't hold back"
In this trying times, I remember this piece.

by Helen Steiner Rice

If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be-

If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me-
If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too-

Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains
That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear-
For there is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.

The Folded Napkin

2011-11-27T11:49:00.001+08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING PEOPLE!

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my customers would react to Stevie.
He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade. Thefour-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy collegekids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded"truck stop germ" the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.
I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot. After that,I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old kid in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffeespill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty.Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with apracticed flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.
Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their SocialSecurity benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.
He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months. A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery,in recovery, and doing fine.
Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.
Marvin Ringers, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Marvin a withering look.
He grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked.
"We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay."
"I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?"
Frannie quickly told Marvin and the other two drivers sitting at hisbooth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed: " Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK," she said. "But I don't know how he and his Momare going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is." Marvin nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.
After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I didn't get that table where Marvin and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete and Tony were sitting there when Igot back to clean it off," she said. "This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup"
She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when Iopened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed"Something For Stevie."
"Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tonyand Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.
She handed me another paper napkin that had "Something ForStevie" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: "truckers."
That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.
Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting. "Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," Isaid. I took him and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate your coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!"
I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded papernapkins. "First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I tried to sound stern.
Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of thenapkins. It had "Something for Stevie" printed on the outside.As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware,each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother."There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems.
"Happy Thanksgiving."
Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.
But you know what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table..
Best worker I ever hired.
Plant a seed and watch it grow.

The new 10 commandments

2011-11-26T12:20:00.001+08:00

1] Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout.

2] So a Car's WINDSHIELD is so large & the Rear view Mirror is so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE.
So, Look Ahead and Move on.

3] Friendship is like a BOOK. It takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.
4] All things in life are temporary.
If going well, enjoy it, they will not last forever.
If going wrong, don't worry, they can't last long either.

5] Old Friends are Gold! New Friends are Diamond!
If you get a Diamond, don't forget the Gold!
Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a Base of Gold!
6] Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, GOD smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!

7] When GOD solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when GOD doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.

8] A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"

9] When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.
10] WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES, it takes away today's PEACE.

Advice to a younger me

2011-11-25T18:02:00.001+08:00

Advice to a younger me

by
Joseph J.Mazzella

      All of us at some point in our lives have wished that we could write a letter to our younger selves. We have wished we could pass on the wisdom we have learned and help them to avoid some of the pain and struggles that we have gone through. I think that my own advice to the younger me would be quite simple. This is what I would say.

Wake up earlier more often and take the time to watch the sun rising over the hills. Bend down to smell the flowers in the Spring. Swim more in the Summer. Play in the Fall leaves. Make snow angels every Winter.
Turn the TV off in the afternoon and go play with your dogs instead. Don’t rush through those Sunday family dinners. Savor every bite of food and joy in them.

Tell your Mom and Grandma you love them everyday and hug them every chance you can. . Don’t complain about chopping wood with your Dad. Enjoy every moment you have with him. And don’t argue so much with your brothers.

Life is too short to spend being miserable.

     Stop being so shy. Other people are just like you inside. Smile more. Laugh a lot. Sing often. They are joy creators.Share a kind word every chance you get.
Give your inner goodness to everyone. Don’t worry about the future.
Instead enjoy this day God has given you. Make the time to play with your young children. One day you will blink and they will be as big as you are.
Quit wishing you were rich in money. Yet, rejoice at being rich in heart. Realize that happiness is simple.
It is we who are complicated.

Know in your heart that God loves you just as you are. Know in your heart that you can love too. Then go out and share your love with the world. When you do you will have the joy you have always longed for.
     How I wish I could give this advice to the younger me, but I can’t.
He probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.
Still, it isn’t too late to follow this advice today and that is all that matters.

Success is about working towards what you want to achieve

2011-11-23T18:04:00.001+08:00

            Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton chain of hotels, said: "Success is made to order." He was right. An achievement is a sum total of many things - talent, aptitude, knowledge and desire.
            If you analyse each of your achievements, you will soon discover that it all started with the goal that you wanted to achieve.
            Well-defined goals, tackled with competence and confidence through a proper plan of action, are the building blocks of achievements. They are our escalators to tomorrow, a vehicle that takes you to success.
            What are some of the important points to remember when you go about setting goals and planning for them?

BE ENTHUSIASTIC
            The worst bankrupt is the person who has lost enthusiasm, lose everything but enthusiasm and you will come through your trials and find success.

TAKE EFFECTIVE DECISIONS
            Most people have no idea how much stress they can create through indecision.
            If you are the kind of person who cannot decide between two courses of action, afraid that the course you choose might turn out to be a mistake, bear in mind that indecision is expensive and nearly always the worst mistake you can make.
            Some decisions require a great deal of thought and plenty of information. But once all the facts are available, the successful individual will reach a decision and stop thinking about the various pros and cons, so that he can devote all his energy and effort to making the decision work.

AVOID PROCRASTINATION.
            Procrastination is the greatest disease that afflicts mankind.
            Successful people do not procrastinate, especially in matters they know are important to them.
            As someone has rightly said, "People don't fail because they intend to fail. They fail because they fail to do what they intent to do".

Thought of the Day

2011-11-20T11:46:00.001+08:00

You are my friend when you can guard my failure,
challenge my thought
and celebrate my success.

Speech versus Silence

2011-11-15T14:17:00.001+08:00

There are two kinds of speeches and two kinds of silences.

Speech is either truth or a falsification, and silence is either fruition or heedlessness.

If one speaks the truth, his words are better than his silence, but he who invents falsifications, his silence is better than his speech.

- Al-Hujwiri, "The Kashf al-Mahjub"

Sleeping while the wind blows

2011-11-14T10:22:00.001+08:00

Years ago, a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast.
He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were
reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the
awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops.
As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received
a steady stream of refusals.

Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached
the farmer. "Are you a good farm hand?" the farmer asked him.
"Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man.

Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help,
Hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from
dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work.
Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore.
Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed
next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the
little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming!
Tie things down before they blow away!"
The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No

sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows."

Enraged by the response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on
the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm.
To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had
been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred.
The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down.

Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his
hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while
the wind blew.

When you're prepared, spiritually, mentally, and physically,
you have nothing to fear. Can you sleep when the
wind blows through your life?
The hired hand in the story was able to sleep because he
had secured the farm against the storm.

We secure ourselves against the storms of life by
grounding ourselves in the Word of God.

We don't need to understand, we just need to hold
His hand to have peace in the middle of storms.

Reborn again today

2011-11-13T14:05:00.001+08:00

I lost a childhood toy … but have the memory of the person who gave me that gift with unconditional love.

I lost the privileges and fantasies of childhood … but had the opportunity of growing and living free.

I lost a lot of people whom I loved and still love … but had the affection and now have a model from their lives.

I lost many things many times in my life.

But in that “loss,” today I aspire for the value of “gain;”

… because it is always possible to fight for that which we love; and because there is always time to start all over again.

It is not important which period of life you are in when you tire.

The most important thing is that it is always possible and necessary to restart.

Re-birth is a new opportunity;

it is renewing the hopes in life;

and more importantly, it is believing in oneself.

Did you suffer greatly at any one time?

… that was a time for learning.

Did you cry a lot?

… you were cleansing the soul.

Did you feel spiteful?

... it was a lesson on forgiveness.

At times, were you alone?

... it was because you closed the door.

Were there times you believed everything was lost?

... it was simply the beginning of your improvement.

Today is an excellent day to start a new life project.

Where do you want to go?

Look higher, dream higher, desire the best; life brings us what we aspire.

Today is the great mental cleaning day.

Throw away all that binds you to the past; all that hurts you.

Discard everything into the garbage bin; clean your heart; prepare it for a new life, and for new love; for we are passionate.

If we think small; only the small will come.

If we think firmly on the best, on the positive and we strive for it; the best will come in our lives.

Life calls you; it invites you to a new adventure, a new journey, a new challenge.

This day, promise yourself: that you will do anything possible to achieve your objectives;

trust in life, and most of all, trust in yourself.

Relationship

2011-11-13T11:52:00.001+08:00

Do you know what the relationship is between your two eyes??

They blink together,

they move together,

they cry together,

they see things together,

and they sleep together,

but they never see each other;

....that's what friendship is.

Conan O'Brien at Dartmouth 2011

2011-11-08T18:43:00.000+08:00

Everyone keeps talking about Steve Job's speech at Stanford.
Yes, it was a great one, but I feel it's being devalued when people don't put into practice what he said.
Here's a another great speech and it's from Conan O'Brien.
Not in the same vein as Steve Jobs', but hilarious and inspiring at the same time.

I've been living in Los Angeles for two years, and I've never been this cold in my life. I will pay anyone here $300 for GORE-TEX gloves. Anybody. I'm serious. I have the cash.

Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired President of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable television talk show host, has been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today.

Graduates, faculty, parents, relatives, undergraduates, and old people that just come to these things: Good morning and congratulations to the Dartmouth Class of 2011. Today, you have achieved something special, something only 92 percent of Americans your age will ever know: a college diploma. That’s right, with your college diploma you now have a crushing advantage over 8 percent of the workforce. I'm talking about dropout losers like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. Incidentally, speaking of Mr. Zuckerberg, only at Harvard would someone have to invent a massive social network just to talk with someone in the next room.

My first job as your commencement speaker is to illustrate that life is not fair. For example, you have worked tirelessly for four years to earn the diploma you’ll be receiving this weekend.

That was great.

And Dartmouth is giving me the same degree for interviewing the fourth lead in Twilight. Deal with it. Another example that life is not fair: if it does rain, the powerful rich people on stage get the tent. Deal with it.

I would like to thank President Kim for inviting me here today. After my phone call with President Kim, I decided to find out a little bit about the man. He goes by President Kim and Dr. Kim. To his friends, he's Jim Kim, J to the K, Special K, JK Rowling, the Just Kidding Kimster, and most puzzling, "Stinky Pete." He served as the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, spearheaded a task force for the World Health Organization on Global Health Initiatives, won a MacArthur Genius Grant, and was one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2006. Good God, man, what the hell are you compensating for? Seriously. We get it. You're smart. By the way Dr. Kim, you were brought to Dartmouth to lead, and as a world-class anthropologist, you were also hired to figure out why each of these graduating students ran around a bonfire 111 times.

But I thank you for inviting me here, Stinky Pete, and it is an honor. Though some of you may see me as a celebrity, you should know that I once sat where you sit. Literally. Late last night I snuck out here and sat in every seat. I did it to prove a point: I am not bright and I have a lot of free time.

But this is a wonderful occasion and it is great to be here in New Hampshire, where I am getting an honorary degree and all the legal fireworks I can fit in the trunk of my car.

You know, New Hampshire is such a special place. When I arrived I took a deep breath of this crisp New England air and thought, "Wow, I'm in the state that's next to the state where Ben and Jerry's ice cream is made."

But don't get me wrong, I take my task today very seriously. When I got the call two months ago to be your speaker, I decided to prepare with the same intensity many of you have devoted to an important term paper. So late last night, I began. I drank two cans of Red Bull, snorted some Adderall, played a few hours of Call of Duty, and then opened my browser. I think Wikipedia put it best when they said "Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League University in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States." Thank you and good luck.

To communicate with you students today, I have gone to great lengths to become well-versed in your unique linguistic patterns. In fact, just this morning I left Baker Berry with my tripee Barry to eat a Billy Bob at the Bema when my flitz to Francesca was Blitz jacked by some d-bag on his FSP.

