How do you deal with it?

Growing up entails more than just growing taller, looking older and in certain cases, balding. Growing up or older probably often involves a certain degree of pain. Pain because we tend to lose something along our journey of growing up as we get absorbed in the only constant in our life - change.

But the pain of losing something dear to us - favourite toy, favourite blanket, favourite pillow, will always linger because we tend to cling on to these favourite items. Clinging on to these items tend to give us a form of security. It's when we lose it, we suddenly feel naked.

Losing the attachment is what that really makes us feel that sorrow in our hearts, the pain of losing something. But I once read somewhere that sometimes even though we may feel the sadness of loss, our heart rejoice deep in us for what we have gained.

Our first reaction when faced with loss is typically stress, anxiety and sometimes anger. We lash out or try to reach out to anything we can grab to feel a sense of security like trying to hug your lucky bolster when you were a toddler. It is times like this we truly grow, from the process of evolution, we learn to cope and handle our anxieties. We are actually truly adaptive creatures, naturally seeking out opportunities in adversity. Every valley we stumble upon will be temporary and we soon find ourselves on the peek staring down the valley you just overcame.

Like waiting for your turn to get a train ticket in a massively packed train station during the holiday season. You can choose to wait patiently, knowing that it will be a matter of time before it is your turn. Likewise, you can wait with the utmost frustration, cursing the crowd in your heart, but it wouldn't miraculously move you up the queue. We just have to deal with it as it comes.

So how do you deal with it?

Maybe it's time to let nature take control

When we talk about movies, inspirational stories, success stories, have you ever stopped to think and notice that there is always a common theme across all the media mediums and genre?

Personally, I'd say yes - it will always be about someone following low and bringing himself back up. It is after all a good seller in terms of stories because otherwise there really wouldn't be much to write about and shoot about.

Let's look about real life instead. Our lives. Yours and mine. Our lives, if you ever stopped to notice revolves a whole lot of trial and error before we finally get things right. I don't know if I would be right to say this but it is almost as if it is embedded in our DNA for us to be naturally inquisitive - always asking questions about everything about us. I do not deny, it is this inquisitiveness that brings about progress and technologies that continue to leap frog upon exiting technologies. Progress has been burgeoning over the last few decades, to say the very least!

However, there are certain aspects to things that could categorically describe us as, "pushing things a bit too far". For example, when you if you drop a couple of apple seeds on a vacant piece of land (assuming it has the basic nutrients to be deemed fertile). Come rain and shine, what you will initially see are a couple of small apple plants popping out from the ground. That's nature's work.

Just leave them there and let nature take its cause, those plants will eventually become apple bearing trees. That too is nature's work.

Now, if you leave them alone for too long, branches grow out of control, dead leaves fall all over the place. Eventually, enough branches cross each other and the trees start fighting for nutrients from the limited land. Plus, enough dampness and nature's call will bring about insects that basically do more damage to the plants and the soil around it. That's nature's work too.

Question is - at what point do we step in to ensure that nature does not erode itself?

For example, as a baby grows up into kid, we step in to make sure school is there to ensure that education brings him up in the right direction from a social standpoint. Without education, a child is at the minimum illiterate.

Pollution happens, we step in to establish controls to control the level of pollution and hopefully have a more sustainable future.

When we fall sick, we take antibiotics and other types of medication to recover from the sickness.

Still in the beginning stages of the 21st century, have you notice lately, that we have not been very successful in correcting nature's cause? Flood becoming more uncontrollable, weather going crazy, earthquakes, volcanoes, oil leakages in the ocean. All this is happening and all we can do is be reactive in implementing damage control.

For the past decades, maybe we have been stepping in between nature for far too long and too much - building dams, hydroelectric plants, mining, tree felling.

From the context of an apple farm earlier, maybe it's time we stop trying to improve the apple fruit from the apple tree but instead try to trim the edges of the tree to keep them nice and neat. We may have been too near sighted constantly harping on the fruit not realising the trees have been growing out of control.

Maybe it's time to let nature take control instead.........

What about yourself?

I caught a glimpse of a tv series when I managed to get home early today. I didn't stay to watch the entire episode but I did catch a short scene from the show. It's this guy who is respected by those around him and is usually called upon to help in love life situations and family matters. Just like the counselor everyone goes to in times of need. So much so that his nickname in the show is, "sifu" which in Cantonese is translated as teacher or guru.

It was this scene where he came out with a witty plan to help a couple fix their issue. Of course, his scheme was successful and the couple was happily after. But despite all the happy scenes going about him saving couples' relationship, family problems and what not, he was not exactly the happiest person in the show having lost his girlfriend to his close friend (of which he eventually gave up under the pretext of "I just want you to be happy").

I know there are many out there who would think it is awfully sweet of him and romantic but is it really sweet and romantic? Honestly?

Being selfless is one of the most respectable traits a person can have, like Ghandi and Mother Teresa. However, even being selfless has its limits.

