What's Brewin' in My Soup?

White Flag for Surrendered or Peace?

2010-03-23T16:40:00.002+08:00

I remember as I was dating as a young adult, we would be considered lucky women if our boyfriends allowed us to dominate our relationships. If our men didn't listen to our instructions or heed our advice, it would mean that they didn't love us enough. This may be the norm in many new relationships with young couples, but as they matured, some couples might begin to realise their rightful positions in their households, while others still allowed the women to wear the pants in the marriage.

I finally succumbed to my temptation to write this entry when I’ve heard all too many times about the dissolution of numerous marriages due to irreconcilable differences like a previously ‘hen-pecked’ husband who refused to give in anymore, and a domineering wife who couldn’t stomach the loss of her ‘power’. Sometimes, even when the wife had come to the realisation that she had to let the man lead the marriage, the husband would have experienced the sweet taste of ‘freedom’ that the thought of having to go back to a once oppressed marriage would have been like asking a child to be friends again with a dog which had once bitten him.

I know that sounded like a rather harsh analogy, and the wives might probably feel insulted by this, especially when you consider that your relationship was built on love and after all the history you’ve accumulated together, surely your marriage would be able to withstand a mere temptation of a possible liberation, right?

Not quite.

So I’m suggesting that wives should submit to their husbands. Yes, you heard right. And yes, this is the year 2010.

I’m not trying to spark another drawn out debate on women’s rights and the oppression of women for centuries prior to the liberalisation of women. But just look around us. The divorce rate in the last two decades had been escalating incredibly. Our local men are marrying our regional Asian counterparts because they’re convinced that we’re too domineering while they are more submissive. Our local women are marrying Caucasian men because we believe they’re more sensitive, expressive and romantic. I have nothing against inter-racial or inter-national marriages by the way.

I know ‘submissive’ has been quite a taboo word especially in a developed country such as ours because being a submissive wife supposedly means that we have to serve our husbands like kings. So in a highly affluent society such as ours, where women are highly-educated, taking on high-ranking positions in the corporate world, most people (even the men) would think it’s impossible for such women to be submissive.
Firstly, let’s define what being submissive in today’s context is not. Being submissive doesn’t mean that wives don’t have an opinion of their own. It doesn’t mean they have to comply with every whim and fancy of their husbands. And it certainly doesn’t mean that wives are to take over all the household chores.

It’s about accepting the fact and setting the expectation that the husband should take the lead. Regardless of whether the wives may really be smarter, more intellectual or more intuitive than their husbands, wives should simply leave their high-powered job roles at the foot of their doors and come home to be the women their husbands fell in love with. Despite a wife’s best intentions to improve her man, she should leave the nagging, criticisms and dominance to the other woman: his mother.

You’ll be surprised that when you give your man the respect he needs (not deserves), he’ll love you more for it. And when he starts becoming more affectionate to you again, you’ll fall in love with him all over again.

Here’s an excerpt from the book “The Surrendered Wife - A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion and Peace With a Man” by Laura Doyle:

"In marriage, as in ballroom dancing, one must lead and the other must follow. This is not to say that both roles are not equally important. It is rare that I find a woman who can resist 'backleading.'
"I did everything he did," Ginger Rogers once said about Fred Astaire. "And I did it backwards, and in high heels." Although Fred and Ginger were equally skilled and talented dancers, if they had both tried to lead (or follow), they would have been pulling each other in opposite directions. Quite simply, they would not be in sync, but rather would be tripping over each other and eventually pulling apart. Instead, Ginger let Fred lead her, trusting that he was making her look good and keeping her from harm. Instead of Fred diminishing her, Ginger allowed him to be the foil - the partner - for her talent.”

Happiness Comes From Within

2009-07-31T16:09:00.002+08:00

What makes us happy? Owning our very first home, getting married, finally getting our dream car, or simply hanging out with some good company? Then why is it that a friend I know has all these but still isn't happy? Why were there multi-billionaires who decided to commit suicide after losing multi-billions yet still have a few billions left?

We were taught since we're children that in order for us to be successful, we have to study hard, get good grades, get a good job, get promoted, get married, have children and teach them to do the same. But no one ever said anything about happiness, did they? It was only assumed through the public media and the facade that friends put up that happiness will come upon attaining these. What we don't see behind those smiles and glossy ads are feelings of loneliness in million-dollar apartments, waiting up till late nights for spouses to return home from work, disappointed children whose parents broke their promises to spend time with them.

And we wondered why the divorce rate is ever increasing despite couples having had children, successful careers and in some cases, going into retirement. Aren't these people supposed to be happy?

If you haven't already noticed the one thing that all these people have in common, is that these people's happiness is dependant on material possessions, status or other human beings.

Now let's take my friend for example. He's a happily married millionaire with 2 beautiful children, whose business comes easily for him. But in the past 3 years I've known him, he had been so depressed that he had left town without a word at least 5 times to do some 'soul-searching'. He is so attached to the label of being the best in the company that he couldn't accept it when the group he's managing isn't the best. He simply couldn't associate himself with anything lesser than the best.

So if the world's idea of having lots of money to be happy doesn't really give us happiness, what does?

Firstly, let’s qualify what ‘happiness’ is. The popularly known definition in our society of ‘happiness’ is an emotional reaction to a pleasant event. So it's obviously impossible for anyone to be happy all the time because pleasant events don't always happen. However, inner peace is a state of mind that can be practiced as and when required. But how is inner peace defined? Just recall the last time you had no complaints at all, you're not worried about what's to come at work the next day and you begin to be contented with whatever you already have now: a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food on the table and someone to love.

So which would you prefer to own? A volatile emotion called 'happiness', that is dependant on external forces, or inner peace? I have chosen the latter, and I don't spend my time away in search of 'happiness' anymore. If it comes, I simply enjoy the moment and not be addicted to that high feeling of exhilaration. I'm at peace with the Now. Are you?

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. - James Openheim

Time Lost Forever

2009-02-24T19:22:00.003+08:00

I've been wanting to write an article on punctuality but haven't been quite motivated to do so without sounding petty. But recently, I was newly inspired to pen down some thoughts about this.

These days, tardiness is so rampant so much so that most people would not think too much about it. For instance, the bulk of the guests in a wedding banquet usually arrives about 45 minutes late and the newly weds would still be completely unfazed by it.

And with the advent of the mobile phone, we simply need to text a message to the other party that we're unable to arrive on time and it would seemingly cushion the effect of our tardiness. So if we had informed the other party 30 minutes before our appointed time to re-schedule to a later time, would we still be considered as late?

I wondered if anyone had ever regarded tardiness as a character flaw. When a person has promised to meet another person at an appointed time only to turn up 30 minutes or more later, regardless if this person had later informed the other at the appointed time that he/she would be late, the latecomer basically doesn't respect the other person's time.

If this isn't a character flaw, why would we not turn up late for an interview? If this is not a display of disrespect to another person's time, why do theatres not allow attendees to a performance 30 minutes after they have started?

If we thought we've never stolen anything before in our lives but have been late for an appointment before, guess what? To some people, we could be a thief because we've stolen a person's time. I know what you're thinking. What is 5 minutes right? I'd say the same if I was the one who's late. But just think about what one can do in 5 minutes. A stock could suddenly soar and a fortune could have been made in just a mere 5 minutes. A sales personnel could convince an order processing assistant to stay for another 5 minutes to help process a last order which could make that sales personnel the top sales person of the month. Anyone could have been able to Google anything and learnt something new over the internet in 5 minutes.

My gripe is of course not in the 5 minutes lost. It is basically about people's disrespect for other people's time. Plans are made so that our time can be managed well enough not to lose it. No money can buy lost time. I'm also not saying that we should throw spontaneity out the window by planning everything to the precise minute. But having to wait for someone who's late for more than half an hour and nothing else to do is definitely not my idea of spontaneity.

