Making sense of 'Positive Thinking"

"As human, how fragile and yet resilient we all are..."

A chat with my research student brightened my mind the other day, as I began to make sense of the rationale of 'Positive Thinking'. It could be all explained using Logical thinking and the principal of mutually exclusivity. 

If you see the future is made up of many possibilities, then here we are now/at present moment is just one of the many possibilities that took place in our life from the past. Put it simply, it is by chance where we ended up at the present moment, even if we had tried very hard to reach the point of where we are now, you cannot deny each and every step you took since you were borne cannot all be explained simply by your 'effort". For example, the fact you are borne to be a certain race is definitely by chance, not choice. If you can appreciate that, then it become easier to proceed.

If whatever that happened to us was by chance, then the happening of one event would exclude the happening of another. It is reasonable and realistic to assume that there bounds to be in most cases two likely outcomes, the positive and the negative ones. It is, however hard to value or weigh the negatives and the positives. Human tolerance may help weigh negative outcome and made things easier. Tolerance levels, however, differ from people to people

Therefore, since we have no choice about possibilities in our life that could take place and if it looks like things most of the times happened by chance, and more importantly there would definitely be good and bad outcomes of all possibilities, so isn't it better to be positive? To me that makes sense. Looking at the bigger picture, if you reflect upon your life since you were borne, you would realize as humans, how fragile and yet resilient we all can be. So, just be positive! :D

Comfort Zone is not that bad

"There is light in the comfort zone. There is life there. Stay and enjoy."

Recently there is a nice little video that I kept seeing friends sharing on fb. It is called 'it depends on what you believe'. It's about the process of having a dream and the barriers underlying it, which the narrator broke it down into the panic, comfort and the learning zones. It aims to tell people why sometimes "moving forward" seems so difficult. I then reflected upon my achievement so far in this life and asked if I ever was trapped in those zones. I guess perhaps I had, but it seems not in that linear order.

The most appropriate that relate to my 'dream' should be how I got out of Singapore more than 10 years ago. I, however, cannot say that is my 'dream' or there is a known 'zone' I was trapped in, comfort or learning zone. Obviously like all young people in their early twenties, just out of the University, you have dreams, you want to achieve so much in such a short period of time. And yes, what's the past that others expect of you or what they suggested to you affected your perception of a 'dream' to chase after. I guess I was quite affected by what one of my closest Uncle always believe, to excel in a job/career in "marketing". I was always aware that I was under the 'influence' (which not necessarily a bad thing, it could be a "good" guide) but on the other hand, on the look out to 'take control', so as to do things that is truly from my perspective. Being younger at the time, what actually move me forward is the fearless sense of 'I can always start all over'.

In my earlier years of struggle to make a career in Singapore, which is almost similar to this case, except that I didn't get myself into depression, perhaps I understand the value of knowing people. I guess it is hard not for people to attach any motive behind for knowing important people in their life. That is because that seems to be the 'short cut' to luck if the 'right' people turn up. To make it short, I did had my 'opportunity' knocking my door because I knew some 'right' people, though that was not the outcome I had expected. Perhaps it's the personalities, how you relate to people bring you some good vibes which could dynamically transform into all sort of possibilities, and yes, my personalities also expose me to both 'good' and 'bad' people, which I had learned about only after a few years, still I am thankful for the 'good' people I met along the way.

Sometimes, no matter how hard one try to make things happen and if they had not, we should ask ourselves honestly if some changes are necessary. If so, how fast such changes should come. Perhaps we may be so accustomed to the 'status quo' that we won't want to have any changes, which is what the video labelled as 'comfort' zone. I actually strongly think we can still see 'light' at the end of the tunnel in the comfort zone and live with it, as long as we know what we want and what to expect (expect the "realistic things" of course).

"Reaching out to your dream" means different things, in different stages in our life. There is no need to think "too big" especially if you are in the earlier stage of your career. Just do ONE THING, do it well and you know where it leads you to. Simply because you need a process experiencing your true competence. For me, I didn't have much experience finding a role or career that allow my competence to show fully in my earlier years, and I had then become experimental, aiming to locate where my strength lie. Having that in mind, you would find your strength one day and a job that suit you and then you  started to think about your dream. In the current stage of my life, having been through all that, "dream" is still relevant, but comfort zone seems more valuable. I am more than happy to just stay it this way for very long time because I simply enjoy it. Being there, done that, bought the T-shirt, like they all said.