Like the sifu in the show, he made everyone around him happy by helping them in times of need, mediating couple's squabbles, helping in family matters but he himself was suffering deep inside without anyone knowing. He was hurting, crying inside. Did it make sense to go around being a hero yet living himself in shambles inside? I think not.

Before one can become one to be called upon to help, one should start caring about oneself first. Don't get me wrong when I say you should care for yourself first as being selfish but what the message I want to bring across is that you cannot go around helping others before you start caring for yourself. Being selfless is a respectable trait but being completely selfless commensurate to being foolish.

Put it this way, you can't be a squash coach without knowing the game, you can't give someone proper medical attention without being a doctor, you can't teach without first being a teacher, you can't donate money without first having sufficient for yourself to survive, you can't piggyback someone else when you suffer from back problems. I think you probably would understand where I am coming from by now.

What about yourself? If you can answer that question, then you can become the sifu to those who need you........... So, what about yourself?

you learn

Dark clouds, heavy rain, a long trail of brake lights ahead of me meant I was going to be in my car for a little longer. As I was cursing the traffic silently in my heart, next thing I hear on the radio is song I haven't heard in a pretty long time. Something I could reflect from what happened at work today.

Those familiar with radio songs will pretty easily pick up the song and the singer. The chorus really meant something to me. As I sat in the driver's seat slowly inching my car bit by bit in the traffic jam, I heard, "you grieve you learn, you choke you learn, you laugh you learn, you choose you learn, you pray you learn, you ask you learn, you live you learn.".

It's a pretty old song and would probably be more than ten years old but still very relevant to you and me (maybe not to you but it does seem relevant to me). It may not seem as what the writer of the song wanted to mean but I think if I look at it from my life or our lives, it does say something. That something means, we are constantly learning, every day in the things we do. Happy times or sad times, we can still learn a thing or two in those situations.

I used to admire people who seem to know everything. Always seeming to know what to answer or know where to look for those answers. However, there are those who tend to abuse that special gift - those who take too much pride in knowing.

There are times, when I approach people with a question only to find myself getting a long winded, convoluted answer from them. Worst of all when I later find out from someone else that the answer I got earlier was complete irrelevant! Worst of all are those who do not assist you but at the same time try to belittle you in the process. I am sure you would have had such encounters. Not very funny when you are at the receiving, I trust.

At the end of the day, when someone knows more than you, more often than not it is due to that person having more experience than you simply because they have done more in their lifetime than you have. Just like how your parents seem to know more about surviving in this big world than you. I don't particularly believe in a talented person doing better than a normal, average person simply because being talented only means you learn faster than an average person.

Never, ever, ever say you are not as smart as another person because we are all just as intelligent unless your IQ level falls way below the average mark. Being a normal person simply means we learn through doing, listening, observing, trying, etc. Like the lyrics I quoted, you learn when you grieve, you learn when you choke, you learn when you laugh, you learn when you choose, you learn when you pray and etc.......

Don't let anyone put you down simply because they know something you don't. Just because they don't want  to share their knowledge, only means you need to find it elsewhere and out there from my experience, there are plenty of people who enjoy sharing their knowledge with you (and explain it better too!). When you someone puts you down, you grieve but you learn not to be like them. When you ask someone else, you listen and you learn from them. Most importantly, when you live, you learn from the experiences you go through every day until the day you breathe your last breath. You always learn. Always remember - "you live, you learn".

full effort

Yesterday, I managed to squeeze out of office to go for my weekly squash sessions. It's a wonderful feeling knowing that I can go out there and play my favourite sport pitching my skills against someone better and to hopefully learning a new thing or two to improve my game. 

Half way through one of my matches, the resident coach there who coaches the state junior team looks at me and says, "you are very hardworking in the court!". I tried to laugh under all the panting I was doing and replied while puffing, "I guess when you are short on talent, you just need to rely on fitness to rough it out."

It was the same thing when I was training during my junior days, always trying to outlast my opponent and just keep on running until I ran my opponent with sheer tenacity. Until, eventually one day my knee gave some time before I hit the age of 21 putting my squash to a rendering hiatus for the next three years. But then again, I never really had a successful squash career since I had probably had more losses than wins at that time. 

Not winning isn't nice especially when you are competing against someone. What's the point in playing a game when you have absolutely no intention to win? Winning gives you a undeniable gratifying sensation in you heart but it is also something that doesn't happen all the time (i.e. you will lose too at times). But just because you lose doesn't give you a reason to stop playing the game. I have lost plenty of squash matches but I am still playing the game because I really love the game. 

But allow me to quote Gandhi (yes, the Mahatma Gandhi), "Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.". 

That is one quote that strikes a key to the very dot in me for there is so much truth in it. As much as winning is a nice feeling but there are times when the results become insignificant when compared against the effort put into the game. There are some matches that I play and lose but still feel satisfied knowing I had a good game, going all out trying to score good points. 


