“The means need to be compatible with the end.”

Most of us use this, that as long as the means meets what the ends is, it is enough to do it. However, I tread in fear and trepidation when I think about it. You reap what you sow, and so if I use violence to create peace, then the peace is not long lasting, but rather already wrought with violence, since the process that began had violence intrinsic in its process and expression.

Then what? Using peace to get peace? Won’t the violent destroy the peace? If life is THAT simplistic, then it is impossible. However, life isn’t ever simplistic.

Using a consistent means to reap the end that you want, is therefore ultimately difficult, albeit impossible. Then what?

Now, this is worth thinking and pondering about.

• If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
  Do good anyway.

• If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
  Succeed anyway.

• The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
  Do good anyway.

• Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
  Be honest and frank anyway.

• The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
  Think big anyway.

• People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
  Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

• What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
  Build anyway.

• People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
  Help people anyway.

• Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
  Give the world the best you have anyway.

I like this. And it came from here.

Stumbled on this talk at TED. The speaker made a few statements, defined a few definitions, and touched my heart with her own story.

She said (and I paraphrase here and there) this:

Courage is telling your story with your whole heart. Compassion is practice has to be practiced onto your own self, before you can extend it. Connections occurs as a result of authenticity.

In order to be connected, I have to show myself and be seen. Be really seen. I have to learn to be vulnerable, showing my shamefulness and everything else that comes with my being and life.

People who are able to connect with others, have made a decision in their life that they choose to believe that they are worthy. And that they will take the risk, to risk rejection, separation, knowing that there is no guarantees in this life and in this world.

The speaker also mentioned that, “Blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort.”

And this is really true in my own personal life. And what I have learned is simply, when I can be vulnerable to someone, connection is being made, more so when vulnerability is reciprocated.

The big question is, how do we obtain this courage and extend it to others? Can we obtain it? Will we extend it then?

This makes me think. Why do we keep thinking that we will be alive tomorrow? The world might just end without warning, or my flat might just crash while I am sleeping.

Do we realize that we have only one life, and if we do not find the meaning of it, we might lose it once and for all?

Someone close to heart tells me that she is looking to get into a relationship with this gentleman, and that her heart tells her that this might be the quintessential one. Or maybe not. It will depend if he meets up to her expectations of what a gentleman should be.

Are we so shallow? That we think that we control our own destiny? Or that we should just live to most of what we have been dealt with?

I realize this, what you believe becomes your behaviour. This someone close to my heart, says that she is a Catholic, but she lives like an atheist, someone who has control over her own life.  So she doesn’t really believe in a Creator whom many of us call God.

We are indeed shallow. I have talked to people who call themselves Buddhists, Christians, and atheists, but do live contrary to what they are supposed to believe in! Oh dear me.

…and it’s the old argument that when you live in luxurious surroundings, have experienced the best restaurants and received the most lavish gifts, it becomes more difficult to savour the simple things in life.

I find this very important to our walk in life.

In Singapore, we are lulled into a sense of security. We live in luxurious surroundings, safety in the streets, magnificent malls, and clean streets. One of the best cities to have the most varied and sumptuous meals… and yet we, the Singaporeans, are adept in complaining.

We just celebrated National Day on the 9th August. I see scores and scores of Singaporeans at the Padang, titillating their senses with the mass displays and performances from celebrities. Do they really enjoy it? Is it a shallow form of enjoyment? Is the feeling of being proud to be Singaporean truly proud, or is it the nature of fleeting emotions that one feels when grandiosity touches our souls?

Should we, instead, look deep into ourselves, and see our own discontentment and frustration, and stay with that until we are accustomed to it? And therefore able to savour what we really have, and what we are led to think we have?

Yet, being committed to a partner for the rest of my life is really a blessing. Many times in the past I have found myself living in the ethereal world of thoughts, ideologies, and ideas. Now, I have a partner which I can share these cerebral world with.

And I get a response! Which sometimes translates into action, which means that the ideas of my head has begin to manifest into the physical realm by choice.

The benefits are, the burdens are shared, the ideas are lived and refined. And in the end, both enjoy the ride.

Such a paradox. Someone told me that marriage surfaces all the hidden realities of issues that we have stuffed under the carpet for such a long time.

I have to deal with my lack of direction in life; I have to deal with the untidiness which my mother screams at me about; I have to deal with my constant engagement with the computer and the Internet and how to get off it.

Is married life easy? Nope. The problem is that many married couples I know avoid facing the issues in their lives that are presented. I know this because I fled from many of these issues. But marriage counselling/mentoring has been helpful in pointing the fact that I don’t ever want become numb to the pain of reality.

Am I regretting? Never. The pain of discipline produces sweeter fruit than the pain of regret. Pain of regret only produces bitterness and then death.

I hope and will choose to deal with reality all my life.

In the past, I did rock-climbing. I liked the challenge of balancing, endurance, as well as the adrenaline rush when I led up with the rope. The best I’ve climbed was in Krabi, Thailand (or Phra Nang). My best slope was a 6b. I did my best on a 6b+ Snow Fall route, but did not manage to complete it. No matter, it was fun while it lasted. This was probably in the year 2002 going 2003.

Anyhow, I talked to a senior from Canada, he asked me,

“What next? Natural protection? And then climbing without the rope at all?”

This senior friend was wary of the fact that some of us needed an adrenaline fix, and brought out into the open that the adrenaline fix will disappear after a while. At that time, you know, whatever.

7 years from that day is today (well, sort of). And I am doing parkour. How much is enough? I have the principle in me that I have to always challenge myself, physically, mentally, and spiritually, ALL THE TIME.

Parkour is my way of challenging myself physically. And like the time when I rock-climbed, I didn’t like competitions. Never understood why, perhaps I did not like failure, perhaps intuitively I felt that I could only compare myself with myself throughout the continuum of time. Whatever the case, many may have felt that I was someone who was afraid to lose.

Back to parkour, some of the guys I do run with, are quite competitive, I come short of words in trying to explain to them why I don’t “compete” with them on stunts, but do things on my own time.

Rafe Kelly writes:

… it boils down to understanding the philosophy and background of parkour. Parkour is often connected to two french mottos: the natural method motto etre forte poure etre utile, and the parkour motto etre et durer. The natural method motto means “be strong to be useful.” The parkour motto means something like “to be and to endure.”

And I really like his articulation of what I am unable to express. Though I doubt my guys are unable to grasp what he is really means, I still have to try.

Adrenaline fixes are dangerous things to bank on in the long run. Choices, however, are my take on how things should be done.

In my line of work, I have to deal with parents of teenagers. Parents to their young adults. These parents, I would say, are good parents, they want the best for the children, well, most of them anyway. There are occasions where you find the one that just wants to drink or just wants to have his/her own life.

Many of the parents I have met struggle with their adolescent adult at home. They do not understand why their child does what they do. They are anxious and are afraid of the bad influences in society and the media. There are street gangs, addiction to gaming, drugs, cigarettes, and illicit behaviour.

As I reflect on my own life. I wonder when I have my own adolescent fruit of my loins, will I face the same anxiety as these parents.

I am also thinking that we, perhaps, have our regrets about what we have done in the past, and therefore are even phobic when it comes to our children. I am thinking aloud here. Perhaps parents first have to forgive themselves and their actions, and understand, and eventually accepting that it is part of their learning process. Then, perhaps, they can release their children to make the mistakes that they need to make, and work with the consequences.

I really don’t know if what I am saying is reality, or is it just an interesting speculation.