Stories

Everyone has stories.  And I believe each of us has compelling stories to tell that can make a difference.

Facebook says we can tell our stories with Timeline.  Fantastic.  You start seeing photos of your friends' graduation or wedding day got replaced by updates on what they just had for breakfast this morning.   Great invention!  

Facebook is still great, don't get me wrong.  The thing is, we have total autonomy on how we tell our stories.  Say you are catching up with an old friend – would you rather be interested that he had Egg Benedict this morning, or hear about his new dream job?  

Say you have had a rough day at work where literally everything could have gone wrong had gone wrong.    

When your emotional edge and resentment are your little demon friends, you chose to tell and post your story with:  

"I would not be feeling x, if y didn't happen." Or, more realistically, "I would not be feeling x, if so-and-so didn't do y." 

What this is, is like a projector screen of words convincing you of a story you are literally making up to yourself. Works you up to anger, exacerbates the pain and guaranteeing its survival.

To me, the purpose of telling your story of self is to create common ground with your audience by sharing a story that reflects the values that brought you to work on your given issue, and where those values come from.

Perhaps next time you can consider taking your frustrations to the bar and flush it down with a happy-hour drink or two.  

Do you think the keyboard can escape just like that?  

I don't think that's allowed.  

Is Chivalry Dead?

What's wrong with these twenty, early thirty year-old these days?  They pretend they don't see with their eyes wide opened.  

I am talking about being chivalrous in giving up seats on mass public transports.  I have taken a lot of trains and buses in Asian cities to conclude that Hong Kong is the worst I have seen.   It is saddening to see my home city's civilization retreating backwards.  

The old, incapacitated, pregnant or distressed deserve your seat more than you.  Give yours up!   Don't they teach that at school any more? 

Next time, if you notice a seated person so absorbed in their game of Candy Crush or Fruit Ninja that they haven’t seen the 93-year-old.  Intercede, or they will never learn.    

Oh, and since we are on the subject of etiquette on public transports - I will add one more commandment: Invest on decent headphones, I mean, any masterpiece that leaks out just becomes noise disturbance when emanated from that lousy headphones of yours.  

Living Out of A Suitcase

I have clocked over 50,000 air miles in the last 5 months.  If only they could be accredited under the same airline loyalty programme, I could well be flying free to Mexico, you know.  

I am not alone in this.  I mean, this is no surprise for a few of my friends and my sister who all work in consultancies.  The difference between me and them - I have been travelling for leisure, life is sweet but I earn peanuts.  Theirs - life is gruelling, bitter sweet but they earn tonnes. 

Their typical week starts before dawn on Monday with a rush to the airport and a flight to wherever their client is based.  They would then spend the majority of the week indoors gorging on minibar snacks and glumly texting their distant lover.   Add 18 hours weekdays plus 6 hours weekends will just about make their week fulfilled.  

For those bright young things out there (and the not-so-young ones) who are always worried that you haven't done enough work, not enough to pay for your mortgages and a decent grub - please - think again and get a life (and some sleep would help too) because any smarties would know working oneself to death in order to keep up and not having any time to enjoy the fruits of one's work isn't really success.  It is merely obsession.  

For the attention-seekers - if you think nobody really cares if you are alive or dead apart from your boss, how about trying to miss a couple of mortgage payments, you will then have the bank looking for you too!   

And for the rest of us who are perfectly normal, let's rejoice and muse with this inspiring quote.  

As for me, after a nice little career break, I am exhilarated to be back on a corporate payroll again!   Yes I am.  

A Quantitative Self

With smartphones and some wonderful apps these days, it is fairly easy to get obsessed, and I am not talking about Candy Crush.  I am talking about Data Crunching.   

Heaps of it.  

Last month, I knew things had got out of hand.  Instead of hitting the town for a friend's birthday, I stayed at home and walked back and forth across my living room hoping the little exercise would make me feel less guilty about the amount of eating-out I have been doing.   It was probably for the best that I didn't go out for dinner and cocktails anyway, because according to the wonderful Account Tracker app that keep stabs on my finances, I am veering dangerously close to busting my monthly budget.  

And don't even go there with the ingenious Drinks Tracker, an app that racks up all the units I drink in a week.  It is making me feel like a really really bad person for pouring a third glass of wine on a Friday night.  I have had a boozy month and the bar chart on my app is alarmingly littered with red exclamation marks.  And so I logged on to Optimism, my Happiness Tracker and downgraded my mood from an eight to a fiver!

Are you lured?  If so, here's a list of useful quantified-self apps for your reference.  I have pretty much been there done that and at the end of the day, I know data does not matter, it is what I mine from it that does.   It is like those TV programmes about obese people when they lay out all the food they have eaten in a week and it really shocks them.  I have hence become more self conscious of what I do, eat and drink, which is very empowering indeed.  

I may have started walking more and eating, drinking, spending less, but frankly, I am ready to ditch my Nike Fuelband for now.  Stop counting and just start living and hopefully, back on jogging (no, I meant blogging) a bit more frequently.  