You've got to go at something knowing that you tried and put in effort into it. If you feel you can't jump, you hop. If you think you can't run, you walk. If you think you can't walk, you crawl. Either way, you'll soon realise that you will eventually reach your ultimate destination, your goal albeit maybe slower but you will still reach there. Most importantly, you will feel an extremely gratifying feeling knowing that you put in full effort.... because with full effort, you not only beat your opponent but most importantly, you beat the demon inside of you constantly trying to demotivate and put you down.....

be nothing before something

Take a step back, look around and what you will generally find painstakingly obvious is that we are shrouded in the world's countless standards. Standards that so called sets people, brand, items, animals, etc. apart from one another. You will always find that virtually anywhere in any conversation that someone is caring, loving, not sensitive enough to care, not smart enough to excel, too quiet to ever make new friends, too prudent to take risks, and soon you'll find that the list of standards, comparable and dichotomies goes on like an endlessly playing broken recorder.

These standards have become so commonly mentioned and brought up that it has become apart of our lifestyle, our very beliefs in our minds. The office is a very good place that demonstrates this. There will always be one "star" performer that everyone wants to be or look up to. I cannot deny that having someone to look up to and admire can be motivating but doesn't it give way to a proliferation of insecurities?

Before you know it, you find yourself constantly comparing yourself to another, constantly worried about what others think about you based on the standards and dichotomies set by the social standings deemed the gospel truth. But take a minute or two to ponder this - no really knows the truth, no one really holds the book of standards and therefore, wouldn't it mean that everyone else among us is just going on about their lives day by day trying to hide their insecurities, the truth?

Isn't it burgeoning how society imposes standards on us?

Would you then rather be something or nothing? By being nothing I don't mean you become an invalid but by being you - no expectations, not compared to or against, no hiding of flaws, not trying to live up to others' expectations but your own.

Seldom observed is that our weaknesses may well have been our strengths all these while but we have been clouded in our relentless effort to meet the "standards". By being you, you start by being nothing - stripped of all insecurities like fear, embarrassment, jealousy, and what you will find is you (i.e. the real you). Without all the insecurities clouding your eyes staring at yourself, you find that you can clearly find where your weaknesses are begin taking the positive step to better yourself instead of masquerading your weakness behind someone you are not.

One cannot be something until one becomes nothing........

question marks, questions marks, question marks........??

Ever wondered what it feels like standing in the middle of nowhere wondering which direction to head to? What to do next? How to get about the next step in your journey? Looking left and right into an empty horizon not knowing whether you will even make it through the next day.

That's one of those moment I feel I am in right now. It's almost like I am in a different realm void of all reasoning and just not sure what to do next. I am looking left and right really wondering if I can make it through the next day.

At one point I thought the first half of this year was probably one of the worse I have ever had but right now, I might have just dropped a step lower in the "worse" situation scale. It is even more perplexing considering I managed to get a two week break out of the country to refresh my mind and following that received some good news knowing that I have progressed yet another small step in my careeer. Put that all into an equation and I should be smiling myself ear to ear but yet I find myself in this situation figuratively staring at questions marks, questions marks and more question marks looking at all directions. A cloud of uncertainty, I guess appears to loom over this litte, insignificant entity (i.e me) on this planet called earth.

It is no doubt a fact of life that peaks and valleys appear in our life's journey and I can safely say I am right now in the valley. Not the valley of the beasts but just a valley. Most importantly, I am fairly certain I can attribute this unsettling feeling to the vacation I had.

Despite having a good time vacationing in a different country, having to open my eyes to a plethora of new sensations, cultures and experiences, it has one major drawback. That drawback is the fact that it has made me question my very own roots. Albeit the fact that I cannot jump to conclusions to say that my current situation is worse off than where I was vacationing, it does plant a seed to look myself in the mirror and question my priorities.

Suddenly, I start realizing I could be missing out a lot on my life chasing dreams that may well get me killed before I am due. For instance, a very strong undeniable fact that I am now a statistic, being a sufferer of extensive hypertension and will be on drugs for pretty much the rest of my life (lucky if the dosage does not increase). There are times even sleep becomes a luxury I can only hope for a midst the huff and puff of being in a profession.

Despite maybe having to be a little better off financially than others out there, it can at times take a toll on myself when push comes to shove and the only thing that matters to everyone is results. Again, I start questioning my objectives, the rationality of it all and at the very core is this doing more harm to my well being than good.

Like a fly which has only an extremely short life span of between 15 to 30 days because everything it sees, feels is in the fast forward. Maybe, just maybe if we do the same, our lifespan may well drop drastically. I am no biologist or a medic student but I'd say my rationale would be fairly close......

Throughout it all, answers don't fall from the sky or appear out of thin air and I guess I can only wait hopefully find the answer as I muddle through the all the question marks that surround me at this moment.....