Yes, I've done my research. This college was named after the Second Earl of Dartmouth, a good friend of the Third Earl of UC Santa Cruz and the Duke of the Barbizon School of Beauty. Your school motto is "Vox clamantis in deserto," which means "Voice crying out in the wilderness." This is easily the most pathetic school motto I have ever heard. Apparently, it narrowly beat out "Silently Weeping in Thick Shrub" and "Whimpering in Moist Leaves without Pants." Your school color is green, and this color was chosen by Frederick Mather in 1867 because, and this is true—I looked it up—"it was the only color that had not been taken already." I cannot remember hearing anything so sad. Dartmouth, you have an inferiority complex, and you should not. You have graduated more great fictitious Americans than any other college. Meredith Grey of Grey's Anatomy. Pete Campbell from Mad Men. Michael Corleone from The Godfather. In fact, I look forward to next years' Valedictory Address by your esteemed classmate, Count Chocula. Of course, your greatest fictitious graduate is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Man, can you imagine if a real Treasury Secretary made those kinds of decisions? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Now I know what you're going to say, Dartmouth, you're going to say, well "We've got Dr. Seuss." Well guess what, we're all tired of hearing about Dr. Seuss. Face it: The man rhymed fafloozle with saznoozle. In the literary community, that's called cheating.

Your insecurity is so great, Dartmouth, that you don't even think you deserve a real podium. I'm sorry. What the hell is this thing? It looks like you stole it from the set of Survivor: Nova Scotia. Seriously, it looks like something a bear would use at an AA meeting.

No, Dartmouth, you must stand tall. Raise your heads high and feel proud.

Because if Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are your self-involved, vain, name-dropping older brothers, you are the cool, sexually confident, lacrosse playing younger sibling who knows how to throw a party and looks good in a down vest. Brown, of course, is your lesbian sister who never leaves her room. And Penn, Columbia, and Cornell—well, frankly, who gives a shit.

Yes, I've always had a special bond with this school. In fact, this is my second time coming here. When I was 17 years old and touring colleges, way back in the fall of 1980, I came to Dartmouth. Dartmouth was a very different place back then. I made the trip up from Boston on a mule and, after asking the blacksmith in West Leb for directions, I came to this beautiful campus. No dormitories had been built yet, so I stayed with a family of fur traders in White River Junction. It snowed heavily during my visit and I was trapped here for four months. I was forced to eat the mule, who a week earlier had been forced to eat the fur traders. Still, I loved Dartmouth and I vowed to return.

But fate dealt a heavy blow. With no money, I was forced to enroll in a small, local commuter school, a pulsating sore on a muddy elbow of the Charles River. I was a miserable wretch, and to this day I cannot help but wonder:

What if I had gone to Dartmouth?

If I had gone to Dartmouth, I might have spent at least some of my college years outside and today I might not be allergic to all plant life, as well as most types of rock.

If I had gone to Dartmouth, right now I'd be wearing a fleece thong instead of a lace thong.

If I had gone to Dartmouth, I still wouldn't know the second verse to "Dear Old Dartmouth." Face it, none of you do. You all mumble that part.

If I had gone to Dartmouth, I'd have a liver the size and consistency of a bean bag chair.

Finally, if I had gone to Dartmouth, today I'd be getting an honorary degree at Harvard. Imagine how awesome that would be.

You are a great school, and you deserve a historic commencement address. That's right, I want my message today to be forever remembered because it changed the world. To do this, I must suggest groundbreaking policy. Winston Churchill gave his famous "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in 1946. JFK outlined his nuclear disarmament policy at American University in 1963. Today, I would like to set forth my own policy here at Dartmouth: I call it "The Conan Doctrine." Under "The Conan Doctrine":

- All bachelor degrees will be upgraded to master's degrees. All master's degrees will be upgraded to PhDs. And all MBA students will be immediately transferred to a white collar prison.

- Under "The Conan Doctrine," Winter Carnival will become Winter Carnivale and be moved to Rio. Clothing will be optional, all expenses paid by the Alumni Association.

- Your nickname, the Big Green, will be changed to something more kick-ass like "The Jade Blade," the "Seafoam Avenger," or simply "Lime-Zilla."

- The D-Plan and "quarter system" will finally be updated to "the one sixty-fourth system." Semesters will last three days. Students will be encouraged to take 48 semesters off. They must, however, be on campus during their Sophomore 4th of July.

- Under "The Conan Doctrine," I will re-instate Tubestock. And I will punish those who tried to replace it with Fieldstock. Rafting and beer are a much better combination than a field and a beer. I happen to know that in two years, they were going to downgrade Fieldstock to Deskstock, seven hours of fun sitting quietly at your desk. Don't let those bastards do it.

And finally, under "The Conan Doctrine," all commencement speakers who shamelessly pander with cheap, inside references designed to get childish applause, will be forced to apologize—to the greatest graduating class in the history of the world. Dartmouth class of 2011 rules!

Besides policy, another hallmark of great commencement speeches is deep, profound advice like "reach for the stars." Well today, I am not going to waste your time with empty clichés. Instead, I am going to give you real, practical advice that you will need to know if you are going to survive the next few years.

- First, adult acne lasts longer than you think. I almost cancelled two days ago because I had a zit on my eye.

- Guys, this is important: You cannot iron a shirt while wearing it.

- Here's another one. If you live on Ramen Noodles for too long, you lose all feelings in your hands and your stool becomes a white gel.

- And finally, wearing colorful Converse high-tops beneath your graduation robe is a great way to tell your classmates that this is just the first of many horrible decisions you plan to make with the rest of your life.

Of course there are many parents here and I have real advice for them as well. Parents, you should write this down:

- Many of your children you haven't seen them in four years. Well, now you are about to see them every day when they come out of the basement to tell you the wi-fi isn't working.

- If your child majored in fine arts or philosophy, you have good reason to be worried. The only place where they are now really qualified to get a job is ancient Greece. Good luck with that degree.

- The traffic today on East Wheelock is going to be murder, so once they start handing out diplomas, you should slip out in the middle of the K's.

And, I have to tell you this:

- You will spend more money framing your child's diploma than they will earn in the next six months. It's tough out there, so be patient. The only people hiring right now are Panera Bread and Mexican drug cartels.

Yes, you parents must be patient because it is indeed a grim job market out there. And one of the reasons it's so tough finding work is that aging baby boomers refuse to leave their jobs. Trust me on this. Even when they promise you for five years that they are going to leave—and say it on television—I mean you can go on YouTube right now and watch the guy do it, there is no guarantee they won't come back. Of course I'm speaking generally.

But enough. This is not a time for grim prognostications or negativity. No, I came here today because, believe it or not, I actually do have something real to tell you.

Eleven years ago I gave an address to a graduating class at Harvard. I have not spoken at a graduation since because I thought I had nothing left to say. But then 2010 came. And now I'm here, three thousand miles from my home, because I learned a hard but profound lesson last year and I'd like to share it with you. In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting. What Nietzsche should have said is "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you watch a lot of Cartoon Network and drink mid-price Chardonnay at 11 in the morning."

Now, by definition, Commencement speakers at an Ivy League college are considered successful. But a little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment. I did not get what I wanted, and I left a system that had nurtured and helped define me for the better part of 17 years. I went from being in the center of the grid to not only off the grid, but underneath the coffee table that the grid sits on, lost in the shag carpeting that is underneath the coffee table supporting the grid. It was the making of a career disaster, and a terrible analogy.

But then something spectacular happened. Fogbound, with no compass, and adrift, I started trying things. I grew a strange, cinnamon beard. I dove into the world of social media. I started tweeting my comedy. I threw together a national tour. I played the guitar. I did stand-up, wore a skin-tight blue leather suit, recorded an album, made a documentary, and frightened my friends and family. Ultimately, I abandoned all preconceived perceptions of my career path and stature and took a job on basic cable with a network most famous for showing reruns, along with sitcoms created by a tall, black man who dresses like an old, black woman. I did a lot of silly, unconventional, spontaneous and seemingly irrational things and guess what: with the exception of the blue leather suit, it was the most satisfying and fascinating year of my professional life. To this day I still don't understand exactly what happened, but I have never had more fun, been more challenged—and this is important—had more conviction about what I was doing.

How could this be true? Well, it's simple: There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. I went to college with many people who prided themselves on knowing exactly who they were and exactly where they were going. At Harvard, five different guys in my class told me that they would one day be President of the United States. Four of them were later killed in motel shoot-outs. The other one briefly hosted Blues Clues, before dying senselessly in yet another motel shoot-out. Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job, but because I have worked in comedy for twenty-five years, I can probably speak best about my own profession.

Way back in the 1940s there was a very, very funny man named Jack Benny. He was a giant star, easily one of the greatest comedians of his generation. And a much younger man named Johnny Carson wanted very much to be Jack Benny. In some ways he was, but in many ways he wasn't. He emulated Jack Benny, but his own quirks and mannerisms, along with a changing medium, pulled him in a different direction. And yet his failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation. David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson, and was not, and as a result my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are. My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this : It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come.

The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

Many of you here today are getting your diploma at this Ivy League school because you have committed yourself to a dream and worked hard to achieve it. And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay. Four years ago, many of you had a specific vision of what your college experience was going to be and who you were going to become. And I bet, today, most of you would admit that your time here was very different from what you imagined. Your roommates changed, your major changed, for some of you your sexual orientation changed. I bet some of you have changed your sexual orientation since I began this speech. I know I have. But through the good and especially the bad, the person you are now is someone you could never have conjured in the fall of 2007.

I have told you many things today, most of it foolish but some of it true. I'd like to end my address by breaking a taboo and quoting myself from 17 months ago. At the end of my final program with NBC, just before signing off, I said "Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen." Today, receiving this honor and speaking to the Dartmouth Class of 2011 from behind a tree-trunk, I have never believed that more.

Thank you very much, and congratulations.

Balanced life

2011-11-05T15:42:00.001+08:00

My ex-boss used to extol on this article.
Slow Dance. About taking life at a pace where you're comfortable.
Instead of just going through everything at breakneck speed and ending up a person without a proper soul.
Striking the balance between work and life.
This reminds me of this.

Awesome reminder on the need to have a Balanced Life - balancing your balance sheet .........

Our Birth is our Opening Balance!
Our Death is our Closing Balance!
Our Prejudiced Views are our Liabilities
Our Creative Ideas are our Assets
Heart is our Current Asset
Soul is our Fixed Asset
Brain is our Fixed Deposit
Thinking is our Current Account
Achievements are our Capital
Character & Morals, our Stock-in-Trade
Friends are our General Reserves
Values & Behaviour are our Goodwill
Patience is our Interest Earned
Love is our Dividend
Children are our Bonus Issues
Education is Brands / Patents
Knowledge is our Investment
Experience is our Premium Account
The Aim is to Tally the Balance Sheet Accurately.
The Goal is to get the Best Presented Accounts Award.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some very Good and Very bad things ..
The most destructive habit....... ........ ......Worry
The greatest Joy......... ......... ......... ....Giving
The greatest loss..................Loss of self-respect
The most satisfying work......... ........He! lping others
The ugliest personality trait....... .......Selfishness
The most endangered species..... ....Dedicatedleaders
Our greatest natural resource.... ......... ......Our youth
The greatest 'shot in the arm'........ .Encouragement
The greatest problem to overcome.... ......... ...Fear
The most effective sleeping pill....... Peace of mind
The most crippling failure disease...... .......Excuses
The most powerful force in life........ ........... Love
The most dangerous act.............................. .A gossip
The world's most incredible computer.... ....The brain
The worst thing to be without..... ......... ..... Hope
The deadliest weapon...... ........ .........The tongue
The two most power-filled words....... .... 'I Can'
The greatest asset....... .......... ......... ...........Faith
The most worthless emotion.... .......... ....Self- pity
The most beautiful attire...... ......... .........SMILE!
The most prized possession.. ........ .....Integrity
The most powerful channel of communication. ..Prayer
The most contagious spirit...... ......... ......Enthusiasm
Life ends; when you stop Dreaming,
Hope ends; when you stop Believing,
Love ends; when you stop Caring,
And Friendship ends; when you stop Sharing...!!!