Happiness and Luck

"Can you trade happiness for luck?"

Researchers never stop their quest on humans reasons for happiness. And the latest findings appear to, shockingly, claim that "Happiness is thinking you’re getting luckier than your friends." Some claimed that such happiness that derived by 'comparing with others', is going to cause unhappiness. The research findings didn't reveal how people would react if they know their peers are 'luckier' than they themselves. Will that make them unhappy?

Actually, It's quite natural for humans to compare with others. We always like to think of ourselves a little better than others, even in actual fact, it is not the case. It's the little thing that make us feel a bit better, and it is a 'good feeling'. I guess it is no harm having a bit of 'stroke' on our ego at times, as long as it is not harming others. Obviously, it is quite likely that, if we are not careful, we may lose our composure and over-reacted to the fact that we are a lot better and luckier than our friends, and that won't be in our favour, especially if we lost ourselves in front of our friend.

Reading the findings make me think once again about the nature of happiness, which in my opinion, should come from within. The appreciation, understanding and accepting of oneself. There is calm, peace and then happiness will eventually emerge. I would call this type of happiness comes with an underlying sense of purity. While feeling happy out of comparison with others, is out of the fact that our ego is being 'stroked'. I think both type of happiness are entirely different, but they do genuinely serve some good purposes.

My introverts Experience (3) (The End)

"..... It's the identity that gives introverts the source of strength to fulfil those dreams....."
 
"That woman is a bitch," said Nathaniel, who sat next to me in the plane. He was sharing with me about his family problem, detailing his parents divorced and falling apart, with his mother living with him and his father with the "bitch", It felt a bit different now that I am reasonably "qualified" to "guide" the youngster on similar family experience.  Nathaniel, who is only 20 year old, appeared quite open minded, however, and willing to share, perhaps due to his young age. I do enjoy my chat with him in this long journey. I saw that he was quite receptive and that made me open up to him about my similar ezperience. I told me that I had sought counselling help while I was 18 or 19 year old, and what's worse and hard to bear was for you to realise later in life that, things were a lot worse than originally thought to be. Understandably in situaitons like his or mine, it is easy to think that life coming to end too soon and hard to live. Yet, it should not stop one to puruse one's interests and why not. It is hard, especially if family problems become a potential distraction. I can see Nathaniel to be a potential introverts given that he shared a common interest with me, i.e., writting.

I can see that "writing" has served some useful purposes for him in helping him "describing his ownself". I added and I shared with him, how writing had helped me. It cleared my mind, It had helped me remove "chunks" of "thoughts" out of my "crowded mind" as I put down my thoughts in writing, which helps me see things in newer perspectives. More importanly, I stressed to him the importance of dream for someone with "dyfunctional family" upbringing. That is, it helped them find an identtity. If interruptions set in, like in his case or in mind, we found the "deviation" early on, and slowly we detached from the families and lost ourselves, It added to the vinuerability and potentially could turn us from bad to worse. If succeeding your dream is hard, then under situation like this, finding one's dream to pursue is even harder. Because you can't focus, you are too distracted. Like Nathaniel, he appeared like a talented young guy. He can write lyrics, poems, play guitars and even do consuelling for younger kids at school. However, he seems not sure which one to pursue in the long term. If one needs to fail, it's better early than later. Following your heart only meant you were honest and still not meant things would become easy. We always must give it some times for things to materialise and take shape. Thati s so much I can share with Nathaniel or implied to him.

I reflected upon what I said to Nathaniel and found that the greatest challenge for an introvert is in fact to find the identity. I felt weaker not having one, and more so coming from the family upbringing. I was forced to find my identity elsewhere. Perhaps not being a relative extrovert, where central focus of strength comes from people they actively engaged in, the "identity" or the "self-concept" becomes very important for an introvert and for it to be found. But, once this is found, there will be no going back, and everything that moved will be to the future, where the strength of the introvert will slowly emerge in the process of fulfiling those dreams.

My Introvert Experience (2)

Do you think you are more of an Introvert or Extrovert?
I think the relatively introvert or extrovert personalities could be nurtured. However, I guess there is a base for everyone, which then broadly defines one's extent of introversion or extroversion. The environmental factors then force one to act either inwardly or outwardly, and hence deepened or reinforced the existing effects. Then you may become more extrovert or more introvert. For me, I think I tend to be more introvert than extrovert.

