interesting day

I have decided to try a new philosophy out.

Eat when I am hungry, (not the mind-type of hungry, but the stomach says it’s hungry, hungry

This morning I woke up and had my mix of juice: Carrots, green apples, bitter gourd, and oranges. about 4 hours later, I became hungry, so I ate two bananas.

Then I went to meet my mentor to discuss how should I proceed with my life goals. During that time, I got hungry, so I ate 2 slices of kaya toast, 1 french toast, 4 eggs. This meal lasted me till about 7.30pm, when I decided it was time to do some kettle bell swings.

Sweating like pig on a hot afternoon, I got out my dinner which comprised of 4 tomatoes (516g), 200 grammes of lettuce, 4 pitted prunes, and 2 bananas (140g). That and my 90g of soy milk.

I am filled pretty much. Wonder how the meat and salt cravings will come to me later at night.

Reflection on the selection camp

In honesty, it was definitely physically tiring, but not really mentally tiring. It would really be mentally tiring IF the situations were more realistic. In other words, other than the lack of sleep… it was not mentally tiring.

It was only mentally tiring because I was consistently pushing myself to see if I could see the bigger picture so that I could ‘beat’ the instructors in their own game, subtly.

Subtly is not my strongest forte, so it was worth a try to work the system inside out, without being disrespectful, just being blatantly honest. It work to some extent.

Plus, I was assessing the camp organizers, I felt something of a misfit. Their values and their actions did not seem to match. Their spoken messages and their non-verbal messages where at odds with each other. This made me very uncomfortable. I turned towards my team mates for solace. At least they were more real, and grouded, plus they were ’suffering’ with me.

I am also grateful that understanding group dynamics helped understand what was going on. It is so… bizarre, to say the least. Oh well…

Leadership

I just came back from a supposedly 3-day 2-night camp. It was a camp to see if one had leadership skills, knowledge, application of skills, and one more criteria, to which I cannot remember now.

After the camp, I was tired, but relentlessly clear headed. I do acknowledge that there has been a limitation of viewpoints (or I would more accurately say, limitation of perspective) because of the tiredness.

Still, the camp left me thinking about leadership. If their leadership model is based on the camp, then the next generation of leaders are so going downhill. I was reading Gary Chapman’s piece on leadership in a relationship, and even though it comes from a Christian perspective, there is practical wisdom in it. Check it:

As the head, does the Father ever force the Son to do anything?  No.  Does the Son ever act independently of the Father?  No.  There is perfect unity.  That is the design for Christian marriage: husbands and wives working together as a team, with the husband as the recognized leader. 

Do leaders force their followers to do anything? I think that if the leader has to force/coerce any follower to do anything, then in my regard, I do not consider a good leader. Period.

Blood pool

Its 3 am.

I flipped in my bed and as I peered through my tired slits, I saw my grandfather toppling over onto the floor. My mind reeled in shocked yet managed to snap out of it.

I watched a pool of blood gathering flow, as my grandfather lay faced down on the floor. I immediately grabbed hold of his body to try to lift him up, but his inert legs hindered as he groaned.

After shifting his legs around, I managed to prop him up against the side of the bed, when I noticed a second pool had already accumulated.

How do you sleep after an incident like that? How do you get back to bed after cleaning a pool of blood? How do you sleep after washing up the stains on your own skin? How do you sleep thinking things are going to be all right when your grandfather just fell in the same room you both live in?

being hectic

I’ve been busy. Taking a bunch of CDs out of my huge collection. Re-listening to a lot of the CDs. I realize that a lot of the CDs that had a lot of hype and was intensely fast, are the ones that I may tend to discard now. They seem to have lost their lustre.

The interesting album that I am keeping is Eric Clapton’s There’s One In Every Crowd. Why? This album has sound almost tired and bored, but now I feel like it really is enjoyable. The album sounds so relaxed, chilled, maybe even depressing, but it could fit my mood, and I can really enjoy it. Is this the sign of age? But I still like Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Texas Flood, and I did discard, Clapton’s later releases.

Right now, I am listening to Elton John’s greatest hits, wondering if I should keep this 2 CD collection, for Daniel, Your Song, Blue Eyes, Someone Saved My Life Tonight, and my favourite Philadelphia Freedom.

