Time and I against any two

Been rather preoccupied with loads of stuff be it academics or work. It has almost been 10 months since I last wrote stuff here.

Food for thought for this period of time:
These 10 months have been a rather fulfilling one (from an optimist point of view). Negative experiences and adversities in life always does make one stronger. The ability to see the interconnetcedness between many individuals have been deemed as a flaw that I might have. But the past 10 months have trained me to be a better person by not just looking at an individual but as well as looking at the interrelationship between the surrounding people as well. This has bring me a whole new light to see how vast, complicated and deadly to deal with certain situations given that collateral implications are bound to happen. Dealing with such issues requires extreme caution!

For now I shall continue with my studies considering the fact that the big thing is round the corner. A quote from a song is most representative of the sticky situation that I am "glued" in:

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep

Dreaming about the things that we could be

But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,

Said, no more counting dollars

We'll be counting stars, yeah we'll be counting stars

(Counting Stars - One Republic)

With that, I shall end here for today and will hope to settle down after 05/12 to share and reflect on my experiences for the past 10 months.

Lost time is never found again

Friendships - The Bonds That Matters

Went to watch this movie recently on some websites. Was quite touched by the movie's plot. In case you never watched it before, here's a short summary of the movie:

Three high school students experience the perks and pitfalls of love in director Leste Chen's sensitive tale of friendship and yearning.

As a child living in a seaside town in southern Taiwan, studious Jonathan (Bryant Chang) was asked by his concerned teacher to look after rebellious classmate Shane (Joseph Chang). Ten years later, what was once a good-natured obligation has since blossomed into a warm friendship, with Jonathan still on the academic track and Shane now finding his calling on the basketball court.

Taiwan-born schoolgirl Carrie (Kate Yeung) arrives from Hong Kong to join her mother after a disagreement with her father and transfers to their school. She befriends Jonathan and convinces him to join her on a secret day-trip to Taipei and in the evening she seduces him in a sleazy hotel but Jonathan backs down clearly distraught. Eventually, her observations of his and Shane's friendship leads her to believe that he is gay and in love with his best friend.

Carrie then meets Shane through Jonathan after a school day where Shane develops an interest in Carrie. Despite her initial misgivings about the boorish Shane, she eventually gives in to the troublemaker's roguish charms. She accepts his offer to become his girlfriend on the condition that he manages to enter university.

Later, Shane pulls his act together and tests into University, but Jonathan, distracted by his burgeoning sexual identity crisis, does not. Shane does his best to keep his feelings for Carrie secret in order to protect the feelings of his lifelong friend. Despite all their best efforts to keep their personal feelings secret, the truth eventually emerges, forcing all three to view their relationships in an entirely new light.

(Quoted from: Wikipedia.com)

Well in my personal opinion, the movie can be summarised into the following sentence: "You will not mind your friend for who they are and are willing to accept them for who they are". It is extremely disgusting to observe those superficial "friends" who are always behind your back stabbing you while in front of you, will put up a fake front by being very friendly with you. Thus in my life, I always have these set of rules as a guide on friendship. I can be very nice and close to you and even up to a stage of self declared "best friend forever". But if I were to find out that you were those that belongs to the group that I will classify it as being superficial (even it is not to me but someone else) I will not be bothered with you and please do not bother me anymore. By staying away from me, I will be very grateful to you.

So with the previous discussion, it has bring us to one point called honesty. I think what Johnathan did was absolutely commendable. If that was to happen to me, I think honesty is really the best policy. You might think why is this so? Like what the movie has shown, if there is a secret kept in between both of them, no matter how long the friendship last, it will still go down the drain. So no matter how established the bonds were, a secret in it will set it on fire and eventually burn it down to ashes. 

Using these 2 quotes, I will end my post here for you guys to ponder about it! "True friends stab you in the front" and "One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood". =D

RACE (Realise, Appreciate, Cherish, Enjoy) TO IT

Came across this short video production that was shared by my friends on Facebook. The title of the clip is called "Tambun Biscuit". I guess this clip really summarised my previous blog post titled "Looking Back into the Past".

(DISCLAIMER: I am not really concerned about the national education part, instead I will be focusing the values of it)

From my personal point of view, during my service in the army, it has instilled me with lots of values that I once deemed useless and it is through the tough times that there is this sudden enlightenment that I got when I was in the mess. So as my title suggests, family is the most important thing that one must have. Your family will always be the one behind you, supporting and cheering you up whenever you are down. No matter how rebellious you are, your family will always be the one who is willing to accept you when you repent as opposed to how the society will react to it. 