How does that introversion developed over the year?
It all began in the family since young (and then perhaps that extend out later to social situation with friends at school, etc). The environment had a big impact on me. One distinctively different feature about an introvert is that, they "think then act or speak". I guess for me, I may have thought too deeply and too much, and I just could not speak or act appropriately, because those inputs that enter my thinking system confused me. For example, since young I have always confused why my mom kept asking me to ask my dad to give up his bad habits of drinking and gambling, because if that is the case, why my mom wanted to marry my father and what made her think that if she can't do that, me as a kid (8 or 9 year old then) would be able to do so. Family is an interesting situation to observe group dynamics and people interaction. I had tried playing roles of all and failed all of them, perhaps I had thought too much and hence often end up "acting" at the wrong time. In particular, I was not good at managing others' people anger. When two people fight, I found it so powerless to turn them around. My mom was angry with my dad because of his problem and my second brother always became angry after my mom was angry with my dad, because my second brother was sympathetic about my mom. I only had gently told him once, "don't get angry when mom is angry". I still didn't think he get it. Anyway, that's quite a typical introvert of me, think a lot, and then act or speak at the wrong time and perhaps using incorrect strategy.

If being introvert means "you think a lot", and looks like the family was quite a mess, were you depressed at all?
Now I think of it. It's true to some degrees that "thinking a lot" HURTS! This is because you didn't get a chance to let it out and you become so self-absorbed. One weakness of being an introvert is the inability to clear up conflict, given the bad experience with people who are mostly angry, it freak me even more thinking about clearing up conflict. I, however, don't think I was clinically depressed. I found a world of my own when I started to write. I picked up writing a diary at the age of 13. I found a place to express myself. I found an outlet. At times, I do found I was depressed but I soon "bound back". Being an introvert also helps me here because it helped me "detach" and learnt not to take things too hard or personally. This is because as I take a step back, I move back even more to be an introvert, and I began to feel a sense of peace and hence prevented me to be further affected by other people's (other family members) negative emotions. The fact I started to write diary helps me in a big way and give space to my thinking capacity and spaces. I don't think it is a strength issue that I am able to cope this, rather it is a coping technique (therefore this can be LEARNED, rather than STRENGTH which is like underlying in the personalities). Precaution is better than cure and that is why despite having a rather crowded mind at times, I never feel I was depressed or mentally ill at all.

Given a choice, do you like to be more of an introvert or extrovert?
I actually quite envy being an extrovert. They seem so fearless. I can easily spot a couple of colleagues who are of this type personalities and observing the way they talk and behave at meeting, I wish I could have some of their qualities. They are also often so fast, sharp and alert to react, and never fail to impress and with an air of effortlessness. While these are all true, but who knows yourselves better than you do. Over the years, as you learnt more about your weakness, strength. What you see and envied in others that are so-called extrovert qualities no longer becomes important. You accepted the ways you are and you are okay with it because you can equally achieve what the extrovert can achieve, with only just a little different in the impact and it does not matter because it is all about YOU. Therefore, I would be happy to be either, introvert or extrovert as both have their strengths. It is how to exploit them to bring out the BEST to serve your purpose in life.

My Introvert Experience (1)

".. these are just observed human behaviors, which can always be reclassified in different ways."

There is something that occupied my mind in the past few days and I found hard to make logical sense of it. It was an article about introverts that I read. I just could not make up if I were more introvert or extrovert. I seem to exhibit both signs at different occasions. I could, however, associate with quite a number of points raised by Ms Marti Laney on her blog on coping with being introverts. For example, I don't talk a lot during meeting at work, yet, I could not engage long term letter writing to large extent to keep a friendship (that explain why I could not make friend easily on facebook if I had not known them in person before) I need occasional meet ups to feel real, and this is quite an extrovert trait.

According to the book, The Introvert Advantage, only 25% of the people are introverts and if so, then that explain why there is always an interesting focus on this group of people, In fact, there is even a book about "The Introverted Leader", showing how much this group of people had intrigued both writer and readers leading to development of general interest.