So keep sharing ...........

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

2011-11-03T10:26:00.000+08:00

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

By MONA SIMPSON

I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met my father, I tried to believe he’d changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.

When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.

We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.

I didn’t know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.
I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.
Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.

I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.

Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.

That’s incredibly simple, but true.

He was the opposite of absent-minded.

He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.

When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.
He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.

Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.
For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.

He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.
His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”

Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.
He was willing to be misunderstood.

Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.

Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him.
Whenever he saw a man he thought a woman might find dashing, he called out, “Hey are you single? Do you wanna come to dinner with my sister?”

I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. “There’s this beautiful woman and she’s really smart and she has this dog and I’m going to marry her.”
When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa’s boyfriends and Erin’s travel and skirt lengths and Eve’s safety around the horses she adored.
None of us who attended Reed’s graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing.

His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still.

Steve had been successful at a young age, and he felt that had isolated him. Most of the choices he made from the time I knew him were designed to dissolve the walls around him. A middle-class boy from Los Altos, he fell in love with a middle-class girl from New Jersey. It was important to both of them to raise Lisa, Reed, Erin and Eve as grounded, normal children. Their house didn’t intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.

Even as a young millionaire, Steve always picked me up at the airport. He’d be standing there in his jeans.

When a family member called him at work, his secretary Linetta answered, “Your dad’s in a meeting. Would you like me to interrupt him?”

When Reed insisted on dressing up as a witch every Halloween, Steve, Laurene, Erin and Eve all went wiccan.

They once embarked on a kitchen remodel; it took years. They cooked on a hotplate in the garage. The Pixar building, under construction during the same period, finished in half the time. And that was it for the Palo Alto house. The bathrooms stayed old. But — and this was a crucial distinction — it had been a great house to start with; Steve saw to that.

This is not to say that he didn’t enjoy his success: he enjoyed his success a lot, just minus a few zeros. He told me how much he loved going to the Palo Alto bike store and gleefully realizing he could afford to buy the best bike there.
And he did.

Steve was humble. Steve liked to keep learning.

Once, he told me if he’d grown up differently, he might have become a mathematician. He spoke reverently about colleges and loved walking around the Stanford campus. In the last year of his life, he studied a book of paintings by Mark Rothko, an artist he hadn’t known about before, thinking of what could inspire people on the walls of a future Apple campus.

Steve cultivated whimsy. What other C.E.O. knows the history of English and Chinese tea roses and has a favorite David Austin rose?

He had surprises tucked in all his pockets. I’ll venture that Laurene will discover treats — songs he loved, a poem he cut out and put in a drawer — even after 20 years of an exceptionally close marriage. I spoke to him every other day or so, but when I opened The New York Times and saw a feature on the company’s patents, I was still surprised and delighted to see a sketch for a perfect staircase.

With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun.
He treasured happiness.

Then, Steve became ill and we watched his life compress into a smaller circle. Once, he’d loved walking through Paris. He’d discovered a small handmade soba shop in Kyoto. He downhill skied gracefully. He cross-country skied clumsily. No more.

Eventually, even ordinary pleasures, like a good peach, no longer appealed to him.
Yet, what amazed me, and what I learned from his illness, was how much was still left after so much had been taken away.

I remember my brother learning to walk again, with a chair. After his liver transplant, once a day he would get up on legs that seemed too thin to bear him, arms pitched to the chair back. He’d push that chair down the Memphis hospital corridor towards the nursing station and then he’d sit down on the chair, rest, turn around and walk back again. He counted his steps and, each day, pressed a little farther.

Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes.
“You can do this, Steve,” she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.

He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.

I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.

Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham.

One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything — even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he’d like to be treated a little specially.
I told him: Steve, this is special treatment.
He leaned over to me, and said: “I want it to be a little more special.”

Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face.

For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to.

By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.

None of us knows for certain how long we’ll be here. On Steve’s better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he’d wanted to walk them down the aisle as he’d walked me the day of my wedding.

We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.

What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.
Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.

He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.”
“I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.”

When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.

Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.
Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.
His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.
Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night.
He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.
He seemed to be climbing.
But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.
Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.
Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Mona Simpson is a novelist and a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1988, she has held the Sadie Samuelson Levy Chair in Languages and Literature at Bard College. She delivered this eulogy for her brother, Steve Jobs, on Oct. 16, 2011, at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University.

Quote of the Day

2011-11-01T17:23:00.001+08:00

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears.

- Rudyard Kipling

Thought for the Day

2011-10-29T12:17:00.000+08:00

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.

You don't blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the government.

You realize that YOU control your own destiny.
- Albert Ellis

Winners v/s Losers!

2011-10-27T18:42:00.002+08:00

Winners Have Dreams
Losers Have Schemes

Winners See The Gains
Losers See The Pain

Winners See The Present
Losers See The Past

Winners Make It Happen
Losers Let It Happen

Winners See Possibilities
Losers See Problems

Winners Makes Commitments
Losers Makes Promises

Winners Are A Part Of The Team
Losers Are Apart From The Team

Winner Always Has A Programme
Loser Always Has An Excuse

Winner Says "Let Me Do It For You"
Loser Says "That Is Not My Job"

Winners Say "I Must Do Something"
Losers Say "Something Must Be Done"

Winner Is Always A Part Of The Answer
Loser Is Always A Part Of The Problem

Winner Sees An Answer For Every Problem
Loser Sees A Problem For Every Answer

Winner Sees A Solution To Problem
Loser Sees A Problem To Every Solution

Winners Believe In Win/Win
Loser Believe For Them To Win

Winner Says "It May Be Difficult But It Is Possible"
Loser Says "It May Be Possible But It Is TooDifficult"

Winner Makes A Mistake And Says "I Was Wrong"
Loser Makes A Mistake And Says "It Wasn't My Fault"

Childhood, what every child deserves

2011-10-20T15:08:00.000+08:00

When I look back at my childhood, god, do I feel blessed.
I had a mom who educated and nurtured me for the first 12 years of my life.
She made sure that all 3 of us would be well-rounded in every way, education, sports and activities like music etc.
She encouraged me to try new stuff, to explore and to travel.
She once had a big argument with my dad, because I wanted so badly to go to Singapore by myself (when I was 9!) and my dad didn't really approve. She fought for me.
It was drilled into my mind that although we should always put academic excellence as our top priority, but what makes you a better being is to be able to express yourself and to appreciate what life is really about.

I now think that my children are deprived of the childhood I had, and although I may not be able to give them the piano lessons, sports coaching and other finer things, the one thing I can give more is my time.

In Taiping, a different world away from the cities we know, a child can go fishing in the brooks, swim in freshwater pools under a cascading waterfall, hike up the hill and do so many outdoor activities which city kids are unfamiliar with.

I'm working towards a target where I'll be able to spend more time with them, to see them really grow, and to expose them to books and music I grew up with.

Godwilling, I will be able to do this by July next year.

In case you don't know how a child's mind works, here's a clue.

The world is an adventure,
there's so many things to see,
the search for buried treasure,
climbing high up in a tree.

Finding shells along the seashore,
playing marbles in the sand,
skipping stones across a pond,
throwing as far as you can.

Playing a game of hide and seek,
way back out in the woods,
pretending your a robber,
and stealing all the goods.

Wading barefoot in a creek,
and trying to catch a frog,
or going to your favorite park,
and playing frisbie with your dog.

And as I sit and wonder,
it comes as no supprise,
how little things can seem so big,
seen through a childs eyes.

Crossroads

2011-10-16T15:53:00.000+08:00

I've been reflecting on the past 15 years.
The crossroads I have encountered.
The various turns I have taken.
Although it's a principle of mine not to look back with regret, there's always that bit of thought lingering around, "hmm, what if......?".
Then when I visualise the road taken via the other route, I know that I wouldn't have done it any other way.
Now, there's another crossing coming.
Do I go on straight and continue on this path?
Or do I take the less stressful one?
I don't doubt that either path will take me up higher, but it will just be a matter of when.
To make the decision, I will have to narrow down the few major factors in the equation.
Will the extra money matter for the time I will be putting in?
Am I going to be neglecting my 3 children in the meantime?

The last question has been gnawing on my conscience. A lot.
And the way I see it, I've been doing things everyday without realising exactly how much progress am I making.
Reminds me of this quote from Much Ado About Nothing.
Yeah, from my fav writer Bill.

Oh what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!

An Irish blessing for everyone

2011-10-08T11:18:00.000+08:00

Looking at the budget, I wonder how much of it trickles down to the ordinary man in the street.
Come what may, I wish you all this:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
The rain falls soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Airline livery design hits bottom

2011-10-01T10:43:00.001+08:00

As if MAS doesn't have enough bad press on its share swap.
Now even the design "kena kutuk" by a top pilot like Patrick Smith.

Airline livery design hits bottom

OK, I can't stand it anymore. Has airline livery design at last hit rock bottom?
Yes, I think it has. Presenting the new look of Malaysia Airlines.
Hey, wow, a swooshy thing. How original. It's two swooshes, actually, squashed and scribbled together like tandem shark fins in a peculiar and wholly unattractive pattern.
When I say "swooshy thing" I am talking specifically about the "Generic Meaningless Swoosh Thing" or GMST, the concept that, over the past 10 years or so, has become the lowest common denominator of airline brand identity, seen worldwide from Aeromexico to El Al. The term was coined by Amanda Collier, a graphic design veteran, quoted in one of this column's earlier livery discussions. Said Collier, "the GMST is what happens when any corporation gathers senior management, their internal creative department, and a design agency in order to develop a new logo. The managers will talk about wanting something that shows their company is 'forward thinking' and 'in motion,' and no fewer than three of them will reference Nike, inventors of the original Swoosh. The creative types smile, nod, secretly stab themselves with their X-Acto knives, and shit out variations on a motion theme until everyone gets tired of arguing about it."
What makes Malaysia Airlines' swoosh so tragic is that it supersedes one of the classiest palettes out there. Malaysia is, or was, one of the few carriers to retain a classic "cheat line" -- the horizontal, nose-to-tail striping once very common on jetliners. The blue and red cheat, tapered at the stern, was handsome, distinctive and dignified -- exactly what a livery should be.

The only thing that saves the revised look from total abomination is the retention of the indigenous Wau kite on the tail. Few airline logos are as iconic and long-lasting.

True story:
In 1993 I was in the city of Kota Bahru, a conservative Islamic town in northern Malaysia close to the Thai border, when we saw a group of little kids flying Wau kites. At the time I didn't realize where the airline's logo had come from, but I recognized the pattern immediately. It was one of those airline/culture crossover moments that we aerophiles get all emotional over.
Indonesian carrier Garuda, on the other hand, has taken a tragic step backward by removing a similarly iconic logo from its tails. Gone is the abstract head of the Garuda eagle. Borrowed from ancient Sanskrit, the Garuda is common to Buddhist and Hindu mythology, and one of Hinduism's animal-god trinity. This was seen as too meaningful, apparently, and the airline switched instead to this idiotic blue blur.