I know this is all making me sound like a time lord. That's if you don't know me in person. Because if you did, you'll know that some of my closest friends are perpetual latecomers. But I love them regardless of their flaws and beauty. I love them as they are. So instead of getting myself worked up, I know them enough to estimate roughly how late they will be and I'll simply come later than our appointed time and still be punctual.

All of us are living in a fast-paced world where we use our time to earn a living. So when a client or the boss wants our time at a short notice, we'll oblige even though we've already made plans to meet someone. So if we're able to inform that someone as early as possible that we're going to be held up, that person would have the freedom to decide if he/she can afford to meet later or perhaps bring a book or magazine along to read while waiting. All of us have the right to choose how we want to spend our time, and not to have someone else decide that for us.

“If I have made an appointment with you, I owe you punctuality, I have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own.”
- Richard Cecil, English Author

Staying Knotted

2008-05-12T17:42:00.003+08:00

I believe we can never stop learning about life’s mysteries.

It hadn’t really bothered me before that the divorce rate in Singapore had been increasing year after year. When I hear of yet another couple filing for a divorce, the response had been no different from one I would use when someone tells me that his/her dog just died.

Then when a couple who’s very dear to me wanted to join the bandwagon, I was devastated to pieces. So I confided in some friends telling them that I had to do something to bring them back together again, only to be chided for being a busybody.
“If the arm is rotten, I would chop it off,” said one. “He had already moved on. What’s more to say?” said another. “Do they still love each other?”

I guess these are all the common reasons in our unforgiving world today for throwing in the towel because we have evolved to be people full of pride and who can’t endure prolonged emotional pain.

If a spouse had been unfaithful, the other might be filled with so much humiliation and pain that he/she would cut loose in order to feel that he/she is regaining control again. If the love in a marriage had mysteriously dissolved into nothingness, should the couple call it quits? If these are the reasons for divorces today, then I think the divorce rate will eventually increase to 80-90%. People will need to be married at least twice in order to learn the true meaning of a marriage.

Many people seem to think that marriage is simply a legal document but failed to realise that it is also an entity. But unlike a business organisation, this entity doesn't require a capital to be invested in monetary terms. Instead, it does require the recipients involved to promise to love each other all the days of their lives, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, in good and bad times, till death would they part. I wonder how many people realise what an immense commitment this is. That's why the ones who do either decide never to get married, or simply commit themselves completely to that promise.

Is love even needed? Most definitely, because how else can it be possible to live with this same person for the rest of our lives when we've seen the worst of them? In the same context reversed, why else would our partners put up with our crap? I’m not even sure if it was the influence of the media that gave us the ‘happily ever after’ fantasy, that love had to exist throughout a marriage. Does love include having feelings for our partners? Contrary to popular belief, being in love injects us with those butterfly feelings for our partners, while love is a decision, not a feeling. So just because we've lost feelings for our spouses after being married to them for decades, should we divorce them? We'll be very blessed if we can still manage to stay in love with our spouses after decades, but how do you suppose our ancestors can still manage to stay married till the day one of them departs? It was simply a decision.

I'm not disapproving divorces either because I believe that it can sometimes save lives or preserve sanity. But I am concerned more about people getting hitched out of fear of loneliness instead of two emotionally complete people who appreciate and love each other for who they already are, coming together. If the sole purpose of marriage is to set up a family, would you divorce your spouse if both of you later learn that one of you is unable to do so?

We are currently more empowered than in previous times as loads of information and professional help are readily available at our disposals to spice up our marriages or resolve any issues, although both parties must ultimately decide to work out any differences.

But of course, a marriage isn't simply full of problems and setbacks. It's really about experiencing life together. The good and the bad. The healthy and the sick. The rich and the poor. Together.

I Believe in You

2007-12-11T19:00:00.000+08:00

I was just watching Seabiscuit the other night, and as touted by a good friend of mine, was rather inspiring. It wasn’t exactly one of those inspiring stories which would blow our minds or leave us pondering for days after that. It was just a simple and heart-warming story. Despite its simplicity, the moral that it was driving at can only be displayed through us, human beings, even though the story was centered around a horse.

For the benefit of those who didn’t catch the movie, this was as written in its plot summary:
In an era when Americans were in great need of heroic figures to help them forget their troubles, SEABISCUIT comes to the rescue. The picture relates a moving story of friendship and devotion in rehabilitating the main characters' fractured lives, as it interweaves the interactions between horse, jockey, trainer and owner and their adoring fans. The film accurately portrays the real people and events of those troubled times and how Seabiscuit "fixed us, every one of us."

The jockey, trainer and the horse were all viewed upon by society as failures and nobody took them seriously. The four of them, including Seabiscuit were brought together simply because the owner saw something unique in the trainer despite being a little ‘broken’. Amidst adversities, the union brought about numerous wins and captured the hearts of many.

Now how often do we have the faith and belief of our friends or loved ones that we’ll succeed even though we’ve failed so many times? And I don’t mean those people who pat you on your back and say in a bubbly, high-pitched tone, “aiya you can do it lah!” That sounded more like someone thinking, I better seem supportive so that in case this loser really succeeds, he/she would remember that I supported him/her and will hopefully share his/her wealth with me in the future. Or in a more politically-correct term, patronising.

Would you buy a racehorse which was smaller in size as compared with the other horses, had never won a race and had a track record of being lazy? So what was it that the trainer and the jockey saw in Seabiscuit that the rest of the world couldn’t see initially? I’m sure you’ve heard that many success stories came from people who were one or many-time failures. Bill Gates was a Harvard dropout. Sim Wong Hoo managed to attain his Polytechnic Diploma by scrapping through his exams. Tom Cruise was born dyslexic. Yeah, we’ve heard them all. But yet, why do we still so quickly doubt a friend’s or loved one’s ability to succeed?

Now let’s imagine that you were approached by a consultant in a fairly new spa and after a presentation of its benefits decided to buy a course of spa treatments. You most likely would have no idea of what kind of background the consultant came from as well as the background of the owner of the spa. You simply made your decision to buy the package because you had faith that the spa will still be in existence for many years to come and offer you the benefits as promised.

Let’s now imagine that it’s a friend who set up this spa and came to you and asked you to part with over $1,000 to get that same course of spa treatments. You’re also aware that this friend of yours is quite a dreamer and have tried many new career pursuits. Would you still buy that spa package?

So my takeaway for this entry here before I call it a day is that sometimes in order to have faith in someone, success is irrelevant.

The Reality of Tying the Knot

2007-11-03T15:13:00.000+08:00

I had a misconception once about what I thought a marriage was supposed to be. It seemed like the 'normal' thing to do once we've come of age and attached to someone for a reasonable period of time. I thought that marriage was the end of the dating game and the start of another game called 'playing house'. My ex and I sure enjoyed 'playing house' during the first year of our marriage and it was a really blissful novelty of a life. When the novelty wore off, I realised what a mistake I had made. I only liked the idea of a marriage but I didn't exactly marry the man whom I loved. I married him simply because he was the man I was still attached to at the time when I fell in love with the concept of marriage.

So to cut a long story short, I later discovered that my ex had been cheating on me with many women. I wanted to give him a chance to save our marriage provided he gave up this philandering lifestyle of his but he refused. Well, at least one of us came into the marriage well aware of the life that was expected. My ex wanted a happy family with a string of women he could date at his whim and fancy.

I have also known of many couples who were almost forced into marriage due to their circumstances or pressure. Of course there were also the fairytale couples who got married simply because they loved each other. But whatever the reasons, most of us weren't quite expecting what marriage had in-stored for us.

