i won't give myself up

people look at me with envy, "you know what you want, you have got what you wish for.' 

they thought it is easy for me, figuring out exactly what to do. they thought i am really lucky to be among the few who could pull it off, this kind of lifestyle, which everyone wish for. having a job you love, going traveling to where ever the world calls out. more often than not, i have to make really huge sacrifices in every aspect, something so essential they missed out. 

years ago, i am no different from anyone else. just wanted a high pay job, probably a corporate job, cubicle prisoner. this would satisfy everyone else, almost everyone else, all except for me. the change came when i was let in a glimpse of all these "prestigious" job, i learned, fell hard and learned the true value of my life. 

if i myself don't give myself a voice, nobody will. nobody can be bothered with it. i could be the plain jane the office mule and made no controversial choices. but the fact is, this is not me. a far-cry from what i want in life. 

i want to be proud of myself. i want to speak of my life with glories, not to impress. simply just to have no regrets. yes it is that simple. i want to believe life is full of possibility. i want to lead an enriching life. most importantly, i want to be myself, truly myself, over and over again. only this, would i be able to rejoice in my existence even if nobody else is going to celebrate it. 

i want to spread ecstasy like the sun, enveloping the surrounding with energy, the gentle and loving energy. in no way do i wish my lifestyle to burn away others. even though it is what that is happening to the other. my pursuit truly disgrace them. i am not remorseful, i did nothing wrong, rob no one and not touch a soul awry.

i want to love, like i know i am capable of. i want to embrace this world. i crave and yearn for the love that so belonging to me and yet eludes me now. i will give myself a chance even if the world denied for there is no greater sin than passing the death sentence during life to oneself. 

another chance, another belief, another love. this life, this is me. 

time. timeless.

they all say time is running out, it'll be too late for me to do anything like that. but tell me, what exactly is time. what value does time hold when we have woes of time instead of celebrating the flow of it. rejoice that we are opening our eyes to a brand new day of challenge, give no cheers to the bland state of conformity. be awed that we are reborn every single day and not be bereaved by the loss of yesterday. someone enlightened me, why is it i see so many people indulging in yesterday, fantasizing about tomorrow but not relishing the very day that existed. well i'm not saying its not good to learn from our history and have big dreams. in fact, i'm totally into it but too many people are neglecting the presence of now in exchange for those faraway moments. i meant both yesterday and tomorrow are non-existent, where do they stand in this very minute? too many times, we deflate this particular moment to inflate our past glories and future achievements. but when we don't live in present tense, we would never get what we want. however, say we do get what we want, we quickly relinquish their pleasure by upping the ante for the ransom of time. yes, we are no longer keepers of our own time, we are our very own time-kidnapper. paradoxically, we put our time away from us. yes. this is a crazy world. the one very thing we have in definite, we let it slipped away.

perhaps, we are all taught that we have to work hard for the things we wanted. thus time is a conflicting currency we don't even have to lift a finger to get. spend it generously, spend it wisely. i believe the adage, the best thing in life are free, so is the case for time that the universe dished out for everyone. imagine a world so rich that we don't have hard cash currency, instead wealth is calibrated by time. everyone will be living in abundance, there will be no poverty cause everyone's treasure is the gift of time.

so we have to learn to not be trapped in the loop of time, to not forget the meaning of life and to remember the power of living in the moment.

we share the same dream

life's amazing. today i am impressed. this girl, 22, i met at the zoo bus stop via my office lady. she is daring and spontaneous in pursuing her dream. studied in private diploma school. didn't earn a cent before graduation. upon graduation, holds her first job in a managerial position in retail section. after that, moving onwards to build her CV. experience 5 jobs of different nature within a short time span of 1 and a half year. and now, she's at the night safari.

finally some one agrees that qualification ain't everything, life is. no matter how backwards one falls in terms of their education level, they could still made up for it in other ways. what good is a scholar if he/she doesn't know how to handle the vicissitudes of life.

the issue with us, i guess, is that we are all searching for the perfect life. thing is, there's no such thing as a perfect life. one has to make choices. choices signifies sacrifices. sacrifices might lead to regrets. so how could life ever be perfect when presented with such spectrum of decisions; loss and gain? the perfect life could only exist only if one live in ignorance and avoidance.

but on a lighter note, one could have their ideal life. ideal by making an informed choice of letting go and dedicating their work towards their goal, tipping the scale more towards gain than loss. what are our priorities? what do we really live for? is it really worth it to be in that high paying but soul sucking job? is it really necessary to acquire that label? to me, leading an ideal life do and could means letting go of anything, even if it is high in controversy; the 7 years lover, the opportunity for higher education or even the trade in of a promotion for an exotic job. everyone is different in their needs, personality and passion. that's why one decision that seems logically or socially wrong feels so right to the other.

on my way home, cycling in the rain, brought me back to the time when i just graduated from secondary school. caught in a similar weather, a kind uncle offered to share his umbrella across the road. he queried about my decision upon graduation, jc or poly? my answer, poly, maybe engineering. his reply, well, engineering you can get very high starting pay as compared to other fresh graduate but the pay increment really sucks. in contrast, for business student, the starting pay is lower but you can see no limit in terms of monetary rewards. as a 16 year old, i seriously ponder about his advise. but now, 4 years of growing up, if i were to be in the same situation, i would speak boldly of my aspirations cause storing money isn't passion but having a passion could bring in money, which could be in term use to fuel the passion. its an irony that people who earn so much seems more reluctant to part with their money in areas of personal growth.

