Dedicated to a friend

 

Hang in there, you'll make it.

Life is a Lesson We Learn Day after Day

I have learned so many lessons in my life.
I have discovered how to enjoy
the people and places that surround me,
to appreciate the here and now.
I have grown and changed through
expressing my thoughts and feelings
to family and friends.
I have given of myself to them when times
were good and when they were not,
and the bond of understanding that we
feel for one another has taken
our hearts and woven them together.

Life is a series of transitions
and a collection of interactions with others.
It is a journey through time that
gathers together so many emotions
and allows us all to cherish
the truths that we believe in
and to respect others for theirs.

Life proceeds forward,
and it happens over and over again
as each day begins and ends.
It holds millions of mysteries for each of us
to explore and incorporate into our lives.
We are each the center of our own life
and by focusing on ourselves
and by understanding our desires and dreams,
we can fulfill our true spirits and find
a sense of happiness in all that we do.

I create the roads that will follow.
My life is an ongoing experience
that fascinates and enlightens me.
I am forever questioning
my thoughts and feelings
and the never-ending illusive truths that
keep me pondering the mysteries of life.
I have no words of wisdom to explain
what life should or should not be,
but I do know this:

"Every breath is counted
and time is timeless.
One day I will be gone."

Deanna Beisser.

Photo credits:
Photo by annia316 under a Creative Commons License.

Lest we be proud

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Photo credits:
Photo by shapeshift under a Creative Commons License.

Who is the real terrorist?

Perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, victims: we can be clear about three of these categories. The bystander, however, is the fulcrum. If there are enough notable exceptions, then protest reaches a critical mass. We don’t usually think of history as being shaped by silence, but, as English philosopher Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’

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Nazism - an evil not to be repeated.

The evil of our time must not be repeated.

Genesis : A new birth

Genesis: The act of producing, or giving birth or origin to anything; the process or mode of originating; production; formation; origination.

Finally, things are coming together again. I have started a new project. I may not have time to update a lot of things. I may have to drop my daily reading of the news on the internet. Then again, it is a good thing. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone has an opinion. Most just follow without thinking.

I'll still update my blog. This is what I like to do. It took me 6 years before I finally commit to start  a blog. Ideas are like that. some germinates faster, some ever so slowly. 

 

After two years of testing, I can now launch my company to public view. It is something that my partner and me have been working on for the last two years. The seed of the original idea started 10 years ago. Now things are falling in place. When the time comes, I will reveal the company. Launch date, would hopefully be by on the 3rd quarter of this year.

Right now we are in the midst of agreeing on the framework with our new partners.

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Some days, I look back into my life, thinking what would it be like if I had not taken that step, 13 years ago. I was working at Performance Motors. Straight forward job, Customer Service Officer, basically a 9 to 5 job, attend to customers about their BMW cars and maintenance.

I quit the job. And when into sales, insurance sales, 100% fully commission. Still at it today.

"No basic pay", my wife freaked out. I was then just just married for about 3 years and have my first son.

And 13 years later, 3 more children, I'm still in sales.

Some "suggested" that I should get a "proper" job.

The truth of the matter is, I can't. I love doing sales, I love meeting people. And if I were to die and be born again, I'd probably do the same again.

Off course, there are ups and downs. When is life all the way up or down.

Confucius says it better:
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do."

To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

I take risk, not unfounded risk, instead calculated risk. It is in my nature. I am not one who plays it safe, I don't go to "work" as they say. I create work.

Not many would understand it. Do not take advice from those who have not done what you have done, even though they are your close relatives. Even for those who have and failed, use their failure as an opportunity to learn.

Many times, I have friends in business who failed and some gave up, when you asked them, inevitably, they will say its better not to risk everything, just work for someone else, let them take the risk.

Don't sympathize with them, instead empathize, get to know how they fail and learn from their failure. It is always better to learn from other people's failure than your own.

Always believe in what you do. Never, never, never take advice from anyone (includes your relatives, your mom and dad too), who have not done what you have done.

Some people are fearful, they need so called "blessings" from people. I'm a Muslim and yes, you do have to respect your parents, regardless.  It doesn't mean they have the power to confer "blessings". I'm a father too, I have four kids. Do they need my blessings?

What I can do is guide them in making the right choices. I am fully aware that when they are 18, they are adults responsible for their own actions. Two of my kids are teenagers, I talk to them about a lot of topics, and yes it includes sex, porn and drugs too. 

I will always discuss to them about the implications. I always tell them, just because everyone thinks that it is alright to do it, it doesn't mean its right. What we need to do is access it objectively.

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.