I know of a couple who've been together for over a decade, but at the first trouble the wife was put through, the husband bailed, despite the wife standing by him through all his previous troubles.

Another husband I know is also having trouble in his marriage but still can't quite make up his mind on whether to file for the divorce or work on the marriage. So he chose to live in denial by not addressing the problem, while trying his hand in dating so that maybe finding someone else will motivate him to end his marriage.
I know all these examples are making the men look really immature, but I'm sure there are also women behaving in this same way. I just don't know of any within my circle of friends, so please forgive me because that is not my intention.

My intention, however, is to help people realise that a high level of respect and maturity is required for a successful marriage. A successful marriage isn't one without dysfunctions. A successful marriage could even be one which had suffered infidelity or abuse. But a successful marriage is definitely one where both spouses are mature enough to solve a problem together regardless of how difficult, painful or prolonged it is. It's just the same as when a problem arises in an organisation, we can never simply sweep it under the carpet and pretend that it never existed. But why is it that we're willing to resolve issues for an organisation which we might be bound to up till retirement but not resolve issues with our spouses whom we are bound to for the rest of our lives?

So for those who have an issue with committing to marriage for fear that you'll contribute to the statistics of the divorce rate, you simply need to love your partner enough to respect his/her effort to be with you. You might think that you're making a huge sacrifice by staying exclusive to one man/woman for the rest of your life. But in case you don't already know, so is your partner. Regardless of how fortunate or grateful you think your partner should be that you chose him/her, there will definitely be someone else out there who will appreciate him/her just as much. I guarantee it!

And once you understand that you're in this for the long haul, you'll also realise that for two people to be living together for the rest of their lives in harmony, communication is crucial because we must never assume that having been together long enough gives us telepathic abilities. There's never an issue which is too trivial to be trashed out because it's also the accumulation of many trivial issues that causes explosive outbursts in a relationship.

So in my opinion, two simple rules for a long-lasting marriage. Don't agree? I'll dare you to a debate to prove that it all boils down to two simple attributes. Try me.

Think and You Shall Receive

2007-06-25T18:53:00.000+08:00

If you’ve been reading my previous blogs, you’ll realise that I discuss a lot about the power of our minds. Now let me put it out to you that our minds are so powerful that if we only need to focus, we can have anything we want. Regardless of whether it’s prosperity, loving relationships, health or anything we can conceive, we can have it.

Before you start thinking that I’m blabbering about my ‘power of the mind’ crap again, let’s talk about this more theoretically. I’m sure you must have heard it thousands of times that our lives are in our hands. As much as we always agree with that, do we actually believe it? So what do you believe? Do you believe in the universe? Do you believe in the solar system? So you must also believe in the existence of our planet Earth, which contains human beings such as ourselves. And within each human being is the organs system, which contains cells, which contains molecules, which contains atoms and finally, deep beneath all that, is energy. We are energy, and we are an energy source which would have enough power to illuminate a city for a week!

So if we actually radiate energy, we should also be able to feel the energy or vibration of others. But have you thought about what kind of energy we're emitting to the world?

Lisa Nichols, a motivational speaker and powerful advocate of personal empowerment and emotional healthiness, used to think that the only way she could gain love was through sex. So she jumped from one sexual partner to another just to get a little love, until she chanced upon The Secret. Through this theology, she learnt that the reason why she couldn’t find a man to love her was because she couldn’t love herself. She couldn’t love herself because she felt that she didn’t deserve it. And when she felt this way, she sent out a subconscious negative vibration to men who would then subconsciously receive it and get the impression that she’s only good for casual relationships. We become what we think. If we think that nobody will love us for who we are because we are not physically attractive, not intelligent, not rich or whatever lame excuses we can conjure up, nobody will love us.

So now that you’ve gotten a brief idea of the concept of the Law of Vibration, you’ll probably understand how the Law of Attraction works. Have you had a day that had gone so bad that just when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse, it did? Is it all a coincidence? Our unfavourable circumstances will always become more unfavourable if we keep using our energies to focus on the unfavourable areas of our lives. We would practically be feeding these negativities with more power to manifest into something that is more negative through the Law of Attraction. But if we learn to shift our focus to the more positive aspects of our lives like having a job, clothes on our backs, someone who loves us, enough money to buy our favourite coffee, and simply be grateful for what we already have, positivity WILL be attracted to us. I guarantee it!

So instead of thinking about how little money you have in your bank account, think about how much you can save if you take the bus instead of a cab, where ‘save’ is the objective word which means you have an abundance. Instead of dreading illness, love good health. Instead of thinking about how obedient other people’s children are, be grateful that you have children to love. That is why even Mother Theresa would never attend an Anti-war rally, but would instead definitely attend a Peace rally. See the difference?

When we start thinking positively, we become happy. When we’re happy, we become inspired. When we’re inspired, we become creative. When we become creative, we discover new ways of improving our work and ultimately reaping the results of our good works.

So never under-estimate the power of our minds or think that we can only achieve so much, because our bodies are distracting us from who we really are. Our bodies are simply physical components that carries out what our minds visualise ourselves to do.

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it, can achieve it.”
- W. Clement Stone

Go For Goals

2006-10-31T15:19:00.002+08:00

I’ve heard so many times about how important it is for us to set goals if we intend to be successful. I’ve even been shown a chart of the percentage of people interviewed on how well they’ve set their goals. Apparently, only 3% of the survey group had definite, concrete and written goals. And later in life, these small groups of people became highly successful as compared to the rest who fell into the ‘Moderately Comfortable’, ‘Getting By’ and ‘Struggling’ categories of the financial scale where they either have a fairly good notion of their aims and objectives, have some thought only in the financial area or have no goals at all. Seeing the figures didn’t quite affect me at all because I remember actually writing down my 5-year and 10-year goals respectively when I was in my mid twenties and I am now not even remotely close to any of those goals. So I resigned to the fact that stating down my goals just didn’t work for me.

If I had known I was going to attend a talk about goal-setting a few days ago, I probably might have conjured up an excuse not to attend it. I actually thought I was about to attend a talk by this Caucasian guy who’ll impart us some skills on being a fantastic sales person.

Then John Kanary, author of the acclaimed book, Breaking Through Limitations, hit me right on the money when he gave us the reasons why many people don’t achieve their goals. They are:-
1. No clarity
2. We don’t believe we can pull it off
3. We lack commitment
4. No consistency
5. Lack of standards. Either too low or no standards at all.

In my line of work, it’s good to know what my clients’ goals are in their personal lives. And I’m still quite surprised sometimes when most of them don’t seem to have any set out before I asked them this question. Even if they had, they were mostly vague. Firstly, let us not confuse ‘goals’ with ‘dreams’. Dreams are something we fantasise about (and I don’t mean the type that involves costumes or props!). So it can be something as far-fetched as having my own vegetable garden. Yes, I do dream about that. And would you think it’s easier for people to have thought about their dreams? Interestingly, many I asked also haven’t thought about it until I asked.

Have we been so caught up in this rat race of ours that we’ve forgotten how to dream and are afraid to set goals for ourselves for fear that we’ll only prove in time that we’re failures?

WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT. Just think about it. If we go about our lives not imagining what we will become 20 years later, would it be a wonder if we’re still in the same state as we were 20 years ago?

If you’ve read my previous blog entries, you’ll know that I’m a great believer of the power of the mind. For instance, what made us believe that there were 9 planets in our solar system when there’s now 12? We know nuts about astronomy and simply believed that there were 9 planets just because we’re being told. Do you call this a belief?