About

Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot, a long-running feature on Salon, is the Web's most trenchant and insightful source for all things air travel, from safety and technology to airline culture and airport security. Send questions to patricksmith@askthepilot.com and look for answers in a future column.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-28T17:16:00.002+08:00

If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden.

He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator.

- W. Beran Wolfe

US vs UK - for a good laugh

2011-09-26T11:51:00.000+08:00

Had a good laugh. You will too!

E-mail from the Queen, important announcement regarding the USA
To the citizens of the United States of America
from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
-----------------------
1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').
------------------------
2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'
-------------------
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist,then you're not ready to shoot grouse

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. However, a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups and saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

16. Stop fighting wars in other people's countries: you haven't got a clue on how to end it victorious......you leave the place in a bigger mess than it ever was in the first place

17. Start serving smaller meals (burgers, etc)...you are already the most 'obese' nation in the world...and you are getting worse day by day.

God Save the Queen!

A fitting lesson for Malaysian Ministers and Bureaucrats

2011-09-25T15:33:00.003+08:00

The closest person I can think of who resembles this would be the Chief Minister of Penang.

US ambassador cuts right cloth for the masses
By Wu Zhong, China Editor

HONG KONG - About a month after his arrival in Beijing to take up his new post as United States ambassador to China, former commerce secretary Gary Locke has aroused wide public attention, curiosity and controversy with his seemingly simple lifestyle and people-friendly posture.

Locke, the first Chinese-American to become US ambassador to China, arrived in Beijing in economy class on August 12. Television footage showed a leisurely dressed Locke walking out of the airport with a backpack, like a backpacker tourist in every way.

Then a Chinese tourist posted a photo on the Internet showing Locke sporting a small backpack and buying his own coffee at Seattle's airport Starbucks.

These scenes immediately created a buzz among Chinese netizens. It was hard for them to imagine Chinese officials doing such things. Even the New Left, who are critical of capitalism and against China becoming "Westernized", praised Locke. On Utopia, a major website of the New Left, a commentary said, "Compatriot Locke, hypocritical as his acts may be, is however giving a good lesson to our cadres on how not to cut themselves off from the masses."

After accompanying United States Vice President Joe Biden on a tour to Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, Locke flew back to Beijing on an Air China flight on August 23 - again in economy class. The next day, a stewardess of the flight wrote on her blog:

Yesterday, Ambassador Gary Locke flew back to Beijing on our flight. Not only did he reject attempts by our ground staff to give him special VIP treatment, he also rejected an upgrade to first class as well as the coach on arrival. In economy class, Locke remained polite and unassuming throughout the entire journey, while another customer in first class began making demands as soon as he boarded the flight. What a stark difference. [1]

This time, even some well-known personalities including business tycoons joined in the discussion:
Pan Shiyi (real estate tycoon of SOHO China fame): Watch and learn, there's nothing else to say!

Ren Zhiqiang (another real estate mogul), to Pan: You want to learn from him how to spend taxpayers' money?

Pan Shiyi: No matter whose money you're spending, one needs to remain thrifty and polite. The way I see some people spend taxpayers' money, it is as if they have an unspeakable hatred for money - that's not good.

Hong Huang (founder of iLook): Gary Locke is doing what he should be doing as a public servant of a democratic nation - not waste taxpayers' money unnecessarily. Boss Pan, the money you spend is yours. In any case, we should all do whatever makes us feel comfortable.

Author An Puruo was a whole lot more cynical about the entire affair:

He bought economy class, yes. But most airline companies, when they find out who you are, they'll give you a free automatic upgrade. Some people take it, but this guy chose not to. Else he wouldn't have had to buy his own coffee at the Seattle Airport the other day. There's free coffee in the first class lounge. And there's also VIP access upon arrival at the Beijing Airport. If he had chosen to use the VIP access, then there wouldn't have been a photo opportunity for him and his suitcases. [2]

Locke gave his first speech as ambassador on September 9 at Beijing's Foreign Studies University. He said:

I know that there are very high expectations for my tenure as US ambassador to China. After all, I am the first Chinese-American to hold this post. And I do have a proven record - as a governor, as a commerce secretary, and as a person who has mastered the art of buying his own coffee, wearing a backpack and carrying my own luggage.

The next day, to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, Locke took his wife and three children to visit a charity art show for children of migrant workers in Beijing. Chinese children's story writer Zheng Yangjie was present. Locke's children were dressed so simply and casual that Zheng mistook them as children of migrant workers. Zheng was about to introduce one of them to Locke before the ambassador smiled and said, "She is my daughter."

The story quickly circulated on the Internet. Some bloggers commented that Locke's simple lifestyle and people-friendly approach formed a striking contrast with the behavior of Chinese officials. So much so that it seem the new US ambassador came to Beijing with the idea of giving Chinese officialdom a lesson. [3]

But the climax of the Locke buzz came on September 14. At the annual meeting of the New Champions of the World Economic Forum in Dalian, the swanky host of state-owned China Central Television (CCTV) Rui Chenggang successfully put himself in the limelight once more by asking Locke, "I hear you flew here coach. Is that a reminder that the US owes China money?"

Locke replied by saying that economy class was standard practice for all diplomatic staff of US embassies and consulates, as well as for members of the president's cabinet. "As a very easy-going person, I believe I'm a good representative of the way Americans do things," added Locke. "I hope this type of openness will help Chinese and Americans to better understand each other, to break down walls, and to dispel misunderstandings, even though we may have cultural, political, economic and philosophical differences." [4]

Unsatisfied with Locke's answer, Rui later wrote on his blog on Sina.com that Locke always made use of whatever opportunities he had to promote American values - only highlighting the positive aspects of the US and ignoring its negative aspects.

That's his job. Of all the people who have served as US ambassador to China, he's probably the one that's most open to revealing himself, and the one best at doing so. From the haversack to the coffee to the coach and the economy class, he has cleverly used all photo opportunities available to him. He's been a governor before, he knows how to handle the media.

Rui is a controversial TV host in China. He first caught public attention in 2007, when he initiated a campaign to force Starbucks to pull its shop out of the Forbidden City. Last year, at the Group of 20 summit in Seoul, Rui shot to international infamy by claiming himself as "representing Asia" when US President Barack Obama specifically asked for questions from the Korean media.

This time, his comment on Locke upset many Chinese commentators and netizens. Some print media commentaries said Locke's behavior showed how public spending was well regulated in the United States and they called on the Chinese government to impose strict regulations on the spending of public funds.

A commentary on Guangzhou-based Punyu Daily said:

Compared with Locke, many of our officials should feel ashamed. Even in poor places, officials are never sparing of public funds. A fresh example is that Zigui, a poverty laden county (in Hubei province), has spent 800,000 yuan (US$123,000) in 20 days to entertain a 13-member inspection team from the provincial government. Needless to say, officials in rich places squander public funds even more recklessly. It is a joke to say that Locke travels on economic class because the US owes China money, but it is a fact that many officials in China do think that money speaks louder than anything else.

As everyone knows, this is because China's "rules" are no deterrent at all. If Locke were like the 13 Hubei provincial government inspectors were to spend in equivalent terms, a sum of more than 200 Zigui peasants' annual income in just 20 days - including "accepting gifts" worth about 120,000 yuan - his career would be finished and he might even have had to face lawsuits. [5]

Others argue that it is short-sighted to think China now is superior to the US just because China is America's largest creditor. By all means, the US is still a much stronger and more advanced country than China.

Some question whether Locke is simply making a "show" of things. Even if this were the case, "Such a show can inspire people and solicit public support. Thus it is effective and legitimate," a column in the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News said. This implies such "shows" are needed in China, but that Chinese officials are unable to do so because they think they are superior to people. [6]

More cynical Chinese netizens ran a "composition contest" to write Rui-style questions in satirizing corrupt Chinese officialdom and expressing their discontent:

Hear you have brought your wife to Beijing. Is that a reminder that you Americans are ignorant that in China officials can have concubines?

Hear that you don't have so many corrupt officials. Is that a reminder that your country is so poor that there is nothing that can be taken as bribes?

See your leaders are slim and our "servants" are so fat. Is that a reminder that you are poor?

Hear that the mayor of New York travels on the subway. Is that a reminder that you cannot even afford to equip your officials with public cars?

Hear that you elect your president every four years. Is that a reminder that you have too much leisure time?

Hear that you American do not sing Red [Revolutionary] songs. Is that a reminder that you do not have qualified musicians?

Hear that you don't build high-speed railways. Is it a reminder that you American people are cowardly, afraid of death?

See you look smarter than us. Is that a reminder that you Americans have grown up without drinking Sanlu [melamine-contaminated] milk powder?

Anyone who has even a rudimentary knowledge of what has been happening in China cannot help but smile.

Notes
1. Ambassador Gary Locke flies cattle class, Chinese netizens stunned, Shanghaiist, Sep 1, 2011.
2. Ibid.
3. Rui Chenggang to Gary Locke, Shanghaiist, Sep 14, 2011. 4. Click here for Chinese text.
5. Click here for Chinese text.
6. Click here for Chinese text.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights

Thought for the day

2011-09-24T10:26:00.000+08:00

To will and not to do when there is opportunity,
is in reality not to will;
and to love what is good and not to do it,
when it is possible,
is in reality not to love it.

-- Swedenborg

Do not harm, and you will not be harmed

2011-09-23T11:18:00.000+08:00

Lately, my businesses has been disrupted by a number of factors.
Ranging from a MCA politician to competitors, but it now looks like they were just mere distractions.
Perhaps it is luck.
Perhaps it is fate.
No one can say but God.
Reminds me of this part of the Quran.

Qur'an, Al-Ma'idah, 5:11

Believers, do not forget how Allah bestowed His favor upon you by restraining the hands of those who sought to harm you; so remain conscious of Allah, and depend only upon your Lord.

What does your room tell you?

2011-09-20T16:54:00.000+08:00

When I woke up this morning lying in bed, I was asking myself,What are some of the secrets of success in life? I found the answer right there, in my very room.

AND NOT TO FORGET, THE CARPET SAID... KNEEL DOWN AND PRAY. Carry a Heart that Never Hates.Carry a Smile that Never Fades. Carry a tongue that never hurts. Carry a Touch that Never Hurts.