It is interesting how the human mind process information and stimuli they received when they took in information. Being introverts or extroverts will process and took in information differently with different effects on them. I am thinking that we are all borne into a human body that has memories of its own, in which we have no choice, but we have control, control how we want to react and act upon. However,  introverts and extroverts are observations by Carl Jung about human behaviours. And human being is just too complex to have simply one way of classification. Therefore, if we relate all behaviours to the root, which should be the working of the mind, and where the maintenance of a peaceful mind could often be helpful (through meditation, for example) and can help one to be happy and build strong healthy self-esteem which sometimes introverts suffer. This obviously could slowly address some of the weaknesses issues appropriately, without having to feel "let down" because we are introvert. That way, extrovert or introvert will all be on equal footing or strictly speaking, no longer relevant, as it will be the mind that we are all focused on and make the best of it for us all.

A Value-Added Life (3) (The end)

"...removing wasteful thoughts..." 

I went to a "Positive Thinking" course recently and was introduced to the concept of "wasteful thought". Natalie, the speaker, spoke about four different types of thoughts we would daily engage in. These are, ordinary, positive, negative and wasteful thoughts. Example of wasteful thought include spending too much time of one's look in front of the mirror. Personally, I find positive and negative thinking are our responses to outcomes in life. Wasteful thoughts are instances where we are in a situation where we "over-indulged" unnecessarily. One other example will be spending too long on the bed, or some may say, waking up slowly (Obviously, we should not take life that seriously, but let's admit it, we overdo it sometimes).

The classification of these thoughts made it interesting and also easier for one to discuss its impact further. There are ways to deal with negative thoughts, as was discussed in the session. However, little was said about wasteful thoughts. I asked Natalie how should we go about reducing wasteful thoughts. She said it should be all down to our observation, which I totally agree. It looks like the central idea about observation could achieve a few things at the same time. This includes not only converting negative thoughts into positive, but also reduce the impact of wasteful thoughts.

Putting aside positive and negative thoughts, wasteful thoughts are less obvious and talked about. The perception of what is wasteful and why and how this should be removed was also not obvious. The fact that when a thought become "wasteful" give enough rationale and motivation for one to want to remove it. This certainly has an effect of "adding value"..However, coming to the conclusion about "something" being "wasteful" needs some efforts. It can only be achieved if we practise constant "observation" and being awareness as much as possible in our daily life.

How much do we waste? what have we wasted and still wasting? are we doing something about this? Does this affect us to considerable extent?Big questions, but address appropriately should "add values" to one's life. Enough on this topics, I should end this here, with those questions as food for thoughts to the readers to think about later.


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Who need anymore "time"?

"... When the right time is NOW...."

Steven Spielberg once said that, he loved what he do so much he didn't feel like he is "working" a single day. I often wonder what does obstacles mean to him? Has that ever made him think of the future and worry him? But perhaps it is the idea of "living in the NOW" that carried him from one day to the next? The fact that he enjoyed what he do seems to justify that. This interestingly mirrored what was advocated in a book that I recently read, "The Power of NOW" by Eckhart Tolle.What appeals to me in this book is the writing style, the sometimes poetic way to discuss the importance of the awareness of  NOW. I have not finished reading it yet, but I can see what the writer had written so far, was aimed at "describing" the process of living in the NOW, rather than "explaining" the importance to do so.

The author used two time frameworks that human mind adapt in daily life: psychological time frame and clock time. Psychological time is where the human mind brought the thought back to the past or into the future. Clock time is the time indicated by the actual clock time, i.e., the NOW. Explaining the rationale to live in the NOW, the author wrote "... if you no longer want to create pain for yourselves and others, if you do not want to add to the residual of the past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create anymore time...." This implies that the past or the future would cause a stir in your mind and living in the NOW will help you become peaceful and calm. This is not about avoiding the past or the future, just as a mean to see the way forward. Someone who know how to deal with "living in the NOW" should be also able to handle their psychological times as and when they need to

The author also related the issue of  "time" to "death", an issue that I wrote about a few times in my recent blog. He wrote "..... You will know it at the latest when you feel death approaching. Death is the stripping away of all that is NOT you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" - and you find that there is no death..."

The "stripping away" is such that before we die, no matter how rich or poor we are, we are ourselves, we face ourselves, not our possessions, not our  physical self or our friends and relatives, as they are NOT us. At that point, things in our life we genuinely try to avoid or ignore, for example, will come and haunt us. Haunt us because we are reaching our "exit" (i.e., death) and like a huge storm, we will be drown by it totally and so, we will have to face it. It is good to know what these are before we die, so that even if we may not overcome those issues we face, we at least address it. To do that, we need a calm and peaceful mind, to live in the NOW, learn to make sure our past or the future does not disturb us the slightest. That, I think, explains the power of NOW.