So let’s set ourselves an achievable goal like owning our favourite car. Writing down that goal alone might not work because we may not believe that we can pull it off. So why don’t we go down to the car dealership and see that car right before our eyes? But instead of just seeing it, why don’t we get inside it and feel the wonderful interiors? And while we’re at it, get our friend to take a picture of us inside the car. If the car dealer would allow us, take more pictures of ourselves outside or even on the car. Later, have those pictures placed up so we can see them everyday. What we’re trying to do here is to get ourselves emotionally involved with our goal and let it get into our sub-consciousness. Because once it gets in there, we won’t be able to tell if it’s real or not. The next time we feel down and out, we can also look at those pictures and visualise ourselves enjoying our reward when we attain it. Get my drift?

Beliefs begin with a shift in our focus. For those who claim that they have no goals because they don’t know what they want, have you been asked if it’s this that you want or that, and then you go, “no, that’s not what I want.”? Don’t you think then, that actually you do know what you want but just don’t want to see it? You’re just not letting yourself focus on what you want. Have you noticed that when we’re talking on our mobile phones while we’re walking or driving, we tend to slow down our pace? We do this because our primary focus was in the conversation and not our destination. So if you think you are feeling a little lost, you’re not. You’re just not focused on where you’re going.

So we should spend some time visualising who we’d like to become or where we’d like to be in the future. It might just help give us a purpose in going about our lives.

“What lies before you and what lies behind you are tiny matters compared to what lies within you”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why the World Needs Superman

2006-07-05T09:29:00.000+08:00

Can you imagine our world without Superman? I’m not referring to having a physical Superman in our midst, but the idea of Superman.

We probably won’t be saying something like, “you want me to do all this in 15 minutes? Who do you think I am? Superman?”, or have songs like “I am Superman” by R.E.M. and “Pocketful of Kryptonite” by the Spin Doctors.

Created in the early 1930s by two 17-year-old boys, Superman is possibly the pioneer of all super heroes and the best of the lot even after 70 years since its birth. And why is he such a classic that’s so well-loved by generations?

Let’s see…. He doesn’t possess any fantasy of wanting to be an animal or insect, he’s not born of this world which practically makes him an alien, but looks exactly like a human being with all of our human emotions packaged in.

Like what we imagine an alien would want to do, Superman was destined to rule our world. But having been brought up by a morally righteous couple, he grew up loving our world and marveling the human spirit. He takes our positive attributes like love, compassion, loyalty, inspiration and glorifies them. He’s practically the embodiment of a perfect man, who also happens to have super powers. To top it all off, he does all this world-saving stuff with a smile!

Hmm… Somehow, this reminds me of another man, born about 2000 years ago who also possesses these characteristics.

And what makes Superman so believable is that like the rest of us, he too has his weakness. An out-of-this-world one that can even give humans the power to cripple him if we choose to. But even as he’s being weakened by the Kryptonite, he never failed to either use his determination to overcome his weakness or motivate another human being to lend a helping hand, thus showing us that any one of us can be a hero if we let our positive human strengths to shine through. And despite numerous evil humans who tried to destroy him, he kept to his faith that we are worthy of his rescue and chose to save the world rather than rule it.

Now apart from his super powers, don’t you think all of us should aspire to be or at least look up to a hero like that with the courage to go against all odds to preserve humanity?

"I will always be around"
- Superman Returns

If Wishes Came True

2006-05-04T10:27:00.000+08:00

I’ve got a friend who’s rather pessimistic about change or anything non-conforming. Every time I tried to confide in him in the hope of getting some form of emotional support for a new endeavour in my life, he’d never fail to off-load his list of negative consequences to me. I’d usually either spend half the time of our meeting defending my decision for this change or simply go home feeling disheartened. A mutual friend of ours concurred to this too and she now knows better than to approach him if she only needed to hear comforting words.

Oh, I’m not saying he’s a bad person. We all know he’s doing this out of concern. He once even told me, after I made a complaint, that if he didn’t regard me as his friend, he wouldn’t be bothered to caution me about the possible setbacks. I wish I could tell you some of the so-called ‘possible’ negative consequences he managed to contrive that got me into stitches. Now before you start thinking that I’m trying to blog-bash my friend here, hold your horses.

I’m sure many of us have been guilty of being pessimistic towards a friend before, who only wanted our encouragement at that time. I remembered having negative thoughts rushing through my brain immediately when a friend told me she’s about to marry a guy whom she had known for only 6 months. I gave her a diabetically sugar-coated version of urging her to consider again.

Should we really blame ourselves for being negative and pessimistic about things which are too good to be true? Of course our government wasn’t giving us money simply because we’ve really contributed to the success of our economy, some say. Nothing catches our attention more these days than cover stories in magazines like ‘I Paid My Husband to Have Sex with Me’ or ‘How I Juggled My Affairs with 10 Filipina Maids Without the Knowledge of My Wife?’

Pessimism is the emotional fashion of today. If you prefer to stay at home, you have no life. If you choose not to have children, you must be barren. The simple joys of life apparently don’t seem all that glamourous anymore. Coping.org (http://www.coping.org/anger/pessimis.htm), a Public Service of James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance M. Messina, Ph.D., will be able to let you know if you’re on the path to being Mr/Ms Pessimist of the Year.

The rise of pessimism is also leading to the diminishing existence of hope. In a world where we’re constantly being challenged for walking a path less traveled, hope can sometimes be that driving force to keep ourselves going. Then why aren’t we as hopeful as we should be?

Now what if I told you that all human beings are born evil? So in other words, the almighty being many of us believe to be God is actually what Christians would call, The Devil. Good was only introduced by crazy people who basically created religion. This would thus easily explain why for every single act of kindness in this world, there would be at least three acts stemmed from evil. So if we contracted a terminal illness or lost our life savings by mid-life, there is absolutely no hope for us because we were born only to acquire self-glorification and self-gratification. We were never to hope for the best, or anything for that matter. How does it feel then to know that the idea of hope was created by The Devil to toy with our emotions for his sheer amusement?

Then what about those many inspirational accounts of people who survived The Devil’s grasps to emerge victorious like John F. Nash (a mathematician struck with paranoid schizophrenia at the age of 29 in 1958, was practically incapacitated for decades following that, but later won a Nobel prize in 1994 for his work); or Harland Sanders (founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken who tried selling his original recipe to restaurants and got rejected over 3,000 times before his first sale and started franchising around the US when he was 60 years old); or Lance Armstrong (a cyclist diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer who escaped death and later won 7 consecutive Tour de France)? I guess these must have been mere errors overlooked by The Devil and have got nothing to do with the power of the human spirit, which somehow leads us to hopefulness?

‘Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.’ - Memoirs of a Geisha

Live Each Day Like It’s Our Last

2006-02-27T16:00:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, a girlfriend called to tell me that an acquaintance of mine, who’s also her business associate, passed away in his sleep the night before. He’s my age, just got married and was rapidly moving up the corporate ladder. My girlfriend then went on to tell me that a few months ago, she got a shock when she found out that a girlfriend of hers suddenly died too. Except that for this case, her friend had cancer but didn’t disclose this to anyone other than her family. This friend of hers was apparently very affluent and married with beautiful children and a loving husband. My girlfriend finally concluded the conversation with a statement, “these people have very ‘pai miah’ (tough/hard life) hor?”

So I guess if our lives were suddenly interrupted by illnesses that required hospitalisation, surgery or long-term treatments, we’d think that our quality of life would cease to exist. So I would also suppose that having undergone a rather traumatic surgery 2 years ago to treat a recurring medical condition, and subsequently having to visit the hospital once every 4 to 6 months for check-ups that are extremely dreadful and uncomfortable, would mean my life as being ‘pai miah’? Maybe I should start indulging in self-pity and cry now?

It bugs me sometimes when people these days still have such a secular perspective of what constitutes to a good life.

