Valorous Halcyon

“Hey, how are you doing?” is one of the most common questions we ask others or people throw at us, whether we realize it or not. Ironically not many people are genuinely interested about how you are doing, but rather it serves just as a form of formality or conversation starter. Because we have been asked this question thousands of times, we subconsciously formed a default answer as well. “I’m fine / I’m doing great. Yourself?” becomes the default answer even when we don’t feel all that great at that point of time. What happens when we give a genuine answer? In other word, be our true self. For instance, when I don’t feel all that blissful and positive about life or simply being dissatisfied at my workplace, I say “ It is okay . I have been feeling tired at …xxx… and this boss has been squeezing me alive at work.” Some friends may be caught by surprises for giving them unconventional responses and become empathetic at our situations, but the rest would be like “Oh snap, I ...

As I walked towards the gate of my office after work, I saw this guy also walking towards the same direction with his friend. He’s my friend but his name seemed to vanish from my mind for a temporal moment, so for one whole minute I walked behind their back quietly. I hoped he never spotted me because I was ashamed of my wonky memory. When I finally managed to recall his name, he spotted me walking behind him and his friend. I couldn’t call out his name on time, so I just addressed him as “bro”. Hey Bro! How’s it going? The rest remain history. I believe I am not alone in this. I KNOW! I know. It sounds trivial. Not remembering other people’s names is a small matter and everyone does it, right? To be honest, yes it is. But if you come to think about it from a larger picture, this seemingly trivial matter has the capability to trickle into larger issues, and could be the one mammoth factor in determining one’s success in everything. Many business leaders and politicians kne...

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...