here, i shall share the life of a guy who i met at SPCA. he's 18 but already with a list of achievements. he is teaching drama to primary school kids, acted in a local production. represent a hotel for this inter-hotel tennis competition (if i didn't recall wrongly) through the recommendation of his coach. is a lead singer for a band and producer or song writer for another. got into criminology at the age of 14 by submitting an essay and passing an interview. but dropped out as he doesn't want to be seem as a child prodigy. is a journalist. apparently he has got an IQ of 170++. waiting to be admitted to lasalle at that point of time. and the best thing is, he doesn't look like a geek. he looks like the typical ah beng, piercing, cap and berms with a bit too much of the english feel. he had a pet snake and tarantula which he fed them rodents. yuck and bloody. (one of my ex-colleague, who is pretty impressive too, used to have a pet scorpion. wth! next time i shall keep a pet ant colony. lol.) he could be bragging and lying but i choose not to doubt. whats the point, i rather be impressed than to be suspecting and jealous. face the truth, we all heard about the 4 year old uni kid and the baby who is chosen as a reincarnation of god, so whats wrong with having a 14 year old uni kid here?

to sum up, i really have got a wonderful life and is heading towards ideal.
- a close to dream and already satisfying and rewarding job (and the pay good too)
- a cosy bed in my homely abode
- a vehicle (bicycle)
- passion fueling life
- the ability to keep on dreaming and achieving what i really want and not what society dictates (prove me wrong that most people do whats expected of them)

at the end of the day, i don't see myself as how much lesser i am as compared to the others but as how much more i could grow into.

life should be a dream

what good does a dream serves should one back up after presented with an initial obstacle. if it were to be like a breeze, everybody would be taking it so lightly. but fact is, people don't realise the true form of our journey, the way the universe works. to segregate the real do-er and those that just pay lip service to their dream, the ego of one has to be thrashed upfront. if one still couldn't fathom this logic, it could be equate to those of a baby step. we stumble, fall and pick ourselves up. slowly but surely, we learn to walk, approaching a sprint, a gait, a chase. we know this since we were born however over time, we lose this instinctive nature due to the fast impact society that we lived in. imagine that, people shot to fame overnight after posting their video on the internet. more often than not, viewers neglect the years of hard work behind it and look at the whole situation through rose-tinted glasses. everything we do got to have an instantaneous impact. but you know, we don't start out to build the biggest, strongest, most mind blowing staircase towards our dream. we start by laying the steps stably, one at a time. climbing up towards our ultimate goal. nothing about it is going to be easy but if we were to survive the beginning hardship, the universe would reward us bit by bit, though with it random bout of test, encouraging us to stick to our resolution.

show me that we are not weaklings that bow down so easily. prove to me that we could all fight with the same passion. then again i don't need to follow, let me set the rules on how i'm gonna do it.

stop existing, start living!

a tour ain't a way to see a country, its just a way to confirm the notion of those postcard-image of the country that you have. the glossy pictures you saw on the magazines, the tour package of 5d4n with stay at luxurious hotels. is it really worth it to travel so far and spending so much to experience the comfort of your own homeland? this isn't my style. everybody has their own style. we are all unique entities, no point trying to conform to the others. its just turning the whole world into a miserably bunch of people. likewise, going against my style is just going to make me discontented.

i think to define your style for anything, its important to question yourself, what exactly are you trying to find in the process? once you established that, you have to ensure that your acts are truly in accordance with your style. this way, there would be lesser regrets and more enrichment in life. no matter which stage of life you are at, its never too late to start living. neither can you be too young nor too old. just too lost and too blind to see your own truth.

--------------------

someone once told me that self-help books are superfluous as its mainly common sense. when you start reading a whole range of books on the same topic, you found that to be highly true, the things in it are probably stuffs (i.e. usually law of attraction) that you know but didn't know you knew. thats when the self help book kicks in, in its highly repetitive nature, it will reinforce your thoughts to embarking a journey to self, enlightenment or whatever you call it.

the thing is, people have a tendency to focus too much on their negative thoughts that they have no idea how much negativity they are exuding, which in turns attract more of its kind.

to change the world, you start first by changing yourself.

contentment

look at you. a sturdy shelter above your head, a comfy bed, sumptuous meal on the table, new clothes to wear, tv and internet to connect to the rest of the world just at the tip of your finger. yet, you whine, you complain, you are unsatisfied with what you own.

look at the world. if you do not get it yet, those things are considered luxuries, not basic necessities. bet you didn't know that you are one of the richest in this world population. yet you claim that you are poor. people are being deprived of these things you take as granted. you can't see how much you have, you need to learn to count your blessing.

look inside of you. you got to be taught on being contented. don't believe anybody if they say contentment is for underachiever. what do they know about being successful? what do they know about YOUR definition of success? don't let the notion of being rich and holding a high position equates to success get the best of you.

look at this law of achieving, the maslow's hierarchy of needs. you have to be feeling secure with the basic level before proceeding to the next. tell me, how many times do you hear, i will do xxx when i have enough money. exactly what is enough? there will not be enough without contentment. in the end, we will never reach self-actualization cause we are all obsessed with "safety" i.e. financial resources. no step will be taken to achieve our dreams. its going to be difficult to convince ourselves that what we have is sufficient but its possible, for the sake of living a dream.

look at your dream. it just take one belief to break the mould, to believe you have all it takes. u just have to take the first step and not look back. run, sprint towards your dream and embrace whatever that comes along, be it good, be it bad. for that, for all your courage, you will taste success.

===============================
"when you have come to the end of all the light you know and are willing to take one more step - either you will be given solid ground to stand on or you will be taught how to fly."
- Gordon Paul

the tale that inspires

shed the excessive
dare to be different
know the goal
rise no matter how bad the fall is
exceed the limitations
and success will follow

===============================================
once saw a phrase that goes something like this "woman are the stronger sex for man supposedly being the "stronger" sex has a weakness and/or soft spot for woman"