If that acquaintance of mine who had passed on in his sleep had been a loving husband to his new wife, a caring and filial son to his parents, a supportive brother to his sibling(s) and a sincere and true friend to his peers, I’d say there’s nothing tough or hard about his life. He had simply appreciated everything that he had and had led a full life.

Similarly, if my girlfriend’s friend had always taken everything for granted because of her extravagant lifestyle before she was diagnosed with cancer and since then turned her life around to be grateful for the smallest and simplest things in her life, I’d say she’s more fortunate than most of us because she would have edified at least one person in her life to appreciate the true spirit of life beyond superficial beauty, popularity or status.

So instead of having to wait for a misfortunate to strike us or the pre-mature demise of a loved one or someone within our social circle before we’re able to value the essence of life, why don’t we now live each day like it’s our last? What would we have done differently if today’s our last? Would we have been rude to our nagging mothers before we left home this morning? Would we have cursed at a road hog under our breaths? Would we have shouted at a supplier for making a late delivery? Would we have bitched about how incompetent a colleague was to another colleague? Were our last words to our spouses this morning “I’m gonna be working late tonight, so don’t wait up for me.”? Is this how we want to live the last day of our lives? I hope not.

Still in Love After 77 Valentine's Days

2006-02-15T16:47:00.000+08:00

Tue Feb 14, 6:11 PM ET-Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. - Fred Landis has a Valentine's Day ritual. Sometime, somewhere, he'll lean over to his wife, Gwen, and say, "I love you." They say he's been doing that on Valentine's Days since 1928, when they were married.

In October, Fred, 102, and Gwen, 101, celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary, and they are not far shy of a record. The longest current marriage, according to the 2006 edition of Guinness World Records, is 78 years, 296 days.

On Valentine's Day 2006, Fred will say "I love you" a bit louder than he used to because Gwen is hard of hearing. Fred has macular degeneration, which has kept him from writing poetry for her.

Gwen says Fred wrote poems to her during their courtship, a gesture that may have won her heart."I think that had something to do with it," she said with a shy smile.

They met in 1924 as college students, he at Albany College and she at Simpson Bible College in Seattle. Fred attended a church where Gwen's father was the pastor. When they were married, Gwen's father performed the ceremony.

Gwen remembers receiving $800 for a wedding gift, then losing it all in the stock-market crash the following year.

The Landises spent the next four decades working in ministry and raising four children. Fred was the pastor at several small churches in the Northwest. Gwen played the piano and organ and taught Sunday school.

He retired in 1970, and they have lived in Salem since then. They moved to a retirement center in 1994.

"They're just wonderful people. You couldn't find any better," says a friend, Dorothea McAuley. "They're setting an example for everybody. They're always happy. I've never seen one of them angry. They're God's example.

"Commitment is the word Gwen uses to describe their marriage success. Fred agrees."Sure, we've had squabbles and disagreements galore," he said. "But there's a commitment to marriage because we have a reverence to it."

They have eight grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

Son John, 67, says he continues to be amazed by his parents, their relationship and their lives."I think - I know - they would not have lived this long singly," John says. "They keep each other going."

Lonely… I am so Lonely…

2006-01-17T14:00:00.000+08:00

I remember walking into a nice restaurant for dinner a couple of years back and asked for a table for one. The host then raised his eyebrows a little and paused slightly longer than usual, probably wondering if I was joking with him or why a pleasant-looking lady is dining alone on a Friday night, before he showed me to my table. On some other occasions, dining alone seemed to be such a taboo that I was seated in the Timbuktu equivalent location of the establishment, away from their other coupled guests, so that I won’t infect the others with my communicable Lonesome disease. To top off the ostracism, I once bumped into my good friend’s colleague in a restaurant while I was eating alone during lunch, and shortly after lunch, I received a call from my friend asking if anything was wrong with me. Well if anything is wrong, I’d like to say, it’s how Singaporeans view people who venture into the public domain alone, regardless of whether their partners were busy or they simply enjoyed some solitude.

I even tried to talk to two of my friends about dining out alone and both almost simultaneously said they felt like losers if they did that. I wondered why anyone would want to entrap themselves by making such a statement.

Katherine Martin, a Life Coach in the US, believes that ‘many people have this idea that being alone means something's wrong with them, but it can be a truly beautiful experience. All you need is some retraining to appreciate solitude. If you have the time (and are willing) to look inside yourself, you can start to ask hard questions that will help you grow.’ This reminds me of my friend who never breaks off with a guy until she’s already in a new relationship. She’s already in her 30s and still doesn’t know what can truly make her happy.

Over the past year, I’ve also encountered many single men who told me that they really needed to find a mate because they felt lonely. This always got to me. So I tried suggesting that they pick up a hobby that didn’t require the dependence of another individual, and most of them apparently do have one. A hobby of finding a mate. This is what psychologists call the ‘loneliness of emotional isolation’, where they need to be emotionally intimate with someone in order not to feel lonely. It’s like, their lives (other than their careers) come to a halt because they need to find someone to fill a void in them. They are incomplete without a partner. Though this may sound really romantic in some cases or in a Jerry Mcguire movie, I find this sorely depressing for people who are single and unattached. And contrary to popular belief, I believe that loneliness doesn’t hit you only when you’re alone. Despite being a person who hardly gets threatened by loneliness, I actually felt lonely when I was married.

So back to lonely men, I initially thought that men tend to feel lonely more easily than women due to their male-inherited longing to be taken care of because men simply can’t care for themselves. I just suddenly realised that a nanny cum domestic helper might just be the solution for all the lonely men out there. Ah-hem…. wait….. Somehow, the visual I’m getting isn’t looking too wholesome. Ok, moving along….. I then went on to gather more information about men and loneliness and found that according to Joe Zoske, a healthcare consultant specialising in men's health and wellness, feelings of loneliness is due to gender conditioning. ‘In striving to be 'real men’, they (men) live higher-risk lifestyles, driven by internalised messages of competition, invulnerability, control, emotional suppression, and independence. So when symptoms occur, they have learned to not acknowledge them and tough-it-out alone, leaving them isolated from information, interventions, and support. Relating, nurturing, caring, listening, fostering, allowing emotions, seeking medical aid and the like are for women. ‘Real men’ are only allowed three emotions: humor, anger and sexual feelings.’

To support the above statement, Dr. Shoshanna, a psychologist who founded the Institute for Personal Development, and wrote five books, including Zen and the Art of Falling in Love and The Anger Diet : Thirty Days to Stress-Free Living, remarks that ‘it's amazing how many men feel tremendously alone. Not only have they been trained for silence, taught that it is unmanly to express what they are going through, they usually don't get feedback from the guys in their world.’

It’s no wonder that a guy friend of mine, who’s a self-proclaimed S-N-A-G, professes to a preference of being with his girl buddies when he needs to talk about any challenges in his life.

So maybe since men are only allowed three emotions, I realised that the society is more tolerant to men eating, going to a movie, having a drink in a café or pub or doing anything in public alone than to women doing likewise. But despite this, I’m proud to say that there are still some very confident women (you know who you are, girlfriend!) who still venture out alone to do the things they enjoy doing without looking at all, lonely. Kudos to you!

Going Against the Grain

2005-12-15T17:31:00.000+08:00

Will Smith recently received an award during the latest American Music Awards and during his speech, he said that he promised his grandmother that he’ll do whatever it takes to represent the right works, whether it’s in his music or in Hollywood. He then went on to say that it had been really tough for him to hang on to his principles when he’s always being pushed towards negativity, which in today’s society, is the ‘norm’, but he’ll try to hang on for as long as he can.

This led me to think that we now live in a time of “if it feels good, ‘Just Do It’.”