Get the engine started

"Yes, it works fine even with some mishaps...."

It's the bank holiday today and I already tried to get back to my normal work routine. So, it was waking up in the morning, going for a swim, then back doing dinner and then breakfast, and head off to office. I did what I planned out. I had a thought about tomorrow lecture and finding ways to improvise it and making it better (for the students) and started making copies and stapled them with the main lecture handouts. The day went on quickly. I even sort out the overseas voting matter with regards to the Singapore election, which appear to be taken up quite a bit of time. I then contacted JL in the afternoon about our research paper on bootstrapping. It was always nice and feel inspired chatting with him. He often appeared so energized and like a breath of fresh air. I also replied a couple of emails to students fixed some appointment later in the week.

The rest of the day in the office felt a little exhausted and I just didn't feel I can carry on with anything. However, I went through the stuff listed yesterday and think I should approach MW a bit tactfully. I want to be understanding towards him, but also not want to appear to be too pushy. I then decided that maybe I should re-read the revised paper I did with him and seriously think whether it is ready for submission and then sent hm an email to let him know. Perhaps that will be better.

I think I am doing quite well considering some mishaps happening recently. This time it is not just my fridge/freezer not working, but my shower is also having a problem. Put it in short, it is the temperature mixer that has a malfunction. But then, I can use the bath tap to run a mini-bath cum shower, since the boiler is working. I didn't let these matters affect me too much as I believe I had mastered a bit of the "focus" technique, which is why I can keep my attention at work in the day, which of course, more can always be done. I had just learned yesterday from Richard Carlson's "You can be happy no matter what" that "the less stress one experienced or displayed, the more receptive others are to our needs." This is important as I am going to report the incident to Nadine tomorrow. This should help since I had learned to take all these lightly or with a sense of humor.

At night, I had my dinner, played a bit of "bubbles" (which I also broke a record, so well done ME!) and had a couple of phone calls with friends, a bit of catching up and I already felt so contented, never mind the shower and the fridge/freezer problems. We should all looking forward to another better day and always trying to go on from where we stopped the previous day and never repeat things or procrastinate too often. As for some unrelated and existing problems, we should get them sorted, but they can also take care of itself. We can think of them, but not too much to affect us and get stressed about it.

Breathing is "healing"

 ".... it serves another purpose apart from keeping you alive"

I came back from Birmingham this evening, finishing my short but fruitful 3 days conference. I have email assess during this time and still able to receive messages from work colleagues. I received an email from AA yesterday about a feedback he was asked to give me about my recent application for merit awards. It kind of "stressed" me, as I am not sure how much more I need to change for this application. I know this is important and I want to do it right. I know myself, if something like this "stressed" me, then it will take up all of my time and unable me o be productive. Right in my mind, I now can easily relate to some techniques I recently learn from some books I read.

Yes, and I am talking about breath! do it 4 or 5 times, feeling the air enters and expand your body and later when you exhale, it tightens your abs and lower tummy. Observe the process. I didn't do this 4 or 5 times, I do it with music the background, and it lasted about 12 minutes.After that, that "stress" thought still lingering about your brains somewhere, but you have been able to get on with other work, so this has been helpful exercise for me.

I began to see why Ross Harris claimed Breathing has the effect of giving you an anchor. Like a ship withstanding a storm. In this case, it cannot stop the bad thought from lingering about, but at least, it helps you get on with daily life, which I had achieved it.

disruption is not so bad

"If you know the difference between thought and feeling...."

After writing yesterday's post about "De-cluttering", I began to see the rationale for having a "to do" list everyday. I think this is just so that you don't pile up things too much to the extent they become your clutters. I remember I also talked about procrastination when facing a "to do" list before.  What if you had disruptions in the midst of doing your stuff. And yes it happened today. Unexpected popped up during the day and disrupt my "to do" list!

1) Disruption 1(D1) : Saw J-Lu in the kitchen encouraged her to go the away day next Monday and told her not necessarily to present the research, which I later found out not to be the case.

2) Disruption 2(D2) : Discuss my pension with RW and had a bit of thinking, which was not planned before hand.

D1 is silly and stupid all out of my instant "feeling". Told J-Lu about it and then later checked with LF, and found that she wanted all PhD students to present, so it is a no no, she HAS to present the research. I emailed back to J-Lu and told her about it, silly as I felt I was, apologize for the confusion and she replied to say she won't want to attend this time.

