Guess my worry wasn't too unfounded after all, but I'm not about to dwell on that. Instead, I'm going to use this incident to reinforce my beliefs.

1) In life, you don't always get what you want. That's just how life works.

2) The only thing constant and within control in your life is yourself. Everything else is subjected to change that we cannot control.

3) Always trust your instinct. Humans (instincts) have been around far longer than civilization(thinking) has, our gut instincts are far more developed than our thinking.

We can either whine and cry over a setback, or use it as a learning point to make ourselves stronger. I'm not going to whine and cry over it. All is fair in love and war.

On the positive side, this is good news for me because I'll now have a lot more time to study for my (concurrent) exams!

P.S. I'll probably be creating a new blog. So much has changed since the inception of this blog, and as I always tell others, it is sometimes better to recreate things anew rather than to improve from previous versions.

On Decision Making

“Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”


― Steve Jobs

Spent some time healing my soul!

Never settle for mediocre - Either you do your best, or nothing at all.

Today, one of the most powerful person in my company told me that I was well-received by various departments. It felt good. (:

The Box

In our competitive society, many of us learnt that there is a fine line between good and bad, right and wrong, and this line is pre-defined by others from a top-down manner — rules, laws, propaganda, etc. (hereafter referred to as 'the box'). For most of us, these control tools make perfect sense because it's one of the easiest way to ensure law and order, peace and harmony. I do not deny that.

But it is also, precisely, because of this that we gathered the notion that as long as we stay within the box, everything is fine. After all, there is no reason to believe otherwise. Or is there?

For one, know that even the most underprivileged person reading this post is probably privileged, by far. We have the luxury of choice to decide on our action today. But what about the people whose tomorrow depend on their today?

I'm not advocating that we scrap the law, remove the box. For the large majority of us, the box is there for good measure. It allows us to enjoy the peace and security that we so often take for granted. However, just like there is no one-size-fit-all policy, there is no one-size-fit-all box as well.

My message is simple. Throw away the notion that as long as we stay within the box, everything is fine. Not everyone in the box are well. Now then, as a community, shouldn't we — those who have benefitted from the box — help those whom the box have, instead of help, cornered?

Life lessons.

Two reflections recently:

1. Giving is probably the most taught least practised act in the world; it has no place in the commercialised world because it doesn't fit into the cost-benefit analysis template that is commonly adopted. Many believe that by giving the least, saving the maximum amount of money, they will have most and will be most happy. What they do not realise about their naive mentality is that he who is least caught in the materialism lifestyle is most happy, not because he has most, but because he is most contended with what he has. Materialism is a rat race, nobody wins at the end.

1a. Do things for the people around you, for yourself if you may, but definitely not plainly for money; no amount of money can buy you the happiness that many seek. Don't chase, because the chase never ends. Instead, learn contentment, because with it comes the ever-elusive happiness.

2. Things are to be used, people are to be loved. Not the other way around.

This post does not have a political agenda. Neither is it about rightfulness and wrongfulness. The agenda of this post is simply for us to reflect. And yes, we are going to talk about Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.

First of all, I know many of us, especially the younger generation, do not like the methods that were employed in the past. That's fine, because I don't either. But that's not the point.

When you participate in the debate of what is the right way of doing things, then either you love your country a lot, or you are a selfish individual who is too self-absorbed in your set of ideals. And because I am not interested in the latter, let's just take it that you are the former.

To begin, here are some food for thoughts.

We should always base our actions on the circumstances that surround us. In the past, Mr. Lee did what he did because, with his current state of mind and information, that was the best way of handling things. The question for us to ponder upon is, if we were to do the things in the past with our method, would we have the same Singapore that we do today? Did we, maybe in our harsh belief in our ideals, forget that we were a small place with no money, no education, no resources and surrounded by, if not water, neighbours that were very different from us? Essentially, we had nothing. So once again, considering how different things were in the the past, can our current ideals succeed in achieving the same as his did?

We should always appreciate the things around us. The fact that we are able sit down in comfort and criticize the past happenings is the result of the very thing that we are criticizing. With this, the pertinent question now becomes, while we criticize the ways that things are handled in the past, how willing are we to give up our current state of comfort for our ideals?

The main point is, while we are critical of the methods of Mr. Lee, do we deny that he spent his life trying to make our country a better place; a man who had unwavering will for Singapore to succeed since he started his quest in politics? If you do not, then I strongly urge that even if you cannot love way things were done, you could at least respect the man and his love for our country, just as we, too, love our country.

Of course, while we celebrate the life of a man who strived for nothing short of the best for his country, it does not mean that we have to subscribe to his methods of doing things. As mentioned, we should always change with the circumstance; because it was the best in the past does not automatically make it the best today. But this topic remains for the future.

So thank you Mr. Lee, I wouldn't be who I am and have what I have today without your sacrifice.

There was a time, when we were worried about our future.

Those were good times, because worrying means that it mattered a lot to us.

But at least, now we have peace.

No more worrying.

There is an easy way and a hard way to learn things. 
But humans have never been good with the easy way;
We always want to personally experience what they talk about,
before we learn from it. 

Didn't know that you can smile while hurting so much. It's like, happy but sad. Sad but happy. Whatever. At least some answers, let's just hope that we get some peace now.