During my school days, losing our virginities was not exactly in our agendas. In fact, I remember describing the details of my make-out session with my then very first boyfriend to my good friend, who had never been attached then, and she looked at me with those big, sympathetic eyes, lightly touched my hand and said, “you don’t have to feel dirty about this you know…”. I was then suddenly taken aback and wondered if I should even be feeling dirty in the first place, even though my hymen was still beautifully intact. My friend still laughs about this when I remind her of this very interesting conversation we had when I almost felt like I should run to the MBFMB (My Boyfriend Fondled My Breasts) Crisis Centre.

Today, teenagers might even be able to tell you their favourite sexual positions and show off their g-strings under their jeans, whichever makes them look cool among their peers.

And how many cases of straying married men have you already heard about? Many guy friends even told me to just accept the fact that it’s such a common thing these days, and I’m quite sure that this is exactly the thought that goes through the minds of these married men just before they commit their first adultery. So commonality equates to acceptance?

At this juncture, I’d just like to clarify that this is not a men-bashing article. Believe me, I love men and can’t imagine life without testosterone within our midst! Moreover, I still know many wonderfully faithful men.

Conforming has got everything to do with peer and society pressure.

As children, the acceptable professions we were taught by our parents were in the likes of a teacher, lawyer, doctor, engineer or anything that doesn’t bring shame to the family. Even in today’s context, professions such as an insurance agent or an owner of a multi-level marketing business are what most parents hoped their children would never get into, despite millions who have succeeded in these unorthodox choices of occupation. Why? Because ‘normal’ people don’t do this?

What about people who were pressured by their families and friends to get married or have children only because they have come of age? Never mind if you’re not mentally or emotionally ready. Just don’t bring shame to your family and give other friends and relatives the idea that you’re such a loser that nobody wants to marry you or you have fertility problems. Conform with the society! You can almost hear them chanting, can’t you? It’s no wonder that I’m starting to also hear horror stories of women being so bold in pursuing one of my eligible guy friends. They almost made my friend shudder in fear when he receives an SMS. I told him to get himself a chastity belt.

It’s quite unfortunate that most Singaporeans are conformists. It took the evolution of about one generation for our government to realise this too. So while the government tried hard to encourage creativity within our education system, it also flooded our shores with foreign talents in the hope of introducing a more adventurous mindset within the existing Singaporean workforce which had always believed in going with the flow. ‘Think out-of-the-box’ became the new buzz phrase about 5 years ago.

For the record, some of the world’s most legendary and famous people are non-conformists: Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jesus Christ, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, Annabelle Chong (gotcha there!).

Now before you wonder if you should become Singapore’s next porn star, you can most certainly still choose to go with the flow and do what you’re expected to do just to pacify the people around you, and not have your great, grand children know who you are after you pass on. We can just be another name and number in the Registry of Births and Deaths.

So when somebody tells me that ‘everybody’s doing it’, I like to ask myself ‘if everybody’s doing it, what makes me so special by doing what everybody does?’ But hey, that’s just me.

So What’s Next?

2005-11-15T00:34:00.001+08:00

Do you remember the time when you just graduated from school and couldn’t wait to get yourself a job and receive your first pay cheque? Remember the first thing you went out to buy? What drive we had during those days! The future’s so bright for us, and we had the whole world to conquer with our talents, skills and dreams.

I remembered the mindless pursuit of status symbols during those chaotic times. We were in such a hurry to grow up and become successful (in the eyes of our peers) working adults who hung out in pubs with cool and glamourous friends, clutching our Gucci handbags, wearing the trendiest working suits and flashing our shiny, new credit cards.

And when our careers were stable, we looked forward to finding the perfect mate. Preferably one with the 5 Cs, for the gals, that is. What did the young dudes yearn for in those days? A gorgeous babe with a cute ass, humungous boobs that’ll suffocate them and let them die happy, and legs that go on forever? Hey…. aren’t those what the same dudes are still pinning for now? Ahh…The male species can be such simple-minded cavemen even in the Information Age of the 21st century. But isn’t that what we love about them?

So moving along, when we’ve finally snagged that very eligible, or for some, the only available mate who’s not freaky, the big ‘M’ would be next on our agenda. (I’ve only recently discovered that the big ‘M’ means ‘Marriage’ to many people these days.)

A friend of mine who finally tied the knot after being unattached for about 8 years (no, the bicep on one of his arm wasn’t bigger than the other) told me that his life is finally in order. Everything has been right on schedule. His career is right on track, he’s got a beautiful home of his own, his first, new car, and finally, an ideal wife to enjoy all these with.

So is this really what we are all here for? To chase after a lifestyle based on what the society has conformed us to do?

Perhaps religion can give us some clue as to what we could possibly be here for.

Buddhism
The 4 Noble Truths:-
1. Life is suffering;
2. Suffering is due to attachment;
3. Attachment can be overcome;
4. There is a path for accomplishing this.
Nirvana overcomes attachment which is the letting go of clinging, hatred, and ignorance, and the full acceptance of imperfection, impermanence, and interconnectedness.
- http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/buddhawise.html

Islam
The way of life for those who believe in God and want to live a life in worship and obedience to none but God. The reward is forgiveness from God and an everlasting life in the Heaven.
- http://www.islam101.com/theology/index.htm

Hinduism
The three goals of the "pravritti," those who are in the world, are:
1. dharma: righteousness in their religious life. This is the most important of the three.
2. artha: success in their economic life; material prosperity.
3. kama: gratification of the senses; pleasure; sensual, sexual, and mental enjoyment.
- http://www.religioustolerance.org/hinduism2.htm

Christianity
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
- The Bible

Alrighty…. I finally understand why Indian men are always so smooth with the women.

So apart from that, the essence of most religions’ teachings is to do good so that we can hopefully reincarnate to a better life or go to heaven. I guess social workers and volunteers of the world have got themselves a better deal in the after-life game while the rest of us are doomed?

I refuse to believe this. David Niven, author of The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It doesn’t believe it too. In his book, he’s stated that we are not here just to fill a space. Nothing would be the same if we did not exist because every place we have ever been and everyone we have ever spoken to would be different without each and every one of us. We are all connected, and we are all affected by the decisions and even the existence of those around us.

So if we’re here to affect the lives of the people we come in contact with, could there possibly be a purpose for our existence? What is the purpose for our existence then? A child would probably be able to tell you that he/she wants to be a doctor who saves lives, a police officer who fights crime or perhaps a teacher who moulds the future leaders. This proves that even as children, we wanted to make a difference in this world. But as we became adults, sensibility, pressure and responsibility have held us back. So does this mean that our only purpose in life is to give ourselves and loved ones a comfortable life, not create enemies and hope that we will be more than just a memory after we die?

In David Niven’s book, studies of older people have found that one of the best predictors of happiness is whether a person considers his/her life to have a purpose. Without a clearly defined purpose, seven in ten individuals feel unsettled about their lives. With a purpose, almost seven in ten feel satisfied.

I personally don’t think that we need to have a purpose in life that requires us to do the big things like becoming Mother Theresa the second, Singapore’s first female president or Singapore’s first sex guru (though from the looks of the Durex survey, we’re possibly the last country to produce a sex expert). I believe in being one of the many little people in this vast world of ours. One of those little people who does the little things that can ultimately make this whole world a better place to live in. So with that in mind, I will go on with life looking out for opportunities to be that little person who can indirectly make a difference.

God doesn’t play dice – Albert Einstein

Shiny, Happy People Holding Hands

2005-10-07T09:01:00.000+08:00

Recently, I have been watching “Child of Our Time”, this epic documentary series that showcases over 20 millennium babies and their families over a period of 20 years to launch the age-old argument of nature versus nurture.