D2 is not as bad, except that as it is money matter concern, I thought I need some second opinion. I was very close to decide upon an AVC and/or MP AVC with prudential. As RW recently took out his MP AVC, since he is reaching about 55 year old soon, he is often happy to share with me his experience, which is all fine. It is just me needing some time to "sort" things out and clearly first before I decide to participate in either the AVC or MP AVC scheme or both. Still, it was unplanned and took some time away.

If "to-do" list helped one de-clutter, and enforcing focus, then Disruption challenges one to distinguish between thought and feeling. I find that  Richard Carlson's "you can be happy no matter what" is a good source to help you with that. It explains in details the difference among feeling, thought and emotion. More to come on this one, but I just highlight that, page 75 of his book, which he wrote "Understanding where our feelings come from allows us to use them as directional guide they were meant to be. If our internal experience of life isn't pleasant, we know we are creating our own misery via our own thought system." is helpful to me with regard to D1, as I was feeling silly about myself on that one. Yes, we only have ourselves to blame if we create our own misery. In addition, keeping oneself calm helps promote good thought system, which also cultivate good common sense. As Russ Harris's book suggests, breathing is good way to help to create calmness. All well, ends well, and the life will end well :D

Never Wrestle with a Pig

"... I can already relate to the title as I already identified a couple of "pigs" in my workplace."

This is a new book I bought today. The title, Never Wrestle with a Pig, is cool and I just only found out what it meant. Well, never fight with a pig because even if he won't win, he gets dirty, he is happy, but you would not. As they all say, we all have something new to learn everyday and I just had mine today. One might think where else would one apply such an idea? actually it's everyday life. This quote actually refers to certain type of people who never want to move on, refused to see the big picture and are just plain stubborn. This could be very hard-headed parents or strict headmaster. It's an addiction to them holding on to their thinking as they refuse to change. The truth is that they will extinct in no time, even if they don't they will increasingly become miserable.

Okay, so what is this book about? It's about your workplace. Have you ever come across people in the workplace who like to argue even on the slightest unimportant things? They just dragged you on and on, drained you down and down. So this is a book about how to behave so that every step is in the right direction to build your career or business

The tips from the book includes the following
* End your day on time
* People who say they can keep a secret usually can't
* It pays to overestimate your competition
* The best ideas cannot be stolen
* Know when to say "It's none of your business"
* Get paid for thinking rather than doing
* Time in front of the customer is the best time of all
* Be wary of unanimous agreement
* Not every budget deserves your respect
* Learn the art of picking up the check

Obviously it is up to the readers to interpret the message the author tries to convey in this book. I just had a chance to read two of the chapters. "Friends don't ask the impossible of their friends" and "Develop Genius for Friendship". These two chapters talk about friends in business/professional contact, what's the expectation and what's the consequences of outcome and how to deal with it. It also talks about how to build friendship, and what it means when "giving people favor".

I can already relate to the title as I already identified a couple of "pigs" in my workplace. WF told me dealing with those "pigs", one can only be as polite as possible, and hope that they get pass you as soon as possible.  Those "pigs" are not very active in research, but more in teaching and administration. They like argument in this sort of similar areas to prove and show their sheer importance and existence, but they are just not very value added. So I am sure this is the book that I will enjoy reading and finding it very useful. I will come back again in the future should there be interesting stuff to share. I can already see a chapter on "time management", a topic thousands talk about and with thousand ways to deal with. I am curious about the perspective of this author. Surely his style and his perceptions will make all the difference.

P/S: Oh I forget to tell you. This book costs me only £0.10, and which I got it from a Charity shop this afternoon, even cheaper than the £0.20 "happiness" book, all of good value and of course, good bargains. :D

The challenge of a Minimalist

"hmmm..... perhaps start from your mindset...". 

Minimalist is not the topic that I first mention. I had discussed this before. Indeed, a lots of other bloggers are mentioning this too. Thanks to my Dashboard, I have been able to keep updated about latest blogs written by other bloggers and read them and enjoying them. Interestingly, the other day I came across a blog entry about minimalism quotes. It just amazes me how the sort of thinking exists in the olden days, and in all forms. I especially like the quotes from Wu-Men, “If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, then this is the best season of your life.”

