Change We Could Contribute

…the highest virtue is to act without the sense of self…

What makes us human great?   …well we have many great blessings that makes us wonderful beings, but one thing really that makes us different is: we could determine our own act consciously.

And for that, we're responsible on what we do in this world

The world has witnessed countless heroes that give their best efforts, try to make our world a better place and our communities better.

Great charismatic leaders of the world have touched many people's hearts to make change towards a better world.

Perhaps it seems like a huge task, but perhaps it just need simple everyday things to do

There are many examples on what seems a simple act or deed that could contribute to our well being as human.

If you're parents, by giving love and nurture your children, show them good respect and understanding then you already make our world a better one, at least for your child.

Imagine if most of the children in the world received proper unconditional love and care, what it’s like? Yes you’re right! Then most people living in our world would be a happy responsible person, that most likely doing something good rather than something bad to themselves and to their surroundings or their communities.

As person, perhaps we could contribute just by understand our surroundings better, if we understand our surroundings better, then probably we also could determine our relation with our environment better.

We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, our own passions and dreams, and we also have our own ability to make this world a better place, perhaps simply just by living our everyday life more responsibly.

Happy contributing!

The Relativity of Perception

You’re aboard a cruise ship and stand on the starboard side of the deck… gazing at the horizon with a glass of pina colada on your hand… it’s a nice afternoon after you have nice meal with olive oil as staple ingredient on everything you eat…

Can you guess the area where the ship was cruising?

Well there are two notable hints that you could use as a base for your blind guess, but if you only familiar with just one of the two then probably you’ll guess just accordingly

If you only know that pina colada is the national drinks of Puerto Rico then perhaps you'll consider the ship was cruising the Caribbean Sea at that moment, also if you only know that olive oil is used in many Greek, Italian and Spanish cuisine perhaps your guess would be the Mediterranean Sea.

Only if you know both of the hints then you'll also know that you need to get another information to make your guess better.

Let’s try another one:

It’s late at night and you meet this very attractive lady, she’s gazing at you, grinning and said: ‘I'll take you!’

What would you do?

If you’re from Transylvania, the Land of Vampires, probably you would run for your life!

If you’re from France, the Land of Romance, probably you’d also grinning and replied: “s’il vous plait, mon cheri!”

If you’re from Indonesia, the Land of Cultural Diversity, probably you'd ask her just in case: “to where ma’am?”

Yap our perception is not a simple matter…

Sometimes we just hear what we want to hear, sometimes we just see what we afraid to see… and sometimes perhaps we just fill our blank spots with our own cognitive experience to complete our perception.

And if we aware that our senses have limitation on interpreting stimulus and our cognitive process are quite complex, then probably we could perceive things more accurately.

Nurturers

When we’re just college students, I never imagined that my friends there with their ‘far from mature behaviour’ resemble any connection with the concept of good parents, as I remember they (or maybe we hehe..) were just a bunch of big kids that exploring the world without any trace of responsibilities or composures.

But when they’re getting married and later on have children, those friends of mine surprised me with their ‘hidden’ qualities; they’re showing great responsibilities and kind intentions as parent, and I’m fairly proud of my friends for that. Probably those qualities are the things that I instinctively knew and admire from the beginning.

I’ll always give my praise and admirations to any parent who has great nurturing skill and performing it as easy as walking in the park.

Subsequently when I imagine this concept of nurture, I realize this condition is not merely just for parents, as human we all are natural nurturers giving the fact that we have abilities to influence our fellow human and our environment, in some extent we could even nurture something more abstract like ideas, spirit, passion, love, you name it…

Cheers,
Fellow nurturer

Sleep on it

What is the purpose of sleep? to rest our body and mind?

Do you know that usually we have 4-5 dream cycles each night? and most of the time we don’t recall those dreams?

Sleep seems to have multiple purpose in our life, ranging from a simple one for just being lazy to a more complex purpose like enhance our memory and cognitive ability.

Imagine this, your day was like a bull fight in a porcelain store… and you don’t have a clue on what’s really going on… it’s not a pleasant day for sure, probably by the end of the day you take a bath at your home and go to your bed, your mind was still perplexed and puzzled… as you got sleepy… and more sleepy… then slowly you slip into unconsciousness and perhaps forget the whole matter… and it took hours until you’re conscious again, …but the next morning when you open your eyes… you feel different…, suddenly you think you get a clearer picture of the circumstances around you with some sort of new wisdom and understanding…

If you ever experience a shift in awareness like that, then most probably you’re gaining benefit from a good sleep.

In the past we tend to consider that we need sleep to fulfill our physical need to rest, but recent studies suggest that we need sleep to enhance our mental well being more than we need it for our physical benefit.

Sleeping is an active state, in respect that while we’re peacefully asleep our brain is busily processing the day’s information. It’s like organizing our memories, stabilizing, copying and filing them, so that they will be more useful the next day, furthermore while we’re sleeping we gain insight from our experiences and actually learn something from it.

So since we're more aware of this phenomenon could we use it in everyday life?

Absolutely…

Next time you have question or wonder about something, you could use our ‘top of the line cognitive enhancer’ a.k.a. a good sleep to gain new wisdom and grip a better understanding from it.