In one particular episode, the researchers were trying to find out more about how our memories work for us from the time we were born to adulthood. So they brought in some of the parents of the babies individually, without their babies, and showed them photos of themselves taken when they were kids. They were asked to describe the happenings around them while they were having those pictures taken. Then they were shown a photo of themselves with one of their parents in a hot-air balloon. What they didn’t know was that the pictures of themselves and their parents were superimposed into the hot-air balloon. In other words, the event never took place. Needless to say, all the individuals were shocked when they first saw the photo and claimed that they didn’t recall this incident at all. The interviewer then told each of them to try and recall this event every night for the next 2 weeks, just before they go to bed. 2 weeks later, they returned separately and were asked a series of questions before being shown the photo of the hot-air balloon again. Most of them still insisted that they couldn’t remember this supposedly eventful day despite their earnest efforts to think about it for the past 2 weeks. But interestingly, a few said they managed to remember little snippets of the event and even gave a rough account of the happenings of that day. One lady, who had a generally unhappy childhood, even described some negative commotion that took place that day while she was having her picture taken.

So the psychologists and researchers concluded from this test that the human brain is so powerful that it can trick us into believing in things we’ve never seen or experienced. This had definitely confirmed my belief in changing our mindsets in order to be happy. In other words, if we can trick our minds to believe in things we’ve never seen or experienced before, we can likewise, trick our minds into believing that we are happy.

Ludicrous? Maybe not. Some might go, “but that’s fake!” But just think about it: if I truly believe that I’m happy and exude happiness through my actions because I believe that I’m happy, who’s to claim that my happiness is fake? Wow…. let me quickly jot this down in my Palm so that I can be reminded of this and live by this statement!

Let’s take another example. Remember Joan of Arc? That virginal nut (rest her soul) who believed that she saw many miraculous signs from God which gave her such immense faith that she astoundingly led her army to many victories over England during the 1400s. Putting faith aside, the crux of it is that her brain had successfully tricked herself to believe that she’s destined to win those battles despite having a physically stronger enemy. Her tricked mind then went on to convince her troops that they really could win this, and their minds too were tricked to believe in this, which brought about their shocking victories. She lost the last battle she fought only because she believed God had warned her of her defeat. So do not underestimate the power of our minds.

This is not to say that you should trick yourself into believing that you’re happy when you’re being abused or taken advantage of. For instance, if you’re in a relationship where your partner showers you with all the attention and affection that you want, but picks up fights with you once every 3 days, which completely mentally exhausts you, you should have the intelligence to rationalise if the issue is in yourself or an external factor.

So the next time somebody doubts your state of happiness, be sympathetic. Cynics usually don’t understand what it truly means to be happy.

Here’s something to ponder about: when asked when she was a little girl, what she’d want to be when she grew up, Goldie Hawn (Hollywood actress) replied, “I wanna be happy”.

Have Heart

2005-09-06T23:50:00.000+08:00

Since the NKF saga, I had come to the realisation that Singaporeans, apart from having nothing better to do than to whine about a person’s ‘peanut’ pay package, always seem to have spare cash to donate either on a monthly basis or a couple of times a year to publicised charity shows. This already establishes the fact that Singaporeans do have a kind heart. But I would have to say that the climax has got to be the Project Superstar episode.

I’m not really into the Mando Pop scene but have recently tuned in for the very first time to the Grand Finale of Project Superstar only because of all the hype that was created in the media about this visually handicapped finalist, Tan Wei Lian.

Although I was a little disappointed with the standards of the 2 finalists when I watched their performances for the first time (maybe it’s because I only endured 2 of their performances before I had to switch to the more electrifying performances of the Rockstar INXS contestants), I was actually still very intrigued because I don’t believe anyone with any kind of disability even got through to the final round of stage performances in a reality talent quest anywhere in the world. In other words, Singapore is possibly the only country in the world which openly and publicly embraced the talent of a physically-challenged individual. The best part was that this TV programme was targeted at the young, between the age group of 13 to 35 years.

I am extremely inspired by this because it proves again, that despite the pressures of society to excel in our studies, careers and social lives, and being a seemingly self-centered bunch of people, we still managed to possess enough love, compassion and an unprejudiced mindset to pick up the phone and vote for an unrelated guy such as Wei Lian and make his dreams come true.

For this, I’d like to say that we’ve definitely matured over the past few decades and I’m certainly proud to be a Singaporean!

Stepping Out Onto The Bright Side

2005-08-06T14:40:00.000+08:00

When I was first told that I was a positive person a couple of months ago, I couldn’t quite believe it. You see, I had all along had low self-esteem as a teenager and had a very pessimistic view about everything. My rationale was that if I imagined myself in a worst-case scenario and the situation didn’t turn out that badly, I’d be relieved. Or if the situation did turn out that badly, at least I was mentally prepared for it. When I was faced with challenges, I just didn’t know how to look at the bright side.

So when my marriage failed about more than a year ago, my whole world crumbled. I lost faith in men, friends, work, religion and life. Thankfully, I was sensible enough not to have ended it all then. Or rather, I wasn’t too excited by the limited options I had to end my life quickly, painlessly and un-gruesomely. So I went on with my life like a corpse while my friends continued to show off their loving and doting husbands, happy families and fat wallets. I wondered if my so-called ‘friends’ could even begin to comprehend what I was going through. Hmm… maybe they were trying to help bring out my killer instincts?

Fortunately before a massacre began, I signed myself up for a weekend retreat of soul-searching. In other words, I had a makeover of my soul. Okay, before you think that I’m going to get all preachy here, you’re wrong. I’d probably put myself to sleep first before I even start.

Of course I didn’t simply turn into an optimist over a weekend, but I gradually saw the benefits of thinking and acting positively over the following few weeks.
“Researchers interviewed more than 300 healthy people three times a week for two weeks to assess their emotional states. Then they exposed them to the germ that causes the common cold. The study found that people with a positive attitude were less likely to catch colds than those who were depressed, nervous or angry. The study also found that uptight or sad people are more likely to complain of cold symptoms, even when they don't have a cold.” - July 2003 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, researched by Sheldon Cohen, PhD, William J. Doyle, PhD, Ronald B. Turner, MD, Cuneyt M. Alper, MD and David P. Skoner, MD. http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/65/4/652

So I first decided to garner the courage to bury the hatchet with some friends I fell out with. That’s right… until I went for that workshop, I was a really bad girl and had a personal vendetta to create enemies among my own circle of friends. So when I got that sorted out and was high on the forgiveness adrenalin, looking at the bright side of things didn’t seem all that hard after all. After letting go of my grudges, I went on to rationally analyse what prompted the chain of depressing events. I had to get to my core, my element, and find out what made me tick and flip (not at the same time of course, or I’d also be a loon).

As soon as I know what gets me up and where my limits are, I surrounded myself with positivity and avoided negative friends or anything negative for a while, like sad songs or depressing news articles, because a happy person is a positive person.

Did I say ‘negative friends’? Yes I did. Bluntly phrased, they are toxic or poison pals who probably come in these 7 wonderful flavours:
1. The Vampire – Sucks the life out of you
2. The Underminer – Crushes what little confidence you already have
3. The Shrink – The self-proclaimed know-it-all
4. The Downer – Consistently depressed
5. The Bean Spiller – Can’t keep any secrets
6. The Social Director – Mr/ Ms Popular
7. The Attention Addict – Me me me!

More information can be found in http://magazines.ivillage.com/redbook/you/life/articles/0,,284489_289447-1,00.html.