This quote immediately put a smile on my face when I see the word "clouded". This was what I told my counsellor when I went to see one in my late teens. When he asked me why I went to see him and what I wanted to get out of the session. I told him, my mind was too crowded and it needed some spaces. I often try to rationalize and make sense out of what I told him and why I told him that at that time. One of the explanation was that I guess I want to keep things tidy and neat and therefore I also want my thought to be arrange in the same way. But, is there a relation to being a minimalist? I am actually beginning to see some similarities.

If one regard being a minimalist as getting rid of life's unnecessary baggage. If that begins with getting rid of unwanted stuff in your residence, for example, then it should all begin in the mind. Some thoughts are unwanted thoughts you can throw them away or simply put it in a safe place and not touch it. Interestingly, you can only do so by speaking about it or writing about it. And strange enough, writing blog has that effect on me sometimes. I begin to wonder if meditation, which supposedly is to help people to move away from thinking and focus more on observation, also help one to develop a less crowded (clouded) mind and moving closer to become a minimalist, based on my own theory as outline above. Interesting topic to worth further investigation!

"Happiness" is Cheap!

 "Yes and in fact, I just got one that cost me only 20 pence!"

Sunday is often a time that you feel "settled". It's a day you tend to do the washing, hoovering the flat, and get ready for the new week to come. So, Sunday's evening, after dinner time is the best time of the week. Normally, one of those "to do" list on my plate will be preparing for lecture, which I don't have to do this time as there is a 4-week Easter breaks ahead of me. Today is therefore relatively relaxed. I went for my swim as usual and then went to the public library and found a surprise book sales, all at 20 pence. I had a quick browse and found a book titled, "You can be Happy No Matter What" and I bought it.

This book is an easy-read. Perhaps it looks like another "self-help" book, but more importantly, I am interested to see what sort of "happiness" that this book is making out of. Honestly, who needs another self-help book when all that people talk about these days are "happiness" and "mindfulness". There's loads of similar stuff around and they keep on repeating.

I had a couple of other similar "self-help" book of this sort. They all central around the "happiness" issues. One of them talk about using the "mindfulness" technique, the other more creatively, taking the standpoint of "Time Management" to see how proper use of meaningful time can have "happiness" moment. When there are too many books written on the same issue, don't you think such "happiness" topic is becoming very cheap. Indeed, I just bought one that cost only 20 pence! Still, I guess it is interesting to read them and be aware of the style these authors adopt. Each of them see it from different angles, and similar ideas go round and round, each reinforces the other and when it reaches you, it just helped you gain a different perspective altogether and allow you to have your own conclusion about "happiness". If you know how to read a self-help book properly, you could end up gaining a lot more from them than most do! :D

back to basic

As I begain writing blogs few months back, I also learnt the environment in which the blog writing platform works and I learnt ways to make it for me to allow me to get the best out of it. There is an interesting option on Dashboard that allows one to list out links that one likes to follow or be updated. This is good because it reminded you what had changed since the last time you visit those blogs. It is similar to checking the "inbox" for "new messages", so I am finding this helpful especially if you don't visit those blogs a lot and still want to ocassionally be informed of new article, for example.

Yesterday while I was on Dashboard, I found some new updates on lessoninlife.com, one of the site that I linked with. And it says, "the 3 words that solve 99% of your problem".I find this intringing and starts reading the article. This is actually a very thought provoking article. It says you can always solve the problem by "going back to basic". I guess when you are under pressure, you seriously "cannot think straight". Often, the way out of this is not as hard as you thought. As you begin to calm down, you get clearer and the obvious solution just finds its way out. It is simply calming down and clearing up your thinking process. For example, like I had read before somewhere, one would expect to be very nervous and find things "all over the place" when you came home one day finding your home has been robbed, but after a while, you know what's the best things to do, yes, report to the police. So, I am thinking what the article claim to be "back to the basic" could be a battle of mind over the heart, rationale fighting and winning over the emotion.

5 "mistakes" YOU should make

 "Some mistakes are just too costly! Oh No!" :(

Hey, no one's perfect. He who believe he made no mistake is the most miserable person in the world, let not the person be you. Happier people made mistake as they "find themselves" in those mistakes they made and become wiser. You can be one of them. So, there is this website that list out the 5 main mistakes. Here's 3 of them it talked about. 1) Totally embarrass yourself. If you dare laugh at yourselves. You are perceived to be of "a character". And you are just "so real" and people love you for that. 2) Be willing to fail - do something you love. It's important to follow your heart, because for whatever you do then, the passion in you supports you through, and while you may fail initially due to unexpected situation, you are likely to go on, so do those things you love.