I do not fear death - Taken from Salon.com

2011-09-17T10:23:00.000+08:00

I do not fear death

I will pass away sooner than most people who read this, but that doesn't shake my sense of wonder and joy

By Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

This article is excerpted from Roger Ebert's new memoir, "Life Itself", available this week from Grand Central Publishing.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.
I don't expect to die anytime soon. But it could happen this moment, while I am writing. I was talking the other day with Jim Toback, a friend of 35 years, and the conversation turned to our deaths, as it always does. "Ask someone how they feel about death," he said, "and they'll tell you everyone's gonna die. Ask them, In the next 30 seconds? No, no, no, that's not gonna happen. How about this afternoon? No. What you're really asking them to admit is, Oh my God, I don't really exist. I might be gone at any given second."
Me too, but I hope not. I have plans. Still, illness led me resolutely toward the contemplation of death. That led me to the subject of evolution, that most consoling of all the sciences, and I became engulfed on my blog in unforeseen discussions about God, the afterlife, religion, theory of evolution, intelligent design, reincarnation, the nature of reality, what came before the big bang, what waits after the end, the nature of intelligence, the reality of the self, death, death, death.
Many readers have informed me that it is a tragic and dreary business to go into death without faith. I don't feel that way. "Faith" is neutral. All depends on what is believed in. I have no desire to live forever. The concept frightens me. I am 69, have had cancer, will die sooner than most of those reading this. That is in the nature of things. In my plans for life after death, I say, again with Whitman:

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

And with Will, the brother in Saul Bellow's "Herzog," I say, "Look for me in the weather reports."
Raised as a Roman Catholic, I internalized the social values of that faith and still hold most of them, even though its theology no longer persuades me. I have no quarrel with what anyone else subscribes to; everyone deals with these things in his own way, and I have no truths to impart. All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it. I know a priest whose eyes twinkle when he says, "You go about God's work in your way, and I'll go about it in His."
What I expect to happen is that my body will fail, my mind will cease to function and that will be that. My genes will not live on, because I have had no children. I am comforted by Richard Dawkins' theory of memes. Those are mental units: thoughts, ideas, gestures, notions, songs, beliefs, rhymes, ideals, teachings, sayings, phrases, clichés that move from mind to mind as genes move from body to body. After a lifetime of writing, teaching, broadcasting and telling too many jokes, I will leave behind more memes than many. They will all also eventually die, but so it goes.
O'Rourke's had a photograph of Brendan Behan on the wall, and under it this quotation, which I memorized:

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

That does a pretty good job of summing it up. "Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
One of these days I will encounter what Henry James called on his deathbed "the distinguished thing." I will not be conscious of the moment of passing. In this life I have already been declared dead. It wasn't so bad. After the first ruptured artery, the doctors thought I was finished. My wife, Chaz, said she sensed that I was still alive and was communicating to her that I wasn't finished yet. She said our hearts were beating in unison, although my heartbeat couldn't be discovered. She told the doctors I was alive, they did what doctors do, and here I am, alive.
Do I believe her? Absolutely. I believe her literally -- not symbolically, figuratively or spiritually. I believe she was actually aware of my call and that she sensed my heartbeat. I believe she did it in the real, physical world I have described, the one that I share with my wristwatch. I see no reason why such communication could not take place. I'm not talking about telepathy, psychic phenomenon or a miracle. The only miracle is that she was there when it happened, as she was for many long days and nights. I'm talking about her standing there and knowing something. Haven't many of us experienced that? Come on, haven't you? What goes on happens at a level not accessible to scientists, theologians, mystics, physicists, philosophers or psychiatrists. It's a human kind of a thing.
Someday I will no longer call out, and there will be no heartbeat. I will be dead. What happens then? From my point of view, nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the same, as I wrote to Monica Eng, whom I have known since she was six, "You'd better cry at my memorial service." I correspond with a dear friend, the wise and gentle Australian director Paul Cox. Our subject sometimes turns to death. In 2010 he came very close to dying before receiving a liver transplant. In 1988 he made a documentary named "Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh." Paul wrote me that in his Arles days, van Gogh called himself "a simple worshiper of the external Buddha." Paul told me that in those days, Vincent wrote:

Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.

Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?
Just as we take a train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means.
To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot.

That is a lovely thing to read, and a relief to find I will probably take the celestial locomotive. Or, as his little dog, Milou, says whenever Tintin proposes a journey, "Not by foot, I hope!"

Letter Humor

2011-09-07T14:00:00.003+08:00

Dear Female Twilight fans,
Please realize that because vampires are dead and have no blood pumping through them, they can never get an erection.Enjoy fantasizing about that.
Sincerely,
Logic

Dear Icebergs,
Sorry to hear about the global warming. Payback's a bitch!
Sincerely,
The Titanic

Dear America ,
You produced Miley Cyrus. Bieber is your punishment.
Sincerely,
Canada

Dear Yahoo,
I've never heard anyone say, "I don't know, let's Yahoo! it..." Just saying...
Sincerely,
Google

Dear 2010,
So I hear the best rapper is white and the president is black? WTF happened?!
Sincerely,
1985

Dear girls who have been dumped,
There are plenty of fish in the sea... Just kidding! They're all dead.
Sincerely,
BP

Dear Saturn,
I liked it, so I put a ring on it.
Sincerely,
God

Dear jf;ldsfa/kvsmmklnn,
Please lknvfdmv.xvn.
Sincerely,
Stevie Wonder

Dear Skin-Colored Band Aids,
Please make one for every skin color.
Sincerely,
Black people

Dear Scissors,
I feel your pain.....no one wants to run with me either.
Sincerely,
Sarah Palin

Dear Osama Bin Laden,
Marco....
Sincerely,
United States

Dear World of Warcraft,
Thank you for ensuring my son's virginity.
Sincerely,
Parents Everywhere

Dear Batman,
What was your power again?
Sincerely,
Superman

Dear Customers,
Yes, we ARE making fun of you in Vietnamese.
Sincerely,
Nail Salon Ladies

Dear Ugly People,
You're welcome.
Sincerely,
Alcohol

Dear White People,
Don't you just hate immigrants?
Sincerely,
Native Americans

Dear iPhone,
Please stop spell checking all of my rude words into nice words. You piece of shut.
Sincerely,
Every iPhone User

Dear Man,
It's cute, but can you pick up peanuts with it?
Sincerely,
Elephant

To be......or not

2011-08-21T16:04:00.000+08:00

We aren't what we ought to be.

We aren't what we were going to be.

We aren't what we want to be.

But, thank God, we aren't what we were.

Here's to the crazy ones

2011-08-18T15:30:00.001+08:00

UPDATE: 25/08/2011. JUST HEARD THAT JOBS RESIGNED FROM APPLE.
WE'LL MISS YOU, STEVIE. YOU WERE ALWAYS THE SPECIAL ONE.

Got this from a friend. Great quote from Jobs.

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

-- Steve Jobs

Who to blame for the state of our country?

2011-08-13T15:18:00.000+08:00

I was thinking, why would someone "give up"?
I'm talking about a blogger, Hussein Hamid, whose blog you can see on the side panel of this blog.
All of a sudden, he shut down his blog.
Then I saw his Surat to MT, "When you lie, are you not a liar?".
I have long followed this man's writings, and perhaps he is right.
Malaysia would be worse off if he was wrong.
Anyway, I digress.
I want my fellow Malaysians to think carefully when they vote in the upcoming General Election.

Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world whocreate problems and then campaign against them.

Everything wrong in Malaysia is a problem created by Parliament.

Too much bureaucracy? Blame Parliament.

Too many rules? Blame Parliament.

Unjust tax laws? Parliament wrote them.

Out-of-control bureaucracy? Parliament authorizes everything bureaucracies do.

Malaysians soldiers in Third World rat holes on stupid U.N. missions? Parliamentallows it.

The annual Budget deficits? Parliament votes for them.

The $200 billion plus debt? Parliament created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of thefederal government comes from the Federal Constitution.

If it's not in the Constitution, it's not authorized.

Then read your Constitution.

All 100 percent of the power of the federal government is invested solely in292 individual human beings.

That's all.

Of 26 million Malaysians, only 292 of them wield 100 percent of the power ofthe federal government.

That's 222 members of Parliament and 70 senators.

Anything involving government that is wrong is 100 percent their fault.

I exclude the Judges because constitutionally they have no real power and eventhen, their impartiality has been questioned by a lot of parties.

I exclude Bank Negara because Parliament created it and all its power ispower Parliament delegated to it and could withdraw anytime it chooses to doso.

In fact, all the power exercised by the 2 million or so other governmentemployees is power delegated from the 292.

All bureaucracies are created by Parliament or by executive order of the PrimeMinister.

All are financed and staffed by Parliament.

All enforce laws passed by Parliament.

All operate under procedures authorized by Parliament.

That's why all complaints and protests should be properly directed at Parliament,not at the individual agencies.

You don't like Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negara? Go see Parliament.

You think the Police is out of line? Go see Parliament.

Parliament is the originator of all government problems and is also the onlyremedy available.

That's why, of course, politicians go to such extraordinary lengths andemploy world-class sophistry to make you think they are not responsible.

Anytime a MP pretends to be outraged by something a bureaucrat does,he is in fact engaging in one big massive con job.

No government employee can act at all except to enforce laws passed by Parliamentand to employ procedures authorized by Parliament either explicitly orimplicitly.

Partisans on both sides like to blame the PM for deficits, but all deficits areParliament deficits.

The PM may, by custom, recommend a budget, but it carries no legal weight.

Only Parliament is authorized by the Constitution to authorize and appropriateand to levy taxes.

That's what the federal budget consists of: expenditures authorized, fundsappropriated and taxes levied.

BOTH Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat mislead the public.

For 50 years BN had majorities and could have at any time balanced thebudget if they had chosen to do so.

Every PM could have recommended a balanced budget. Have they really?

We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that's what majoritiesin Parliament and the PM wanted.

Don't be conned.

Don't let them escape responsibility.

We simply have to sort through 26 million people until we find 292 who willact responsibly.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and thencampaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the BN and PR politicians are againstdeficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why if all politicians are against inflation and hightaxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget.

The PM does.

You and I don't have Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.

Parliament does.

You and I don't write the tax laws. Parliament does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy. Parliament does.

You and I don't control monetary policy. Bank Negara does. And who does itanswer to?

70 senators and 222 Members of Parliament;

292 human beings out of 26 million people are directly, legally, morally andindividually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I exclude all of the special interests, NGOs and lobbyists for a sound reason.

They have no legal authority.

They have no ability to coerce a senator, a MP or a Minister to do one usefulthing.

I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million in cash.

The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

Don't you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians?

Those 292 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that whatthey did is not their fault.

They cooperate in this common con regardlessof party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount ofgall.

No normal human being would have the gall of Raja Petra Kamarudin, whostood up and criticized the Government for the mess they have made.

The PM can only propose a budget.

He cannot force the Parliament to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives soleresponsibility to the Parliament for originating appropriations and taxes.

Those 292 people and they alone are responsible.

They and they alone should be held accountable by the RAKYAT who are theirbosses ; provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

So, if you really want to blame your MPs for the state of our country, youshould first blame YOURSELF.

Because YOU put them there.

So think carefully, and vote in people of caliber and character.

Too funny not to share - Facebook history!

2011-08-11T16:00:00.000+08:00

HILARIOUS!
I got this from my cousin. Anyone who's got their history right will laugh out loud!

Your dose of Buddhist Wisdom

2011-08-07T14:33:00.002+08:00

Don't be afraid of doing good.
It's another name for happiness, for all that is dear and delightful--this phrase "doing good."
Whoever would live well, long lasting, bringing bliss

Let him be generous, be calm, And cultivate the doing of good.

By practicing these three, these three bliss-bringing things,
The wise one lives without regret
His world infused with happiness.

- Itivuttaka Sutta

Kindness

2011-08-04T15:59:00.004+08:00

Once a harlot came upon a dog dying of thirst. Without a second thought she took off her leather sock, tied it to her veil, got water from a well nearby, and saved the animal's life.
For that one act of kindness she was absolved of all her ill deeds.
Indeed every deed of kindness toward living beings shall be rewarded.

- Hadith The Prophet Muhammad

Lessons from Failure

2011-08-02T16:39:00.003+08:00

Yes, I've failed. LOTS of times.
But I've succeeded after that. Because I got up AGAIN.

Failure does not mean I'm a failure;
It does mean I have not yet succeeded.

Failure does not mean I have accomplished nothing;
It does mean I have learned something.

Failure does not mean I have been a fool;
It does mean I had enough faith to experiment.

Failure does not mean I have disgraced;
It does mean I have dared to try.

Failure does not mean I don't have it;
It does mean I have something to do in a different way.

