I'm not too clever because I got myself into the same mistake twice. Maybe it's a problem of self-control. And then it could the inability to say No. I'm the world's biggest sucker. And I'm cheap.
My friends thinks I dig these holes for myself. I can't really argue with that. The odds are against me (it's usually 3-to-1). It's a vicious cycle of committing to something without knowing exactly what it's about and when I do, it's 'not nice' to back out. So I take it on, on top of my existing load; I get cranky, grumpy, incredibly frustrated. I keep thinking the people are mad. Just insane. They're off their rockers. How can it be done? What on earth do they think they're doing? But I do it anyway. It goes on every week for six months until the whole campaign is finally over and then I think 'Ah, it wasn't so bad'. I tell my friends how it was actually quite cool. The people I met. How unbelievably amazing they are. How some of them liked my work. All the happy faces. All the happy stories. Satisfied smiles.
Then someone else comes up to me and says, hey, do you want to help me on this campaign? And I say, hell, OK!
Geez. The whole cycle starts again. My friends sits in Starbucks with an Orange Poppyseed cupcake listening to me lamenting the same things. 'These people are mad! Just insane. They're off their rockers. What on earth do they think they're doing?'
Sigh. They roll their eyes and tell me, maybe I should think I'm the one that's nuts.
Hrm... supportive. The odds are still against me.
But interestingly enough I've learned much from these projects. I realized quite a bit. I think it is possible to do something out of nothing. That as long as you have hope and faith. As long as you dream and take baby steps. As long as you keep trying no matter how many dead ends you meet, bumps in the walls, scrapes on the knees, tears on the pillow. Anything is possible.
The most important combination - the killer cocktail - that is a sure-win is Dedication and Passion. It is not passion that equals to 'hrm, this is an interesting idea. I like it'. It is 'I think this is a GREAT idea. Let's do it! NOW!' It is also patience and steel-like persistence. It is also also constant self-reassurance that things will happen. And the ability to transform all the 'you can't do its' into 'you cans'.
We lose sight of our childhood ambitions. Some of us may have wanted to conquer the world. Fly! Discover a cure to save the world! Do something life-changing! But as we grow up, we get caught up with the Joneses. We're too busy to think about world conquering plans now. There's no time to fly. Why bother saving the world when we can't even save ourselves. You want to improve life? Let's improve that weight or that wrinkle. Change? The only thing left to change are diapers and jobs.
Sometimes, we need old Dreamers in this world to make us believe that there is still a need to Dream, Act and Hope.
Last night when I was plagued with worry from What-Did-I-Get-Myself-Into-This-Time? I closed my eyes sleepily and heard a comeback line... Why Not?
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
It's Called Cheating...
to post a forwarded story on a personal blog. It's a good story which I think we can all learn a little from or else be entertained. It's possible I'll follow it up with my own thoughts later. But later. This is now.
"Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation? You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong...
Read the following story. It may change your views about life:
After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, two daughters and the many bills of a household.
He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.
He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.
You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words ... to beg.
The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.
Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.
Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.
Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.
He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of...
Now I begin to think and feel it too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps... no, I should not feel bad at all... What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.
"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have."
When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us. It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches."
"Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation? You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong...
Read the following story. It may change your views about life:
After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, two daughters and the many bills of a household.
He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.
He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.
You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words ... to beg.
The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.
Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.
Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.
Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.
He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of...
Now I begin to think and feel it too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps... no, I should not feel bad at all... What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.
"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have."
When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us. It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches."
Friday, January 06, 2006
The New MableTV
Of course I can't be bothered to update my blog. Can't you see the mossy green hue that's starting to bloom? The real point is, I'm not one to write. Actually I kinda hate writing. I like hearing the sound of my voice more.
I'm mainly lazy. With a pen. With the keyboard. With my arse. Sooo... one day, a very un-fine one, I'm going to pull the plug on this channel because the effort is too high a price to pay. It's getting boring. I'm getting bored. (Ah yes, latter's more accurate).
Anyway, I have been a little caught up with some life drama recently. And no, it's not likely I'll share it because this isn't a public diary. Never will be. But the point is, the minute you get settled in life; your buttocks get all chummy with the chair, life has a funny habit of kicking you hard and loud to jolt you out of it. Nothing is fair (I'm complaining in my mind that it isn't). I hate it. But I can't do anything about it. And no lawyer will take the case to fight God.
But Mitch Albom who wrote many many tear-jerking novels (who have successfully jerked the tear-ducts out of my eyeballs with 2 books) wrote a fine book called 'The 5 People You Meet in Heaven'. Wait, lemme go check. Yeah. That's right. Of course I'm not going to tell you what it's about. Get out and read it yourself.
I'm only saying it figures becauseeeee... I'm having a personal melodrama in my life and it's helping me get by it. Okay enough acting like House, I'm off to bed.
Watch too many sitcoms, it comes sit in your brains.
I'm mainly lazy. With a pen. With the keyboard. With my arse. Sooo... one day, a very un-fine one, I'm going to pull the plug on this channel because the effort is too high a price to pay. It's getting boring. I'm getting bored. (Ah yes, latter's more accurate).
Anyway, I have been a little caught up with some life drama recently. And no, it's not likely I'll share it because this isn't a public diary. Never will be. But the point is, the minute you get settled in life; your buttocks get all chummy with the chair, life has a funny habit of kicking you hard and loud to jolt you out of it. Nothing is fair (I'm complaining in my mind that it isn't). I hate it. But I can't do anything about it. And no lawyer will take the case to fight God.
But Mitch Albom who wrote many many tear-jerking novels (who have successfully jerked the tear-ducts out of my eyeballs with 2 books) wrote a fine book called 'The 5 People You Meet in Heaven'. Wait, lemme go check. Yeah. That's right. Of course I'm not going to tell you what it's about. Get out and read it yourself.
I'm only saying it figures becauseeeee... I'm having a personal melodrama in my life and it's helping me get by it. Okay enough acting like House, I'm off to bed.
Watch too many sitcoms, it comes sit in your brains.