3) Carelessly put yourselves at risk.  No one said you have to know 100% of the information before you go ahead, I am not saying you speculate or gambling. Rather it is when facing decision on taking a job offer or trying out a new hobby, etc. Like what the article of rightly put it, "most of the time, a high risk situation won’t kill you, because you are stronger than you think. And it’s never a bad thing to be reminded of that". We cannot avoid making mistakes, and don't want to "make mistake" for a reason, but some of the "mistakes" are not really mistake, it's just part of the learning experience, get over it, everything will be fine later! :D

The 5 habits of happy people?

"Are you obsessive about "being happy""?

It's a bit scary to think that you can even be obsessive with "being happy". I love to visit some site that talks about being happy and then asked myself whether they have overly emphasized/simplified "happiness".

Just look at this site, to use as an example, consider the factor of "Be thankful". It said ,"this is worth repeating again and again". I would say though this is correct, it varies from person to person, and how this relates to people. It definitely does not work to be thankful for the sake of being thankful. My experience is that there would only be "that many" people (people I am thankful to are special, so it cannot be too many of them) I am thankful to, because they made significant impact on my progress. I thanked them and I recognised their great personalities. The only reason why this would make me happy, is because they made me see the good and positive side of people. That made me feel hopeful. This sort of "happiness" derived is long lasting, and don't need you to have "too many of them" to be happy. The site also "helpfully" gives you a guide to help you create a gratitude practice, which I am not sure if it would be necessary. This appears to "trying too hard".

I, however, agree what the site talks about "Enjoy the simple pleasure". In a way, it relates a bit to what I had written before, which I would regard it as a form of a minimalist's lifestyle. I like it when it says, "think babies laughing instead of Porsches". Yes, babies laughing are so heart-felt and heart-warming. When was the last time you laughed that way, can you still remember?

What is "simple" to you, however is "not simple" to me because we have different standard. For example, I often love to "laugh out loud" on REALLY SILLY jokes, especially when I was watching "desperate housewives", which I would tempoarily forget about the sometimes, overly exaggerated story pots to have a really good laugh. Some of course think these are "low class" or "distasteful", but what feel so nice when you can still augh out really LOUD. You look inside you, and asked yourselves, what make your heart-strings vibrate the hardest and capable of making you laugh like a laughing babies. Is there any? If there is none, perhaps you are being too serious? But, the simplest of pleasure comes from there, and at that moment, you had just enjoyed some "happiness", so go find that! :D

The 5 traits of charming people

"I don't even have to search for charm, I just be myself, :D"

When you are younger, you obviously look better (than when you are older), draw closer to people, attracting people attention becomes "so easy". And your look becomes a huge percentage of your total charm, even beggar can also attract attention.

When you are older, some say if you keep well, you can look young, women or female friends around my age, I would say, they often look stunning and make me wonder what went wrong with my life. Anyway, new research reveals that you can now nurture your charm or at least you can cultivate these traits to have them. I mean, these days, everything is so "manufactured". People go all the way to get attention, so why not have a look and think about the 5 traits of charming people.

I guess we all share these traits in one way or another. Normally is the approach you take on a matter or deal with a person that says it all, sincere or not sincere, real or not real, time will tell if you are "charming". There was a very nice "charming" senior colleague in my former institution. People who know her for the first time will know her to be the way she is, i.e., charming, warmth and sweet, etc. A little deeper dealing with her will tell you the level of trust and credibility you can give her and next thing, you know how to expect from her, still she is polite, but then you realize this is all "for herself", to "showcase herself" and you slowly give her less attention. I think she might have confused "being charming" with "being vain".

Anyway, people do get wrong trying to be "charming" and the sad thing is that, they seem the only person in the world who didn't know about it. As you grow older, even it may be growing older and gracefully for some, actually you only left with charm, despite the increasingly "deteriorating physical and health conditions", unlike the young people. You do it wrongly and give the wrong impression, you actually have got nothing left, impressions do count, depending on situation, in a rather strange way, I think sometimes this becomes more important the older you are, especially when dealing with younger people, like for me as I normally would have to deal with people half my age. But the best bet is to "be yourselves", at time this is hard as there could be some "esteem issues" unable you to "act naturally" and let other deal with you "comfortably" and then you do all the "wrong" things thinking you are "charming", but actually you are not, :D