Many people may fail to see how these negative friends can have a hindrance to becoming a more positive individual because friends are already somewhat important to us. Who would admit that their friends are unconsciously hurting them?
“According to psychologist, Dr. Lillian Glass, author of Toxic People (Simon and Schuster), toxic friends are people whose feelings of insecurity and inadequacy make them jealous, envious and uncaring, so they end up sabotaging your projects, your relationships, your happiness-even your car journey!"
- http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Relationships/Site/toxic_relationships.htm

A really good example would be this friend of mine who’s a combination of the Vampire, Underminer and Attention Addict. She’d come to me wailing about her personal insecurities. I had to then spend the next few hours pumping up her confidence by telling her how fortunate and beautiful she is. When she had finally sucked me off my last drop of saliva and breath and she felt like a Greek goddess, and all I wanted to do was to just chill, she’d start bringing up the areas in my life that are not so happening. Friends can be so amusing, aren’t they?

So as I was saying, positive-thinking can start with the little things like catching myself while I’m enjoying a good television programme, a heavenly chocolate cake or a cheeky laughter with a friend, and thinking, Hey! I’m happy right now! This is the first step towards counting my blessings.

The next step to convincing myself that I am happy would be to eliminate negative words from my ‘positive dictionary’. So instead of saying, “I’ve had a rotten day because my stinking boss just threw me this messy project that could give me a 6-month-long migraine”, the positive alternative would be, “I’ve had an interesting day because my boss, who might need a deodorant, just handed me this challenging project that might just be the thing to help me get a pay raise if I did a good job”. From “you look like a walking traffic light” to “Interesting colour combination. I think the yellow accentuates your skin colour. Maybe you should where that colour more often.”; from “Your hair stylist doesn’t like you very much, does he?” to “I think you’ll look great in a few weeks’ time when your hair grows longer.” Get the gist?

So when I acted out positively, the people around me would instinctively respond positively too. And soon, I was even able to fend off negativity as it comes. I just needed to know how much of it I could bear. Before I knew it, I was oozing of positivity (when I don’t get PMS that is) even from my ass! But that’s not to say that I never waver. When I do, I’ll just keep telling myself that there’s an end to all bad things, and I look forward to that end.

Women in Denial

2005-07-10T12:44:00.000+08:00

We’re living in a demented society.

Although I’m not too thrilled by this prospect, it’s no surprise in today’s context if a man can’t keep his willy in his pants regardless of whether he’s in a relationship or not. But I’ve been recently quite alarmed at the increasing number of people telling me that their female friends, ex-girlfriends, ex-wives or all of the above are sleeping around too. I even heard from a guy in his early 20s say that gals have got nothing to lose when they sleep around because sex means nothing to them these days. Instead, gals gain from this as they’ll be receiving gifts, free meals and loads of other freebies from the guys.

Now first of all, why haven’t I met these charitable guys?!

Jokes aside, I’m about to make a rather controversial statement that might motivate people, even my friends, to throw rotten eggs in my direction. I’d just like to clarify that this is not directed at anyone in particular. So here goes…. I believe that women are not made to sleep around. Here’s an excerpt of an article I found in an online women’s magazine:

“(It’s not) that we've (women) been brought up to believe in the concept of love and sex going hand in hand. It's that physiologically, sex creates a flood of hormones that naturally create a bond. Oxytocin (the same hormone that women release while breastfeeding) makes us feel close to a partner and dopamine makes us feel content in his company, both of which are released during sex.”
http://www.ivillage.co.uk/relationships/sex/talksex/articles/0,,173_672497,00.html

So there you have it! We now have evidence that when we engage in a sexual act with someone, we are emotionally involved. I know many gals (note that I use ‘gals’ instead of ‘women’) would violently object to this. Heck, I would even refuse to admit to this myself in my younger years. I can completely understand that due to sexual equality, gals these days are trying so hard to keep up with the boys. If men can make sex look so cheap, so can we. So instead of cuddling up with our one-night-stands after the do, we bounce off the bed before the men, just to prove that we have the upper hand in the game. This is supposed to save us from the humiliation of hearing the guy go, ”errm…. I’ve gotta wake up early tomorrow morning, so can you…..” Aww…. that ought to hurt.

Another guy friend of mine came to me one day with that know-it-all attitude and declared that in order to have a female partner stay happy in a relationship, a man has to be a stud in bed. I was trying hard not to laugh for fear of offending him. This poor guy obviously knows nuts about the species from Venus. He must have gotten this mixed up along the way with how to please a man!

Unlike men, women don’t have testicles that need to be flushed once every few months. Or is it every few weeks? Let me check with a priest. Oh sure, unattached women have got sexual desires too. But our desires, attached or not, usually stem from the need for affection and attention from the opposite sex because women are emotional creatures. Younger women might not be mature enough to decipher this and think that if they satisfy their sexual craving, that yearning would go away. It does go away during the act itself, but after the ordeal, when they go home, alone, that feeling creeps back in again. So to suppress this, they keep engaging in casual sex, only to realise that they feel more empty inside. If they don’t stop this in time, they’ll eventually lose respect for themselves. Again, these gals would put on a brave front to deny this and convince anyone including themselves that they are in control.

Thankfully, most gals wake up from this delusion as they mature, have a deeper understanding of themselves and are more confident about knowing what they want. As long as we’ve got this in perspective, we no longer need to fill our emptiness with casual sex.Some men might hate me for making such an outrageous proclamation because I have probably cut their prospects by half, but hey, I wasn’t the one who created the woman’s anatomy and psyche.

Contentment

2005-06-08T07:59:00.000+08:00

Are you contented with your life? Someone asked me this recently and I immediately zoomed into the parts of my life that I'm dissatisfied with. I'd like a higher-paying job; my relationships could have been improved; wouldn't it be nice if I could pick out whatever I like in the hippest fashion boutique? I frowned, but wait…. am I really that discontented with my life?

I guess when being asked a question like that, many would visualise how their ideal life should be and instantly compare it with what they have now, realise that they're no where near their goals, and simply say that they are not contented with their lives. But hang on there….. was this so-called 'ideal' life carved somewhere on a stone and passed down over generations by our fore-fathers? Who then told us that in order to be contented, we've got to get the latest titanium card, slick body kit, town club membership, that gorgeous babe with a cute ass who can cook in the day and transport you to heaven thrice a night? Okay, I'm getting a little carried away with this, but my point here is that the society we live in had conditioned us to desire for such pleasures of the senses.

"Marketers estimate that we see 3000 advertisements per day. If you sleep 7 hours a night and don't dream ads, that's about 180 ads per hour or 3 ads per minute. Those ads are designed to trigger discontent-inviting us to want a car, house, job, vacation, computer or relationships that we do not now have." – Extracted from www.wooddale.org

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it's wrong for us to be ambitious and want these ideals. If you've got the drive, by all means, go get it. But what happens when you realise that it's beyond your ability and means to achieve that ideal? Are you going to be unhappy and discontented for the rest of your life?

How then can we be contented? Ahh… that timeless question.

The key is to re-align your ideals.

I actually just did that yesterday when I was rather unhappy about a particular part of my life. It had been bugging me for several weeks, especially when under the influence of friends. That's right. Friends can sometimes wreak havoc in our easily-confused minds. Then I snapped myself out of this bitterness and asked myself: Are my friends actually leading my life? Was I still happy before I'm being told that there's a happier version of my life? Shouldn't I even be thanking my lucky stars that I even have a life like this to worry about? Which brought me to this scene I saw on Tango & Cash the other day when Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell were in a truck, trying to get away from the bad guys. In the midst of the excitement, Russell told Stallone that he's got a good news and a bad news and asked which he'd like to hear first. Stallone asked for the bad news and Russell said, "we're almost outta gas." Stallone then asked for the good news and Russell replied, "we're almost outta gas!"

So after having to think about all this while my friend was waiting for my answer, the lines on my forehead smoothened out and my eyes brightened. "Yes," I replied, "I'm actually rather contented with my life at this present moment." Now won't that be a nice thought to bring home with you today?

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."Abraham Lincoln