Failure does not mean I am inferior;
It does mean I am not perfect.

Failure does not mean I have wasted my life;
It does mean that I have a reason to start over.

Failure does not mean that I should give up;
It does mean that I should try harder.

Failure does not mean that I will never make it;
It does mean that I need more practice.

Failure does not mean that success has abandoned me;
It does mean that I must have a better idea.

Thought for the Day

2011-07-30T10:33:00.002+08:00

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous
circumstances, would have lain dormant.

Horace(65-8 BC) Roman Poet

Thought for the Day

2011-07-26T17:01:00.002+08:00

If you are destined for good fortune you will be blessed; if afflictions have been ordained, no matter where you hide they will seek you out. Submit therefore before the will of God; be grateful in well-being and endure adversity with fortitude that His light may radiate within your being.

- Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillan

Marriage is

2011-07-17T13:49:00.001+08:00

Surprise, surprise, J-Lo is getting divorced.
I thought Marc A could satisfy her, but apparently not.
Reminds me of this quote:

Getting married is easy. Staying married is more difficult. Staying happily married for a lifetime should rank among the fine arts.

- Roberta Flack

Meanwhile, my dearie wife is sick. As I promised, through sickness and health, I will be there for her.

Love you, dear!

Manpower

2011-07-16T13:49:00.000+08:00

So hard to find good staff nowadays.
Perhaps I am lucky to have found a few.
Loyalty is such an overrated word.
Maybe this quote will make it clear for you.

Loyalty cannot be blueprinted.
It cannot be produced on an assembly line.
In fact, it cannot be manufactured at all, for its origin is the human heart-the center of self-respect and human dignity.
It is a force which leaps into being only when conditions are exactly right for it-and it is a force very sensitive to betrayal.
-- Maurice R. Franks

Here's what I think of Bersih

2011-07-11T16:38:00.002+08:00

If you want to raise a crop for one year, plant corn. If you want to raise a crop for decades, plant trees. If you want to raise a crop for centuries, raise men. If you want to plant a crop for eternities, raise democracies.

-- Carl A. Schenk

Farewell, Sai Baba

2011-07-10T16:54:00.003+08:00

Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?

- Sai Baba

Love vs happiness

2011-07-10T16:53:00.001+08:00

On a certain occasion, during an elegant welcoming reception for the new Director of Marketing of an important London company, some of the wives of the other directors, who wanted to get acquainted with the new spouse, asked her with some hesitation. "Does your spouse make you happy, truly happy?"

The husband, who at the moment was not at her side, but was sufficiently near to hear the question, paid attention to the conversation, sitting up slightly, feeling secure, even filling his chest lightly in pride, knowing that his spouse would answer affirmatively, since she had always been there for him during their marriage.
Nevertheless, to both his and the others’ surprise, she replied simply: “No, no he doesn’t make me happy...”
The room became uncomfortably silent, as if everyone were listening to the spouse’s response.

The husband was petrified.
He couldn’t believe what his wife was saying, especially at such an important occasion for him.
To the amazement of her husband and of everyone, she simply placed enigmatically on her head an elegant black silk scarf and continued: “No, he doesn’t make me happy …I AM HAPPY. The fact that I am happy or not, don’t depend on him, but on me.”
“I am the only person upon which my happiness depends.
I make the choice to be happy in each situation and in each moment of my life.

If my happiness were to depend on other people, on other things or circumstances on the face of this earth, I would be in serious trouble!”
“Everything that exists in this life changes continually: humans, wealth, my body, the climate, pleasures, etc. I could enumerate an infinite list…

“Over my life I have learned a couple of things: It’s not the responsibility of my spouse to make me happy...

He also has his “experiences or circumstances.”
I love him and he loves me, often in spite of his circumstances and of mine.”

I decide to be happy and the rest is a matter of experiences or circumstances; like helping, and understanding, accepting, listening, consoling; and with my spouse, I have lived and practiced this many times….

“He changes, I change, the environment changes, everything changes; Having forgiveness and true love, and observing these changes that can be, big or little, but always happen, we must face them with the love that exists in each one of us. If the two of us love and forgive each other, the changes will only be “experiences or circumstances” that enrich us and give us strength. Otherwise we would only be “living together.”

For some, divorce is the only solution; (…in reality it is the easiest…)

To truly love is difficult.

It is to forgive unconditionally, to live, to take the “experiences or circumstances” as they are, facing them together and being happy with conviction.

What I love about my Daddy, Ong Hong Kong

2011-06-25T18:33:00.000+08:00

1. He tells it like it is. There's no BS. No sugar coating. Just the plain old truth.

2. He loves us unconditionally. No matter how bad or mischievious I was, he loves me without any qualms.

3. He gives great advice. You could give any situation to him, lo and behold, he'll come up with a great solution for you. Maybe our government should be reading this.

4. He IS brilliant. My father is so well-read, and I'm so lucky to have gotten the reading bug from him. He may not have a Masters from MIT, but he can rival any genius any day.

5. He taught me to respect others. Especially your elders.

6. He showed me the beauty of writing. His handwriting is exquisite, while mine barely passes for a doctor's medical chit. But the real beauty is in the stringing of words into meaningful sentences.

7. He showed how to pick yourself up. When my mother passed away, it couldn't have been easy for him. 3 kids to parent full time on your own. Especially since I was just about to enter my teens.

8. He showed that anything is possible. My father always taught me to be strong and to be myself. He taught that if you never depend on anyone and always work hard for what you want, anything is possible. In the end, I paid for my MBA by MYSELF.
9. He taught me to listen. In the club where he was Honorary Secretary for 3 decades, I learned that the most important skill is not to speak well, but to LISTEN. Really listen.

Peace of Mind

2011-06-25T18:01:00.000+08:00

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers.
This was in the initial days.
While they were travelling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, I am thirsty.
Do get me some water from that lake there.
The disciple walked up to the lake.
When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment,a bullock cart started crossing through the lake.
As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!
So he came back and told Buddha, The water in there is very muddy. I don't think it is fit to drink.
After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go backto the lake and get him some water to drink.
The disciple obediently went back to the lake.
This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it.
The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had.
So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.
Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, See what you did to make the water clean.
You let it be ... and the mud settled down on its own “ and you got clear water...
Your mind is also like that.
When it is disturbed, just let it be.
Give it a little time.
It will settle down on its own.
You don't have to put in any effort to calm it down.
It WILL happen.
It IS effortless.

With all the hate around, we need a good love story.......

2011-06-21T17:40:00.000+08:00

From Heart to Home

Bob Perks

She had no sooner taken a step into the room when she caught his attention. It's not that she was one of those "beautiful people" who demands recognition or takes command the minute they arrive. Her arrival was subtle, almost unnoticeable because she just fit in with the crowd. She could easily slip in and out and no one would even know she was there.

He did.

Never moving from his place in the corner his eyes followed every move she made. From the host's "Hello!," through every polite introduction to make her feel welcome, the man continued to smile. He knew in truth that his chance of meeting her was slim, but there was something about her he would not, could not, let go of, let alone define.

"Love at first sight," is a lofty ideal woven into the fabric of love stories, best told in old age when the real details become foggy.

"Falling in love" sounds almost tragic, as if someone could get hurt.

Sometimes they do.

She wore a fitted blue cocktail dress with slight beading at the neckline accentuating her slim face and short blond hair. No muss, no fuss. Just enough to say, "I'm out and about," with no real purpose in mind. Her shoes were simple enough to add a bit of shine but, from the looks of them, the other women in the room would not be blown away with name dropping Jovani, Jimmy Choo or Prada.

It was perhaps that balance of sparkle and JC Penney that added even more intrigue.

It wasn't until hours later that she would even come close to where this man was standing. But he never saw it as time lost nor did he lose interest. Then, he apparently became distracted for a moment, looked up and she was nowhere to be found. Panic at first overcame him, then the realization that it just wasn't meant to be.

Why would he ever think there was any potential there. I mean the girl of your dreams doesn't just drop into a room and this girl attending this party wouldn't even be in his league.

She was a guest. He was the bartender.

He went about his business and she apparently went on with her life never knowing her forever lover was there eagerly waiting to make her dreams come true. It would be a long night for him and as the evening came to a close, he began to close up the bar, clear the room of glasses and head into the kitchen.

As he opened the door, hands full of empty glasses, a bar towel draped over his shoulders and the smell of liquor overwhelming his cologne, he stopped suddenly. It was one of those "jaw dropping" moments we remember long after they occur.

There she was, sitting at the kitchen table with a glass and a lemon wedge floating inside it.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know any guests were still here. May I get you a drink?"

She didn't answer at first not realizing he was speaking to her.

"Miss, may I get you a drink? I thought everyone had gone," he said.

"Oh, no. I really wasn't drinking. This is just water," she replied. "When you attend these events you need to give the appearance that you have a drink in your hand to be polite and fit in. The thing is I really don't fit in anyway," she said.

He smiled and said quietly, "No, you don't fit in, you stand out."

"Excuse me?" she said.

He thought immediately that he overstepped his bounds. He was just a worker, a bartender hired through the caterer and should never mix with the guest let alone make a comment like that.

"Oh, Miss. It's late, I'm over tired. I am so sorry. I didn't mean.."

She interrupted him, "Please, no need to apologize. It's was such a beautiful thing to say. I mean, I usually make an appearance at these things for my father's sake and then fade into the kitchen or hide in a corner somewhere. My father loves to include me in these things and I hate to do it," she said smiling.

He stood there awkwardly for a moment searching for the right thing to say. Music played softly in the background adding a dream-like illusion to the unexpected meeting.

"Well, if I can get you anything, please don't hesitate to ask," he said, then turned away to go about his business.

Appearing to enjoy his company she reached out with her hand as if motioning, "wait, don't go." She now struggled for words in an effort to hold onto the one person she felt comfortable speaking with. "Do they have any more of those little chicken things?" she asked.

"Pardon me? Chicken things?" he replied. "Oh, the hors d'oeuvres?"

"Well, yes. I am sure I can find some," he added.

Upon his return she had poured a fresh glass of water for herself and one for him.

"Lemon in your water?"

"Oh, I...."

"Please sit with me. These are really great. You were probably too busy to have any," she said as she pulled out a chair for him.

Just then a guest happened to walk in. The man suddenly jumped to his feet knowing he was violating the rules.

"Oh, I see you found him," she said.

The man now completely confused nodded his head slowly.

"You may not have noticed Miss Lillian, but this man couldn't take his eyes off of you all evening. I watched from afar. You know how boring these events are, so I just watch people. At one point I asked him for a rum and coke and he gave me something in cranberry juice. It was then I noticed his eyes were following you," she laughed.

He stood there, "chicken things" in hand not knowing how to respond.

"Really," the young woman said in a rather campy fashion. "Then we really should continue our conversation," she said smiling.

He looked like a deer caught in head lights. They spent the next hour just talking, laughing and learning about each other.

"So, that's how we met," he told me as he reached for her hand. "I fell in love with her. She only wanted me for the "chicken things."

Yes, I learned all of this from saying "hello" to the couple sitting next to me. Imagine all I would have missed if I didn't.

As she put it, "It went from Heart to Home."

"I wish you enough!"

Bob

Think about it

2011-06-19T12:18:00.000+08:00

Don't worry, for worry is the most unproductive of all human activities.

Don't be fearful, for most of the things we fear never come to pass.

Don't carry grudges, for they are the heaviest of all life's burdens.

Face each problem as it comes.

You can only handle one at a time anyway.

Don't take problems to bed with you, for they make very poor bedfellows.

