Valorous Halcyon

Okay I lied. The first part of the title is not exactly my headline, but a term I casually adopted from a venerable author James Altucher. He wrote the book Choose Yourself and albeit I have yet to get my hand on it, I reckon it’s going to be mind-blowing. I definitely can’t wait to get one! Imagine ourselves lying on the floor, barely able to lift our heads, unsure of where and when to turn. James has thrived in the past by starting up so many companies, but hit rock bottom multiple times too. Every year is challenging for him, but he still continued to live each day clasping his Daily Practices (reading, writing, doing podcasts and inspiring others with his unique experience and brutally honest and creative ideas, BEING THANKFUL).  Just this week alone I have been pondering on the idea of happiness. Even during Sunday Service in church 5 days ago, my pastor talked about choosing happiness. How much more coincident can it get because I have been pondering the same though...

The past weekend has been physically exacting for me, because I was irrational bold enough to join the Sports Day organized by my employer Bank Negara, knowing I was/am not much fitter than the majority population. Still I challenged myself. I knew the chance for me to win anything was extremely slim – close to 0%. I took the first step and stepped out of my comfort zone. I made an impulsive decision to sign up for 800m and 4x400m even before I had time to regret over my decision. I took the risk of embarrassing myself. The result? I managed to clock 2 minutes 47 seconds for my 800m run, attaining fourth place out of 6 runners. The runner who got third was not too far ahead of me, yet I had ran out of energy to sprint in my last 100m. Even more encouragingly, the other two runners in 5 th and 6 th places were physically fitter than me. For the first time in my life, I did not book the last spot in an athletic competition. It was a personal victory for me. I was extremel...

Each time I thought of a great idea, it would daunt on me that the next challenging thing to do is starting the first step. Because starting first step is always the hardest, the urge to procrastinate kicks in. So there is this Rational Decision Maker who is extremely energetic and keen to start doing the work and complete the task on time, driven by dogged determination and passion, living within everyone. He is downright boring, but he as a perfectionist gets things done rather efficiently. But there is another partner in crime, an Instant Gratification Monkey. This Instant Gratification (IG) Monkey is directly opposite of the Rational Decision Maker. He loves all the fun and at all costs avoids challenging problems. He indulges in instant gratifications (as his name suggested) and persuade the Rational Decision Maker to doing the same. On a normal occasion, the Rational Decision Maker will steer the direction of what I will be doing and the course of my actions for the da...

If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you may have noticed the reduced frequency of my post entries. Let me clarify, I have been writing an entry every weekday for the past 2.5 months, and it is my joy and privilege every time I write. But just last week, I realised this is not sustainable. I have a full time job but because I was still new and my team was pretty busy with their year-end project, I ended up having nothing much to do. Now work started to pile up and you can see where I might be heading next. Not only my time allocated for blogging will be significantly reduced, my one big concern is writer’s block. My friends have asked me how did I managed to get inspiration daily, to update a blog entry every weekday. My only answer is to spend about 2 hours to read, daily. Read books, blogs and email subscriptions. Read 200 books, 50 books is equivalent to having one mentor. Check out the books that can take your breaths away. Read books that can keep your attention s...

Motivational quotes are ubiquitous. Whilst I myself am an avid reader of motivational quotes, they may not be sufficient to pull someone back on track, assuming the person has access to it. Many people are not that fortunate. Imagine someone so dreadful of life or fell so deeply in financial debt, waiting for time to pass. No purpose of life whatsoever, time is just ticking before that person drifts into extreme depression and eventually jumps off the window of a city skyline, or one of the cliffs in Zermatt.  Why such pessimism? People who really need to be heard can't be heard, people who need help can't get one. The sad truth is they may not even have access to such motivational edification as they are engulfed by the horrendous reality of life, day in day out. People around them are too obsessed with themselves and barely able to notice their peculiar behaviour. Perhaps if we could practice a little more empathy, things could have been turned out differently. Li...

When I was relatively younger, I used to doubt myself. I had poor self-esteem purely out of the thought of myself being untalented. I was raw and inexperienced in whatever came my way. In everything I encountered at school, I stood by the sideline and watched the high flyers performed to their best abilities and won tournaments, one after another. Then I would envy them. I wished I could be just a little bit like them, being outstanding in fields of their choices.  And I bumped into this quote out of the blue, saying: "If others can do it, why can't I?" I paused. If others can do it, why can't you? There are so many people who have made histories, success stories are everywhere if you bother to look around. So many people have succeeded, why not myself? Many excellent students had attained straight A1's, what is stopping me from achieving the similar feat? What a powerful revelation! From that moment onwards, I started to gain courage, aim higher and str...

Is there a day you just don’t feel like doing anything, but to lie on your bed staring at the ceiling and do nothing? Skipping everything you told yourself you will do every day and find yourself lack of motivation to continue doing it? That’s me right now, but I’m glad I have finally written my first three sentences to kick start my writing mood. I am demotivated. I have missed my gym session today, but I had an intensive badminton session yesterday evening. Excuse.  Where do we find motivation anyway? I am curious if you would let me know your source of motivation, I will try to tell you mine. If you don’t have one, please read on. What drives you to do everything you are doing? Is it genuine passion and your love for the job keeping you where you are? Or is it financial security? Indeed one of the biggest challenges is to achieve breakthrough in your workplace. Quitting your job you don’t enjoy is one of them.  Today my motivation was nowhere to be found. I woke...