I have never been a spectator, I am always a contender. I am always in the ring. Once awhile, I get knocked out, I'll get up again. I may be sidelined, soon I'll be in it again. Spectators will always cheer or jeer, it doesn't matter. What matters is that my most important fan doesn't give up one me.

Who is my most important fan?

Myself.



Photo credits (Bear with me until I figure out how to caption the photos properly):
Photo by Indie Charlie under a Creative Commons License.

No shortcuts

One of the truism in life. You will not get ahead unless you put in the effort. I'm not going say "to work smart" or "to work hard" cliche.

Everything will simply fail when you look for a shortcut. There is nothing inherently wrong in taking a shortcut, it becomes, suspect, when you start thinking of doing less and getting more. Up to the point, that it will be "auto-generated".

A friend of a friend of mine, is brilliant in doing this kind of work. He excels in web programming. What he does, he writes a script and aggregates news feed to his blog. That's fine initially, until the readers found out it is just spewing and regurgitating recycle muck from the Internet. What happens? Less and less viewers.

As they say, content is king. It has to be original and from you. Not from some disconnected feeds, nor from some article base. Anyway the advantage of writing you own material is that, you won't be accused of plagiarism.

A couple of weeks back, one of my friend was excited about a program he found. I already knew, have seen so much since, though I always keep an open ear. "EASY, FAST, AND SAVES TIME AND MONEY" screamed the headline. So I asked him what is it really about.

He is not one of those techies, and he can't explain it. He told me all he needs to do is provide an email. I smiled, "That's the hook". True enough it wasn't free, there is a price attached to it.

"Should I?", "You should!"

Weeks later, I met him again.

"How was it?",

"Why didn't you tell me not to do it?"

I explained to him that it was just a lesson. Sometimes the best way to learn is experiencing it yourself, so it will be internalize. I have my fair share of scams foisted on me.

I explained to him about the tech side of things, and he realized its not his forte. We laughed about it and my friend came out wiser, I'm sure he will spread the message. Don't commit until you understand what you are getting into.

In every industry, there will always be a top performer. She is always passionate about what she is doing. The thought of doing it easier, never crossed her mind. And she will be paid top dollars for it.

The thing that I would like to stress is that there is always work to be done. When you give all your heart and soul, things naturally fits in.

Anyway other way will simply not work. There is no such thing as something for nothing.

For me, I have always been writing, on everything, from bits and scraps of paper to notebooks. Thoughts form in my mind instantaneously and like a raging river. I have to drink cups of coffee, at night, just to calm my mind, else I can't sleep.

Its always coffee black and no sugar, used to be with a cigarette or two before I learn how to control it. Took me 6 tries. Now I am not addicted to smoking. I can turn it on and off like a switch.

This blog is a natural progression.

People do fall for the same old tricks over and over again. These words and phrases carry a very powerful emotional concoction.

• More money.
• Free.
• Less work.
• Vacation everyday.
• Kids, family, loved ones.
• Quality time.
• And many more.

Use it in combination and voila you get a emotionally charged landing page that can motivate you to take action.

The question to ask, "Does it fit naturally into my character?"

The Living

To appreciate life is to understand that death is part and parcel of it. In His great wisdom, we would not know when is our life due.

Does dying early means an untimley death or living a long life means you have so called "enjoy life". A measure most people use is how long have someone lived. Yet the more important thing that we should realize is, how much have we contributed.

I remembered the day my dad died. It was in the evening and it was raining. I was just finishing my work when I heard the news. I have not known my dad well enough, only in his later years, fragments of his memory came alive.

He told me he was once a hawker; a sailor; and who were his friends. The places he grew up in. I knew he was married before and divorced, my mum was his second wife. He had children, and up to this day, I do not know who they are. I do not know any of his brothers or sisters.

He was from Malaysia and decided to move and stay in Singapore. That was way back in 1937. I did not exist back then. Whatever had happened, he changed his surname. At his death, his surname was changed back to what it was once.

Every life is meaningful and contributes in its own unique way.

All of us face the great leveler, death. Friends and relatives have passed away before me. Do I feel sad? Only when I think about it.

Today another death of a relative. I just visited him yesterday, he was weak, and I instinctively knew. I didn't say much. I do not know how one would receive the inevitable.

This morning my brother SMS me and told me that his father in law heart is weak and they are moving him to the ICU. I told him to recite the Yassin chapter from the Quran, and let Him in his Infinite Wisdom, do what's best.

Later in the afternoon, God loves his slave more and free him of his suffering.

Allah (S.W.T) says in the Quran:
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful



Who say, when afflicted with calamity:
"To Allah we belong, and to Him is our return"

The Social Media Landscape

What is Social Media?