Don't borrow other people's problems. They can better care for them than you.

Don't try to relive yesterday for good or ill, it is forever gone.

Be a good listener, for only when you listen do you hear ideas different from your own.
Don't become bogged down by frustration, for 90% of it is rooted in self-pity and will only interfere with positive action.

Count your blessings, never overlooking the small ones, for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one.

Concentrate on what is happening in your life and be happy NOW!

We'll miss you, Oprah

2011-06-18T14:56:00.000+08:00

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege.

USE IT.

DWELL in possibility.

-Oprah Winfrey

Parenthood

2011-06-17T15:47:00.000+08:00

Father's Day.
You'll see all sorts of tributes this week.
But one of the best I've seen is by Art Harun to his late father.
http://art-harun.blogspot.com/2011/06/harun-bin-mahmud.html

My father will be turning 78 this year, and I have been lucky to have him around for so long.
The thing that struck me about Harun's article was the sense of loss so articulately expressed.
I left a comment saying that I couldn't imagine how he felt at that time, even though I did lose my mom at the age of 12.
I just hope that everyone appreciates their parents the way they should, and a better family unit leads to real happiness.
Which reminds me.
Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.

Crave

2011-06-08T16:02:00.002+08:00

From craving is born grief,
from craving is born fear.
For one freed from craving
there will be no grief so how to fear?

Actual Pleasure

2011-06-04T11:57:00.000+08:00

There is pleasure when an itch is scratched,But to be without itches is more pleasurable still.
Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires,
But to be without desires is more pleasurable still.

Retirement food for thought

2011-05-27T20:23:00.000+08:00

Strange how in today's world, everyone wants to "retire".
To me, it seems like everyone want to retire and die.
It's true.
The moment you stop working, the motivation and drive you used to have will be gone.
Because you are retired.
When I joined Public Mutual, one of the main goals for our clients is to "retire early".
For me, I rather term it as "re-tyre", as in putting new wheels on your car (aka life).
One of my business partners, who is the same age as I am, wants to retire 5 years from now.
It's not entirely a bad thing to "want to retire", but I believe it's better to have active retirement.
For those of you who are retired (for real), here are a few tips:

How to make life pleasant after retirement

*1. *Never say ‘I am aged':
There are three ages, chronological, biological, and psychological.
The first is calculated based on our date of birth ; the second is determined by the health conditions and the third is how old you feel you are.
While we don't have control over the first, we can take care of our health with good diet, exercise and a cheerful attitude.
A positive attitude and optimistic thinking can reverse the third age.

*2. *Health is wealth :
If you really love your kith and kin, taking care of your health should be your priority.
Thus, you will not be a burden to them.
Have an annual health check-up and take the prescribed medicines regularly.
Do take health insurance cover. It's a must if you can afford the crazy premiums nowadays.

*3.* Money is important:
Money is essential for meeting the basic necessities of life, keeping good health and earning family respect and security.
Don't spend beyond your means even for your children.
You have lived for them all through and it is time you enjoyed a harmonious life with your spouse.
If your children are grateful and they take care of you, you are blessed.
But never take it for granted.

*4. *Relaxation and recreation :
The most relaxing and recreating forces are a healthy religious attitude, good sleep, music and laughter.
Have faith in God, learn to sleep well, love good music and see the funny side of life.

*5. *Time is precious :
It is almost like holding a horse's reins.
When they are in your hands, you can control them.
Imagine that everyday you are born again.
Yesterday is a cancelled cheque.
Tomorrow is a promissory note.
Today is ready cash — use it profitably.
Live this moment.

*6. *Change is the only permanent thing :
We should accept change — it is inevitable.
The only way to make sense out of change is to join the dance.
Change has brought about many pleasant things.
We should be happy that our children are blessed.
That WE ARE BLESSED WITH LIFE.

*7. *Enlightened selfishness :
All of us are basically selfish.
Whatever we do, we expect something in return.
We should definitely be grateful to those who stood by us.
But our focus should be on the internal satisfaction and happiness we derive by doing good to others, without expecting anything in return.

*8. *Forget and Forgive: .
Don't be bothered too much about others' mistakes.
We are not spiritual enough to show our other cheek when we are slapped in one.
But for the sake of our own health and happiness, let us forgive and forget them.
Otherwise, we will be only increasing our BP.
For NOTHING.

*9. *Everything has a purpose :
Take life as it comes.
Accept yourself as you are and also accept others for what they are.
Everybody is unique and right in his own way.

*10. *Overcome the fear of death :
We all know that one day we have to leave this world.
Still we are afraid of death.
We think that our spouse and children will be unable to withstand our loss.
But the truth is no one is going to die for you ; they may be depressed for some time.
Time heals everything and they will carry on.

7 leadership practices

2011-05-23T17:47:00.000+08:00

I was lucky to have worked for great leaders.
Perhaps the luckiest part is that they were willing to pass all their knowledge to me.
Many people think they know what is leadership, but there's a vast difference between being a great manager and a great leader.
These 7 tips will be a good start.

1. Stand up and be seen.

Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.
The same goes for leadership.
This is not the time to lock yourself away in strategy sessions.
It is time to be visible.

2. Embrace brutal optimism.

In the end, the best leaders combine two countervailing messages.
JimCollins, a management thinker and the author of Good to Great, sometimes describes this as the "Churchill paradox."
On the one handwas the Prime Minister's grim promise of "blood, toil, tears, andsweat" in the near term.
On the other was his upbeat certainty that England would prevail "however long and hard the road may be."

3. Stick to the facts.

Nothing is scarier than a leader who offers reassurances that fly in the face of the facts.
Few believed US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill when he cheerfully predicted a quick economic recovery, nor did Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson inspire trust when he speculated that the first anthrax victim got the disease by drinking from a stream.

4. Tell a story in a statement.

Abraham Lincoln's story in 1861: "The Union stands for liberty, secession would destroy the Union, and therefore seccession is a threat to liberty."

Winston Churchill's story in 1942: "This is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end, though it is perhaps the end of the beginning."

George W. Bush's story in 2001: "They may not come to justice, but we will bring justice to them."

5. The bottom line comes second.

We should not have to tell you what comes first.
"The most important thing is to have people know that they're secure and cared about - that they're not just cogs," says Dee Soder, an advisor to top executives and the founder of the CEO Perspective Group in New York City.

6. Link the ordinary to the extraordinary.

In the wake of events, employees are apt to ask themselves searching questions about their careers and priorities.
With national security at stake, the thought goes, how important can my little job
be? Probably not as important as the work of firefighters and Army Rangers, granted. However, creative leaders find ways to connect the humdrum of people's jobs with the larger causes on their minds.

7. Do not overreach.

You have done everything right, you have earned your leadership merit badge, and now your people are giving you a standing ovation.

Next piece of advice: They are NOT really cheering for you.
They are cheering for themselves - and for the group's ability to unite andpersevere under threat.
Lose sight of that, and you violate the delicate compact between leaders and led.

From tranquility to wisdom

2011-05-22T15:44:00.002+08:00

When tranquility is developed, what purpose does it serve? The mind is developed. And when the mind is developed, what purpose does it serve? Passion is abandoned.When insight is developed, what purpose does it serve? Discernment is developed. And when discernment is developed, what purpose does it serve? Ignorance is abandoned.

- Anguttara Nikaya

Qur'an, Al-Hadid, Surah 57:23-24

2011-05-15T15:48:00.002+08:00

Do not be upset at the good things you miss, and do not be overjoyed at the good things you receive.

God does not love those who are arrogant and boastful; he does not love those who are stingy, and encourage others to be stingy also.

Which religion is bad?

2011-05-15T13:35:00.000+08:00

The answer is NONE.
There is no such thing as a bad religion, but there are a lot of charlatans in Malaysia who think they know what's best for their own religion, although they have not been chosen by God.
And by doing so, they DISCREDIT their own religion.
They THINK they are God's messengers, but their actions and words merely demonstrate that they know NOTHING.
And by keeping their minds closed, they become even more "unlearned".

We should all learn from this story.

Sakka asked the Buddha: "Do different religious teachers head for the same goal or practice the same disciplines or aspire to the same thing?"

"No, Sakka, they do not. And why?

This world is made up of myriad different states of being, and people adhere to one or another of these states and become tenaciously possessive of them, saying, 'This alone is true, everything else is false.'

It is like a territory that they believe is theirs.

So all religious teachers do not teach the same goal or the same discipline, nor do they aspire to the same thing.

"But if you find truth in any religion or philosophy, then accept that truth without prejudice."

- Digha Nikaya

The most important you will need in Life

2011-05-14T12:34:00.001+08:00

Sacrifice is greater than love,

Character is greater than beauty,

Humanity is greater than wealth

but nothing is greater than good relations .

How the system in Malaysia works

2011-05-14T12:31:00.002+08:00

Is the investment in education really worth it ?

BRILLIANT STATEMENTS ABOUT THE WAY THINGS REALLY ARE !

* Most 'First Class' students become Doctors and some Engineers

* Those who get a 'Second Class', pass the MBA, become Administrators and control the 'First Class'

* The 'Third Class' passes, enter politics and become Ministers and control both above

* Last, but not the least, The ‘Failures’ join the underworld and control all the above

Thought for the Day

2011-05-11T16:18:00.003+08:00

"No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Happy mother's day to all!

2011-05-08T15:43:00.000+08:00

My mother was possibly the greatest mom in the history of mankind.
And that would be a tremendous achievement, considering I only had her around for the first 12 years of my life until she passed away.
A parent would need to be a strong figure as well as a figure of friendship.
My mom was everything in that sense.
I could always talk to her about anything and everything.
No secrets, and she would tell me everything she knew too.

I've seen the light

And it's in you,

In everything you are

And in everything you do.

It's a perfect light

That shines for all to see.

It radiates from you

And has pierced the heart of me.

The light is from you.

It's a light that keeps me warm.

It lets me know how loved I am,

And keeps me safe from harm.

To you I am thankful,

In each and every way.

For you lift my spirits up,

With every passing day.

To know that you are there for me,

It makes me feel alive.

Because it is your light,

Upon which my love thrives.

So thank you isn't good enough,

They are the only words I know.

It is your light of friendship,

That gives my world it's glow.

Thanks for sharing your light with me.

For it is the simple things in life that

Are truly unforgettable.

Best 1980s Music EVER!

2011-05-07T16:39:00.000+08:00

Was at this place, The Reef, in Taman Tun.
Never expected what followed.
I mean, I'm just there for drinks, right?
Yeah, and the wild boar curry with Gardenia bread was awesome.
But suddenly, the band starts playing 80s songs.
I'm thinking, ok, so these guys look like my age, they probably grew up in the 80s too.
My buddies and I continue our 2nd jug of ale and a mischievious thought comes into my mind.
What if.........what if I request for songs, not so obscure songs, but still 80s songs?
To my pleasant surprise, they DID them.
Depeche Mode, Human League, EVERYTHING from the 80s!
Can you imagine my happiness?
The MOOD?
The band is called The Union.
Fantastic work on the synthesizers, bass and basically, the whole band is awesome!
Check them out. They're at the Reef, every Thursday night.

Are you ready?

2011-05-07T16:17:00.000+08:00

My sister was asking what was the job market like since she's looking at a change of career.
I was thinking, she's 8 years older than me.
What will I do if I were in her position?
Well, the only thing, is to get ready for ANYTHING.

I will study and get ready and someday my chance will come.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Reaping what you sow

2011-05-06T15:01:00.000+08:00

I like this story, although it's a variation of the king who wanted to see which of his 3 sons he could trust.