So knowing that family is of paramount influence, do not take it for granted. At any given time of our lives, things can be taken away from us in an instantly. Thus, we got to cherish and appreciate it. Take some time of your live to commit to interact with your family so that the relationship between each other will not be strained. It is always a common sight that one will start to regret and lament only after the departure of their loved ones. Although it is unavoidable that such feelings will seep in, it can be minimized. Ever since age of 4, I have been experiencing it so I guess I have learnt through the hard way and it is during harsh time that I begin to learn to cherish everything that I have. 

Like what my title suggests, RACE TO IT! Realise, Appreciate, Cherish and Enjoy the times you have with your family and the things that you owned. By accomplishing RACE, it will definitely make your life more emotionally fulfilling. =)

Your Actions - Understanding the Course (& Cause) of it

It has been quite a rough month for both my friends and I as we were embraced by an "Indian Ocean Tsunami" - something that is so destructive and impactful that it is going to take years to recover from the devastating effect that the tsunami has brought upon us, particularly to those who were at the epicenter of the disaster. It is in this kind of event that one will distinguish who is sincere and willing to render their helping hand to you in contrast to those who will continue to implicate harm on you and watch you die. Sometimes it would not be that hard for one to ponder why the world cannot be a better place where everyone keeps a look out for each other, a place where faith in humanity is restored. Well in my opinion such utopia is almost impossible especially with how we are being inculcated with the importance of power and money where emotional fulfillment is practically ignored. It is very dreadful to realise that the world now revolves around power and money or otherwise known as material gains. In the quest to seek for what they desire, collateral damage is bound to happen as one will use unscrupulous, underhand means to achieve what they crave for. Such acts, in my opinion, are conscienceless, degrading and odious. So today, I shall take the opportunity to deliver a message, as my title suggests, to everyone out there who have the intent that is described above. To those that have did it, you ought to reflect on your wrong doings.

Like what I have mentioned previously, every single actions that one act it out will have some form of positive or negative implications to it. Well let me safely assumed that, in general, those who tends to commit such hedious crimes are generally those that have lower emotional quotient and social intelligence. Social intelligence describes the exclusively human capacity to effectively navigate and negotiate complex social relationships and environments. With these two coming together, it is of high certainty that the kind of damage that they are going to inflict will be disastrous. Let me use the following example to illustrate the statement that I am trying to prove.

In a class, a class representative is appointed by the teacher. However, the class rep begin to abuse his/her power and then start to brainwash people to ostracize one of the classmate that the rep dislike. To make the situation worst, the rep begins to call that particular classmate names and many more. As a result, that particular classmate starts to feel depressed and like in all extreme cases committed suicide. 

Well one might argue that such acts are classified as childish reason being that the example is  in a school setting. But let us extrapolate it to the workplace where office politics are bound to happen. Such acts can be further magnified into something that can be more serious and impactful. One such example would be the sabotage of colleague's work. It is hard to deny that even those with a relative good EQ and social intelligence will still be blinded by the monetary incentives and others. However, this is the part where the differentiation of these group of people from the rest (those low EQ and social intelligence) will set in. Guilt. Those that are of a relatively average EQ and social intelligence will be guilt stricken when they reflect upon their misdoings. However, for those that are of lower than usual EQ and social intelligence, they will be numb for what they did and even if they are being pointed out, they will be in the state of delusion and denial. In my opinion, that is when I will classify them as a bunch of selfish and naive individuals. 

Not only you will bring harm to others, it will also reflect badly about yourself. Nobody will trust you in anything you do. Your social circle will be drastically reduced. Hurtful things about you will spread like wild fire. The list is not exhaustive. To round it off, you might have gained something that you want by carrying out something hurtful intially, but in the long run, those who are hurt will trump as justice will always be on their side for the injustice that you have done to them. Let me use this quote: "Trust is like a mirror you can fix it when it is broken. But you can still see the crack in the reflection." It takes time for your reputation to be recovered but like the quote suggests, people will still be cautious against you.

So my point here is very simple, think before you act. God gave you a brain to think, unless you think otherwise, then I do not see a point in your existence in the world. To avoid the guilt from haunting you for the rest of your life, give yourself and others a break. Take time to reflect about yourself and readjust your position in life. This will make your life and, as well as the others, an easier one. Smile! =D