hiatus!

After having been online on the ~Path of Time~ since 2006..... it is going to be hard, painful and sad.

As of today, I will officially stop writing on the ~Path of Time~. For those who have continued to read my posts, I thank you very much for taking timeout to read my posts. I am not sure if all my writings were great but I'll be happy to know even if it was only one post that reached your heart.

I may one day pick up from where I left off here but only time will tell. Who knows I might even start afresh? Until next time.......... time stops ticking for the ~Path of Time~

There's always tomorrow....

After so many years since the passing of my late grandfather, I still remember he's favourite words every time my grandmother nagged him about procrastinating and having a bad habit of taking his time to get things done - "There's always tomorrow.....".

In today's environment and the burgeoning need to make money and earn millions, that phrase may longer be valid. Notwithstanding that, I would still like to emphasize that sometimes there could be a great need to wait for tomorrow to do something!

Let's ponder about this for a moment or two. Speeding through things and always being in the mode of trying to get things done is good because you are efficient but whilst being efficient enables you to get things done, you may not be so effective. Okay, I admit I might be over-exaggerating on the bit of being ineffective as more often than not you would be effective along with being efficient if you have exercised due care in whatever you are doing. 

My point is should we some times take breaks in between and allocate tasks one day at a time instead of insisting of getting everything now, today, right this moment? You may not know it but today's world that constantly revolves on delivering results within short periods of time has made us into machines that simply demand things on go. In fact it may have even deferred from, "I need it now" to "I need it yesterday" to "I need it months ago!". Has the world become so focused on profit making that all that matters is that we just get things done now so that decisions can made now so that every single cent of profit can be made? Is that all that matters today?

I guess we sometimes forget that if we do take a step back and scan things through one more round before getting something done, we could be better off. For example, sometimes one more reading of the email before you click send points you to a couple of grammatical or typo errors, waiting one more day to buy something off the shelf leads you to realise there is another shop down the road offering the same product at a higher discount or sometimes by some divine fluke you decided to pump petrol the next day and find out the petrol station you wanted to go to got robbed around the time you wanted to pop by to fill up petrol.

Although sometimes certain things do happen beyond your control either by chance or some higher authority above, getting things done and having it now simply may not be ideal. Waiting another day or two really couldn't hurt anyone. At the end of the day, we are not machines that manufacture things at a specific speed, specific quantity and at specific time and we can't discount the fact that even machines fail - imagine us? Humans are prone to fatigue and wrong judgement calls, and yet we are pushed to perform like machines.

So, my grandfather may not have been wrong in delaying matters..... there really is always tomorrow......

you'll never get 100% acceptability

It is very common for us to get second opinions especially on the things that matter most to us like matters concerning our health, relationship, property investments, changing a car, etc. It is in such situations we tend not to trust our own judgement entirely and seek the opinion of others. Not surprising since the stakes would generally be higher when we need to decide on important matters in our lives.

I guess the main stem of the problem is all about trying to balance out the formula below:

PROS + OPPORTUNITIES - CONS - RISKS = DECISION

When standing at the crossroad of our lives, we end up trying to juggle how much benefits and opportunities we want to maximise from our choices without giving away too much cons and opening ourselves to unnecessary risk. That's when we start doing what we accountants call, "opinion shopping" - we go all out speaking to as many as people as we can trying to see if everyone can give us a piece of the formula so that we can finally make our minds. 

It is all well and good trying to get different sides of the story because different people have different experiences that can make us grow and learn. Whilst absorbing the views of others are good in terms of giving you a holistic view but we absorb too much of the views of others we end up with a myriad of views and end up spinning to many permutations and thus, blurring our observation. At the end of all the opinion shopping, instead of a decision you get indecision.

Hence, it may be good to sometimes just take some time out to think for yourself what you want out of the decision you are trying to make. At the end of the day, the decision you intend to make affects you the most so why let the opinion of others cloud your mind into fearing the unknown. Trying to figure out and break down every unknown in your life is as good as trying to play God and predict the future, which you can try and not get any results in a million years. Those who try, don't get it right all the time - weather forecast, stock exchange analysts, horse racing pundits, football pundits and the list goes on.

What you need in a decision making process is an acceptable level of acceptability - acceptability in your mind and not others. Set a threshold and if you think it meets that threshold, that's when you know whether it's a go or no go. At the end of the day you'll never get 100% acceptability for one reason - life's hardly perfect.