Your Neighbourhood Gems

Ideally within strolling distance from your front door, it's a bolt hole where the staff know your name, your drink and your favourite seat.   When it closes for a fortnight's holiday, its regulars will soon lament its absence.  

I am referring to a neighbourhood cafe.  One that's open when you need it and one that's worth getting out of bed on a freezing day and draws you in with its warm glow of familiarity.  

You might spot local art on the wall, stacks of magazines to browse and an inviting aroma for you to suck it all in.   The wait staff would have to be pretty laid back but attentive - just the style you like it.   Neighbours might meet here for the first time and become friends over coffee.  It's where a few parents might take her baby on its first outing and where that child will grow up (it is possible).  It's truly a place where a community can come together and fed connected.   

Each visit may seem much the same as another but their accumulation can account for a significant part of our lives. Whether your purpose of going is for conversation, food and drink, to work or just to switch off, the end result is the same - you will feel much better having gone. 

Go explore and visit that cafe at your neighbourhood - the one that you have always wanted to go but never find the time.   For some it may require a short bus ride but going out of your way to get there can make the visit all the more memorable and open your eyes to a whole new neighbourhood.  

And as a coffee lover visiting London, I have been irreparably spoiled rotten with a plethora of choices.  So many cafes scattered around even signage can get interesting.  

A Whimsical Look At Time

What would the world be without time?  I know one thing for sure, we will have one less phobia, as no one will suffer from chronomentro-phobia!

Righto.  The first thing that pops up in my head: many hotel lobbies would look much better I reckon.  Ever notice how all those clocks displaying the time in various cities of the world clutter up spaces?  Who ever reads them?  I suggest they invest in art instead!

Those who love sleeping would love this.  They would very much be using their body's circadian clock.  Imagine sleeping when tired and eating when hungry, not because it's, say, 11pm or lunch hour.   Party until thy want to, not until thy reached thy curfew.   Brilliant isn't it?

And because there will be no clock-in time, employees would arrive and leave at different hours, eliminating rush hour traffic.   Smashing.  

Comes examinations, students would take their own sweet time to answer questions.  I never think it makes much sense to cram everything we have learnt throughout the whole year into a few hours anyway.  

We could also lose ourselves in cyberspace.  No one could measure the amount of time I have been spending on Facebook or Facebook.  No one would never know when anyone would arrive for a dinner party.  Probably going to have to rely on instincts to decide when to serve party food.  

I was just taking TIME OFF for a whimsical look at the possible ways life would be more interesting without say, clocks.   It is TIME to get back to reality.   About TIME to pay that bill and don't forget that tax return!

A Sneeze That Leave Her Cold

Coldness of the world got her to speak her mind about it, but instead of just spitting it out, she sneezes.  For her, it is impossible to sneeze without sounding (and appearing) ridiculous.  

As you grow, your jawline might change, your hair style will change and you can even change the way you hail a taxi but your sneezing style, it stays with you, for life.

The build-up and release of some sneezes is worth a book, I think.  For instance, there are those gentle sneezes that sound like birds, hardly get noticed.  There are some geniuses who seem to be able to swallow their sneezes, an envious style I cannot master.  Then we have the "achoo" variety - almost universal in its impact, something really honest about this and most people readily respond with a "bless you".  

And there's a type called a blast.  It begins with a contorted face, moves on to the shoulders shake and rolling eyes and sometimes, is given greater emphasis by the flapping arms, followed by the outburst.  This, sadly, is the category in which I belong - the kind that will cause bystanders to jump out of their skins and rush into bomb shelters.  

Oh well, I have been frank.  

What about yours? 

Love Life, Not Stuff

What a heavy book to read on a long haul flight.  Not literally heavy like a dictionary, but the attempt to digest one of Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus' philosophical novels was.   

In The Stranger or The Outsider (L’Étranger), I found this interesting line from the book which I felt like sharing,

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

The Carpenters pondered with a song even, did they not?  

"Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?"  

Well...they just do.  And may be we should stop asking why oh why and just get on with life.  I have obviously caught the bug from Camus. 

Let go of your sadness, give up the fight;  
Follow your madness, and take flight.

I know you are capable of.

Who's My Valentine?

Can't believe Christmas and new year celebrations have come and gone and the fact that I have not been blogging since last year, is just beyond me. 

I chose to write today, not to express how I am a Valentine’s Day acolyte, very much to the contrary, I never get excited about it weeks in advance the way I do with Christmas.  

I believe relationships are healthier when couples are romantic all year round and not just one day of the year.   Shouldn't just glorify romantic love on this day but all kinds of love. 

Sometimes the fact that I haven’t found that special someone yet brings up a fear that I’m not loved.  I do have a date today and have rediscovered a guy who loves me.  He just happens to be my dad.  Worth all the ink isn't it?

No romances with lashings of extravagant meal nor sumptuous fine wine tonight (no sexy talks either).  But love is all around. 



Happy Valentine's Day to all you fine people!