Perhaps you could imagine these illustrations:

Example 1

You’re in the middle of an immediate strategic decision; it’s whether focusing your resources for the research & development dept. in order to keep your company on the edge when the customer needs and wants changes, or take your existing product line to its quantity advantage and generate as much cash as possible by double the production.
You consider those options and by the end of the day using your ‘sleep processor’, and then the next morning all of a sudden you realized that your target market is urban women who have distinct characteristic, so you could direct your R&D to focus on much more specific issues that don’t require much resources while taking benefit from harvesting your existing product using advertising campaign.

Example 2

In the middle of the week you have two requests to spend your weekend, one from Julie, and the second one from Cathy, and they both are really wonderful so it’s quite difficult for you to choose one of them, …you take a deep breath, take warm shower and go to bed to gain insight from it, …then first thing in the morning you opened your eyes smiling, slowly turn your head around… you saw somebody lying beside you… but it’s not Julie nor Cathy… it’s your wife…!, immediately you know that those requests are just a dream.

hehehe...


 
Cheers,
Your sleep advisor

The End of Metabolism Immortality

Dear friends, do you ever have something to be grateful about, but gradually it’s changing until one day it’s quite different?

I got several, but let me tell you one this time.

Not that I’m complaining though, but my glory days of eat like a hungry bear and not gaining weight is over

Friends and colleagues has point it out in two different approaches, as these examples below:

1. The direct and without euphemism whatsoever approach:
   Iyong you’re so fat! (yes it’s quite direct and clear) with amazed look and widened eyes plus big grin (well I wonder why  most people and especially women tend to grin when they see me lately, hmmm…)

2. The courteous approach:
   Mr. Iyong the food is start emerging and traceable in your appearance (plus a polite smile)

Actually I appreciate their concern about me

Thank you dear friends, I know that your intentions is for me to be healthy and happy

And I’m agree with you, from now it’s better for me to take an evasive action, for I’ll only take no more than two heavy meals each night (hmmm… yeah I think it’s quite enough for the time being)

Unintentionally this occurrence helps me understand why many people always make a fuss and anxious about their weight, now I could imagine better on how they felt when somebody comments on their body mass.

Not so very long ago I’m always considerably the skinny one in every group that I’m in, so it’s like a u-turn when I’m a bit chubby these days.

Hmmm… I think I should learn how to write poetry now, can’t count on my underfed look anymore to attract girls  hehehe...

Aware

How to easily identify what you like in life?

Some distinct few conscious people would easily tell us what they like and really know why they like those things; they are fortunate people who have good self-awareness.

For them knowing their own self is just as easy as seeing their own reflection in the mirror, it’s quite natural.

But for some other it’s not that easy:

“I’m not really sure what I want…”

“It depends on who’s beside me…”

“Ask my friends, they know me better…”

Perhaps you’ve heard that phrases more than once or even quite often.

Yes the exposed world we live in today has blurring our own self; the overwhelming flashes and expectations put other people values and beliefs into our receptive feelings and emotion, so sometime we’re not really sure of our self authenticity.

It’s good to adopt or extract other people wisdom and knowledge to our own understanding, we learn from other people experience, their mistake prevents us make the same mistakes, their successes might inspire us to have a triumph direction, it makes us learn and grow.

But like no two fingerprints are exactly the same, no two persons are exactly the same also, we have more or less a slightly different package with other person, so our needs and wants perhaps slightly different one another too, so it’s better if we’re not passing the responsibility of our well being to our environment.

And it’s more responsible to ourselves and people around us if we aware of our own personalities and inner self, perhaps it will free us from a lot of unnecessary pressures, though sometimes it’s quite hard to communicating or presenting your true self to others, at least you could embrace yourself better.

Well yes sometime a special person understands us better than anyone in the whole lot world, but don’t let his or her lovely ability prevent us from being responsible to ourselves.

Cheers,

Fellow person

(Btw please be advised if you stand or sit close to me for quite some time, I might feel your inner self unintentionally, so approach at your own risk) 

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I Love To Ride My Bike

It's Sunday morning, and it's a car free day!

sms-ing bunch of friends, no immediate replies (they replying and calling when I was on my stops, excuses and excuses he2x)

so I just grab my bike (that I bought because a friend of mine bought a nice yellow 'bike to work' edition)

and destination Monas! (=National Monument Obelisk) ladies and gentlemen

so packed with a bottle of cold water and exciting anticipation of a free main road ahead, I just pedaling my bike slow but sure (halah ^_^)

at first it was easy because the bike is made of aluminum alloy so it's quite light

but after a while it's getting heavy and I'm in the land of thirst, so I stop once in a while to take pictures and sipping water

I'm not quite sure is it me or is it the heat but I have a feeling that the girls along the way seem to cheer me up quietly with their eyes and wish me not to give up until I reach the ultimate destination he3x (btw the shining sun looks bright that morning)

then at last that tall figure coming to sight, I'm approaching Monas!
and considerably still in a good shape :-)

after that I'm cruising back to my home with a happy feeling, probably caused by the sense of accomplishment ^_^

bike: a couple of million

accessories: a couple of hundred thousand

bragging to my friends that I'm riding my bike to monas alone: priceless ^_^

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