Many years ago I used to write New Year resolutions at the beginning of the year but only to regrettably see the excitement gradually being subsided by the end of February. At the end of the year, I may even be worse off compared to the start of the year. I believe most of us have encountered this at least once in our life. Because all the cool kids do it. Adults, growing teenagers, kids. Everyone does it, so we must follow! But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves, why bother making a New Year resolutions list if we never intended to follow it through? Lack of discipline is one thing. Deep inside we want to be one of the cool kids, and cool kids normally have all the bragging rights, and they are generally well accepted in our communities. At least we wanted to feel like we are accepted. But this is not my main point. This may not be your reason. Maybe you wholeheartedly wanted to do things differently as the New Year approaches, to improve every aspect of your life. Th...

Every day when I log on to Blogger and click on “Create a New Post”, a blank page appears. It is up to me how I want to smear it. Fresh page, white as snow, ready to be painted. I may not have anything particularly productive to write, but I can write. So I keep writing. I may be writing craps, which I am right now, but I still write. I have set this my personal conviction to write a post every weekday, so far I have been disciplined enough to cling on to this conviction. Your conviction may be on something else. Maybe you had promised yourself you will go exercise every evening. Or every morning. But you have been procrastinating. Don’t worry me too, many times. Then I realised I don’t have to dwell in the sense of guilt. I may have missed today’s gym session, but I can go tomorrow. There’s always a second chance. There’s always tomorrow. A better tomorrow. Don’t miss it! Everyone deserves a second chance. You deserve a second chance. But the problem with us is we tend ...

Yesterday an unfortunate event happened in my family. My mom crashed her 7 year-old City unto a tall divider near her office and the front bumper dropped off! The steering wheel went out of alignment, so you can imagine how devastating the magnitude was. Fortunately nothing bad happened to her, and thanks to the help of some kind-hearted passerbys and two police officers, she managed to drive back home. The car isn't pretty anymore. Apparently her reason (or excuse) was the new divider was built too high up and she couldn't see it. Of course not only the car was in a bad shape, I bet her emotion was in paranoia state too. I would never be able to comprehend because I had never gotten myself into an accident. But how does that affect me? Remember in the previous post I wrote about my excitement to join my colleagues for futsal later today after work, and I was supposed to drive the Myvi to work this morning. It would have been more convenient this way because then I can dri...

This morning I was playing badminton with my friends and we randomly talked about the upcoming BNM badminton closed tournament. To say I am good in playing badminton is definitely an overstatement. I am not that good, but I can play. I may not be as good as the state level players (and there are quite a number of them working in the Bank, Bank is indeed the hub for many excellent sportsmen/sportswomen), but I know I am not too far behind. So we randomly talked about it, and they immediately dismissed the thought of even joining the tournament. I was keeping a positive and optimistic attitude about it the whole time we were talking. It would be a little too wishful and idealistic if I were to say I can win, but I don't think I will fare terribly to the extent of getting trashed and humiliated in front of hundreds of people. So I kept on saying it's possible. Indeed, it is possible. It just depends on whether I have the strong desire to work on my weaknesses and turn the...

This coming Saturday, my mom is going to this talk to find out more about the job offer she found out recently from God-knows-where. This job offer seems quite promising, attractive and enticing (imagine five figure monthly salary around 40+k by just managing a newly set up company by a local tycoon). The problem is it's too good to be true. Whenever there is an offer you think it is too good to be true, it probably is. RUN THE OTHER WAY, don't walk! The hard truth with this world is this is an extremely realistic world we live in. Everyone tries to take advantage on everyone else, where only the strongest (read: trickiest and most cunning) people thrive with the most greedy blokes being the easiest victims. But my mom would beg to differ. This is weird but for some reasons women are easier to fall prey to unscrupulous conmen with a myriad of cunning yet intricate scams, all for the sake of easy money. She has fallen into a trap before, forcing her to be financially str...

This morning I read about something that saddened me deeply: a recent American horror story on Elisa Lam's death in Cecil Hotel (L.A.) which had spurred multiple conspiracy theories. It began as one of the greatest mysteries because the story was so perplexing with incomplete information. The infamous history of Cecil Hotel definitely made the case worse. You may find the full story here . It eventually turned out to be a doleful tragedy that hit me. She was a young 21 year old Canadian of Chinese descent hailed from Vancouver who suffered from depression, but her depression and fear eventually took over. She was so paranoid and wanted to hide from the callous world, and she had found the perfect place in the hotel: water tank. There you can imagine how the story ended: She was drowned and only to be found naked at the bottom of the water tank after missing for 2 weeks. Elisa's death has many uncanny and eerie similarities with the movie Dark Water, a Japanese horror fi...