Or maybe I should just rip it and send to another friend who might like to keep it. Elton John’s piano playing and arrangements of his music, makes his music quite grand, but not towards the formal. There is that connection he still has, that personal part.

Tomorrow, I have to check the banks for loans. To see if they can finance my collection of rare CD collection, that I have stored in Sweden. (It’s there, but I have to transport them here, sigh.)

200 CDs later…

So 200 CDs later, I have discarded 60+ CDs to be distributed to friends who might want them.

It is tough to make choices especially when choices are burdened by emotion.

I did say before that the things that grip us are the things that we have attached emotion to. And if you decide to live like Data from Star Trek, I’m sorry to say, it is quite impossible. We always find someone or something to attach ourselves to.

Better choose a good master, else all is lost. I know a friend who chose to attach himself to his girlfriend. Naturally, when they broke up, he was devastated.

I’ve to start making important decisions soon.

the most difficult job in the world

I am taking time to pore through my whole CD collection, to see what I should put or pass to friends.

I have too huge a CD collection, if I listen to one CD after another continuously, I think the CDs will play for 20 days non-stop.

So here’s what I have done, I have classified CDs in these categories:

• I really love them and listen to them over and over again.
• This CD marks an era in my life, and the memories remain.
• This CD can drastically assist in changing moods.
• The music is something that touches a core in me.
• This CD is a classic, and is a must-have.

Now comes the difficulty of fleshing through the extremely alluring packaging and words of remarkable-ness to remove what is essential and what isn’t.

transiting beyond myself

It is a difficult transition.

Here I think I am ready to love someone for the rest of my life, but the rubber meets the road, fears emerge in the form of questions:

What if I am not capable? Can I trust myself with someone else? Will I fail? How do I care for someone else day in day out when all I have had was just to care for myself? Can I transit to be less self-centred? To become more other-centred? What if I hurt her? What if I am hurt? Who is going to protect me?

As I contemplate, I know that I have a community of close friends  who will help check me, hold me accountable for my actions.  This same group of people will assist me with if I need help. It is reassuring.

Here I go into transiting.

simple wisdom

Coming from the point of Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, wisdom is sometimes something so simple and fundamental that we fail to follow her guidance.

I met up a old friend from JC days, and my, I am pleasantly delighted to see how far he has come. To come from a neighbourhood secondary school, and then to not do extremely well for his degree (but then neither did I), he has managed to secure himself a banking job.

Naturally, my inclination to think that a banking is very stressful came up in the conversation. He poignantly pointed that while the stress is always there, there are some rules and principles that he follows that would take off undue stress.

He explained to me that his principle of working was simply always to be honest and hardworking. To be honest is to present clearly options available, his opinions, market trends, and most importantly not to over-promise investments. He said that he learned these over the years from observing his managers, fellow peers, and juniors. He explained that when he did not over-promise, expectations of this customers were sufficiently managed. This makes sense!

The other principle which he holds closely to is being hardworking. He narrowed down that being hardworking was about being conscientious in the work. To do and finish as much as possible, and to remain focus on the main issues. He confessed that some procedures really bored the heck out fo him, but he just pursued at getting the job done, and not get distracted by the side projects that avail themselves when he was feeling heat of the boredom.

Simple wisdom? Absolutely.

I must add that this friend always had an air of confidence about him. His confidence is matched with his sincerity as well as ability to change the tone of his voice when required.

My friend would add that he always had been ‘lucky’ to have understanding customers. But, I refuse to accept that, I just begin to realize that his rapport building skills are really efficient to the extent that he does not realize it.

Kudos to you, Cougar! All the best in your banking career!

Getting real with myself

A series of events has forced me to take a honest look at myself.

I am no angel. I have my own ragtag shit of bad habits. I am basically not a good person.

Yes, a friend was wondering if I was too hard on myself. I think that I just need to clean up my act. Come clean with myself.

Especially in certain areas of my life, I have got to be ruthless about dealing with it. If not, I will start to lie about my nature, and try to sneak and get away with it. Such is the deceptive nature of myself.