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.
Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different.
He called all the young executives in his company together.
He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you..

"The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you.

I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed..
He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story.
She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed.
Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown.
After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.
Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.
By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.
Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot.
He just knew he had killed his seed.
Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing.
Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.
Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot.
But she asked him to be honest about what happened.
Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right.
He took his empty pot to the board room.
When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives.
They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes.
Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!
When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.
Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"
All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot.
He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front.
Jim was terrified.
He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"
When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.
The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim.
He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!

His name is Jim!" Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.
"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.
Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.
All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers.
When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you.
Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it.
Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust

* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness

* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment

* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective

* If you plant hard work, you will reap success

* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

Finding what you love

2011-05-02T18:37:00.000+08:00

It's no secret I've changed jobs more than the average person.
Perhaps I was lucky.
Perhaps I was unlucky.
It depends on your perspective.
What has never changed is my belief in doing something I LOVE to do.
If I don't love it anymore, I can't commit to it anymore.
The story of Steve Job's life is something that serves as an inspiration.
Being an Apple fan from 30 years ago, I've always looked up to him.

The world renowned Apple CEO sells dreams not products. He is one of the greatest corporate storytellers on world stage. People love everything about him whether it’s his presentation style, quotes or facts about his personal and professional life.

Born: February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California

Age: 56

Occupation: Chairman & CEO, Apple Inc.

Education: College Drop-out

Fortune: USD 8.3 billion

In 2005, he delivered a remarkable speech to Stanford Graduates in which he shared 3 stories. The first story was about connecting the dots. He talked about his biological mother who was a young, unwed college student, whom put him up for adoption. She felt that he should be adopted by college graduates. When a lawyer couple turned down the adoption, his mother had no choice but to give him up to a couple who had never graduated from college but with the promise that they will put him through college.

And 17 years later, he did go to college but he did not see the value in it. So, he dropped out. He stopped taking classes that didn't interest him and dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. He didn't have a dorm room, so he slept on the floor in friends' rooms, returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and walked 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.

At that time Reed College offered perhaps the best calligraphy programme in the country. He decided to take a class where he learned how to make typography great and found it fascinating. He had no idea then, how he was going to use calligraphy for practical applications. 10 years later, Macintosh, the first personal computer designed by Apple had beautiful typography thanks to Jobs.

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” stated Jobs.

His second story was about love and loss. He found what he loved to do early in life. At age 21 he co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak in his parents' garage back. In 10 years Apple had grown into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. But, a clash of vision left Jobs unemployed at 30. “What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating,” he recalls. For months, he struggled with his fate and began to feel like a public failure. But, slowly, Jobs began to realize that although he was fired, he still had a passion for computers and so he decided to start over.

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.” says Jobs.

His last story was about death. He was diagnosed with a cancer. The doctors told him that he should expect to live no longer than six months because it was an incurable. Fortunately, after the biopsy, it turned out to be curable with surgery. The near death experience made him realize that remembering death is the most important tool he has ever encountered to help him make the big choices in life.

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” says Jobs.

Nowadays Jobs, at age 56, has become a global cultural guru, shaping what entertainment we watch, how we listen to music, and what sort of objects we use to work and play. He has changed the game for entire industries. His utter dedication to discovery and excellence has created a culture that has made Apple a symbol of innovation.

Singapore 2011 Budget

2011-04-29T17:21:00.000+08:00

Dear All,When I post this, detractors will immediately ask me to migrate to Singapore.
Why should I?
I love this country, therefore I want it to improve for the sake of not myself, but for my children, friends, family and fellow countrymen.

Do you know what to do at the next GE? Think and vote wisely.

Singapore 2011 Budget

Slew of Budget goodies unveiled

Singapore’s Minister for Finance, Mr Tharman Shanmuganathan, delivers the Budget Speech for the Financial Year 2011. (AP Photo)
Singaporeans will receive a total of S$6.6 billion of benefits in the 2011 Singapore Budget announced by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Friday.
$3.2 billion Grow and Share Package: The average Singaporean household will receive S$3,500 from this year’s Budget. This will come from the S$3.2 billion to be spent on the “Grow and Share Package” and S$3.4 billion in longer-term Social Investments for households this year.
All adult Singaporeans will also receive Growth Dividends to share the fruits of last year’s exceptional economic growth. The majority of Singaporeans – 80% – will get $600 to $800 each.
CPF rate revision: The Government will raise the employer contribution rate to CPF accounts by another 0.5 percentage points, from 15.5% to 16%, which will restore the total contribution, rate to 36%. The additional 0.5% will go into the Special Account.
The Government will also revise the CPF salary ceiling from $4,500 to $5,000 per month to keep pace with income growth in recent years. This will align the salary ceiling back to the 80th percentile income, and help middle-income Singaporeans.
Radio and TV licence fees removed permanently: The annual licence fee of S$110 for televisions and S$27 for vehicle radios will be removed with immediate effect. Those who have not paid this year’s fees will not have to make the payment, while a refund will be given to those who have already paid.
Mr Tharman said that’s because the fees are losing their relevance. He said televisions are no longer limited to middle and higher-income groups, with 99% of lower-income households owning them today.
Tax cuts: Singaporeans will receive a personal income tax rebate of 20% for individual resident taxpayers for YA 2011. The rebate will be capped at $2,000. Taxes will be reduced significantly for middle and upper-middle income families. Marginal tax rates will be reduced for first S$120,000 of chargeable income.
Levy increase for foreign workers: The Government will also introduce more levy increases on foreign workers for all sectors this year. Most of the additional measures will be phased in at six-monthly intervals, starting only from 1 January 2012, and extending till 1 July 2013, one year beyond the previous schedule.
S$10 billion home upgrading: $10 billion will be spent to upgrade homes and rejuvenate estates over the next 10 years. This is a major effort to preserve the value of HDB flats and will go towards the Home Improvement Programme (HIP), Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP) and Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP), it will invest up to $55,000 per flat.
Low-income groups will also receive additional housing subsidies to better afford their homes. The Government will set aside S$175 million each year for the new Special CPF Housing Grant to help the bottom 50% Singapore households own their homes.
For more details, refer to the speech summary below or read the full transcript here.
http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/budget_2011/budget_speech.html

What is truth?

2011-04-28T14:22:00.001+08:00

Lately, lots of personas have come out to preach "the Truth".
Fact remains that the truth is not what you profess to be true.
Take it from Buddha.

"But what makes these 'experts' preach their own opinion and call it truth?" asked the inquirer. "Is it an inheritance of humankind to do this, or is it merely something they gain satisfaction from?" "Apart from consciousness," answered the Buddha, "no absolute truths exist. False reasoning declares one view to be true and another view wrong. It is delight in their dearly held opinions that makes them assert that anyone who disagrees is bound to come to a bad end. But no true seeker becomes embroiled in all this. Pass by peacefully and go a stainless way, free from theories, lusts, and dogmas."

- Majjhima Nikaya

For all the Judges out there

2011-04-24T13:12:00.000+08:00

Pray, don't find fault with the man that limps

Or stumbles along the road.

Unless you have worn the shoes he wears

Or struggled beneath his load.

There may be tacks in his shoes that hurt

Though hidden away from view.

Or the burden he bears placed on your back

Might cause you to stumble too.

Dont sneer at the man who's down today

Unless you have felt the blow

That caused his fall or felt the shame

That only the fallen know.

You may be strong but still the blows

That was his if dealt to you

In the selfsame way, at the selfsame time

Might cause you to stagger too.

Dont be too harsh with the man that sins

Or pelt him with word or stone

Unless you are sure - yea, doubly sure -

That you have no sins of your own.

For you know, perhaps,

If the tempter's voice should whisper as soft to you

As it did to him when he went astray

It might cause you to falter too.

6 for the relationship

2011-04-22T19:51:00.000+08:00

Six Things Which Weaken Relations:

1) Misbehaving

2) Ignoring

3) Lying

4) Breaking Promises

5) Avoiding Contact

6) Doubting

Six Things Which Strengthen Relations:

1) Good Attitude

2) Helping

3) Trusting

4) Respecting

5) Entertaining

6) Forgiving Mistakes.

Aim high

2011-04-22T19:49:00.001+08:00

Aim for the moon...even if you miss you'll land amoungst the stars.

I LOVE LIFE

2011-04-20T18:25:00.000+08:00

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life,
and my loving family for less grey hair or a flatter belly.

As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself.
I've become my own friend.
I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that gadget that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde in my hand.
I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 80's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ...... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old. Perhaps they don't realise it yet.

I know I am sometimes forgetful.
But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten.

And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken.
How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car?
But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion.

A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning grey, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into grooves on my face.

So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. Or at least, it ought to be.

You care less about what other people think.

I don't question myself anymore.. I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old.

It has set me free.
I like the person I have become.. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.

And I shall eat chocolate every single day (if I feel like it).

Malaysia memang boleh

2011-04-17T16:41:00.000+08:00

Well, if people are dumb enough to vote BN, then everything also can.........like:

Thought for the Day

2011-04-17T16:36:00.002+08:00

However good you may be you have faults; however dull you may be you can find out what some of them are, and however slight they may be you had better make some-not too painful, but patient efforts to get rid of them.

-- John Ruskin

Thought Of The Day

2011-04-10T12:44:00.002+08:00

The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are;

first, hard work,

second, stick-to-it-iveness,

and third, common sense.

- Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American Inventor

What is inner peace?

2011-04-09T20:25:00.000+08:00

A tendency to think and act deliberately, rather than from fears based on past experiences.

An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

A loss of interest in judging others.

A loss of interest in judging self.

A loss of interest in conflict.

A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

A loss of ability to worry.

Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.

Frequent attacks of smiling through the heart.

Increasing susceptibility to kindness offered, and the uncontrollable urge to reciprocate.

An increasing tendency to allow things to unfold, rather than resisting and manipulating.

Thought of the Day

2011-04-02T13:54:00.002+08:00

It takes a great deal of boldness mixed with a vast deal of caution to acquire a great fortune; but then it takes ten times as much wit to keep it after you have got it as it took you to make it.

-- Rothschild

Qur'an, Az-Zukhruf , Surah 43:63-64

2011-03-23T17:20:00.000+08:00

I wonder if the Mufti's and Ulama's in our country ever came across this Surah.

Jesus came with obvious signs of Allah's sovereignty and said, "I have come to you with divine revelations and to render intelligible some of the things that you disagree upon. Therefore, be observant of the Lord and follow me. For Allah without doubt is my Lord and yours. So worship Him, for that is the straight path."

Thought for the Day

2011-03-22T14:12:00.001+08:00

Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own record from day to day, and you are a success.

-- William J.H. Boetcker

Let .........

2011-03-20T17:20:00.002+08:00

Let others lead small lives, but not you

Let others argue over small things, but not you

Let others cry over small things, but not you

Lets others leave their future in someone else hands,but not you

Things to give

2011-03-19T17:20:00.001+08:00

by
Francis Maitland Balfour

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness;

to an opponent, tolerance;

to a friend, your heart;

to your child, a good example;

to a father, deference;

to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you;

to yourself, respect;

to all men, charity.

Perak Mufti, do you actually understand the Quran?

2011-03-19T13:30:00.000+08:00

Qur'an, As-Saff, Surah 61:6-7

Remember when Jesus the son of Mary said, "Children of Israel, behold, I have been sent by Allah as His messenger to follow, whose name shall be Ahmad." Yet when he went before them with evident signs of truth, they said, "This is nothing but sorcery."