Today is the day!

Dear future self...

Today is the day! I have finally changed our blog name back to my own name to reflect the true identity of the person who always updates this blog. I realize that since the last time I updated this blog, I have been extremely busy caught up in the madness of everyday life here in KL. I guess I have never in my 35 years had a more busy year than what I am currently experiencing this year. My wedding reception just weeks away, a job that keeps me on my feet all the time (even in the middle of the night), some new business ideas to be turned into reality and a whole lot of other things going on in my personal life.

However busy it has been or gonna be for me throughout this year, I can happily say that it has been really good and smooth flowing so far if I were to compare where I am today and where I was in the last couple of years, I believe I should really be counting my lucky stars, or blessings if you may. I might have blogged about this before, I'm not sure, but this situation I am currently in right now kinda brings me to this thought over and over again. That is, things... has a funny way of always sorting itself out given time. With that said, I guess time really has the power to mend, fix, heal or sort things out.

I also have became aware of in the recent months about the power of intention. I learnt this recently while considering a new opportunity which I would like some of the people around me to become aware of. I have learnt of this before, some 8 years ago when I attended a 3 1/2 day seminar called Money & You in KL while I was still working in Singapore. The universe works in mysterious ways, you can release your intention into the universe with faith and somehow, somewhere someone will pick up on it and make it real for you. I don't know, religious people may call it faith or miracles or work of God but I prefer to refer to it as the Infinite Intelligence.

So, have positive thoughts about the things that you intend to have or want, release it into the universe with strong faith and believe that it will happen to you and if your faith is strong, whatever your heart desires may come true for you! But be warned, it also may work against you. If you believe that you can't achieve something you desire or doubt it will materialize for you, it just may, given the power of the infinite intelligence that recognizes whatever stimuli and intention you feed it with and translates it into your 'reality'.

Remember to always think positive thoughts and have your present self remind you of where you are at the present moment so that you live, not in the future or past, but in the present. That is where the power is. You may be reading this a year from now, 2 years or 3 years from now, it doesn't matter... The most important thing is you remember that yesterday has already past, it's no use chasing it anymore, the future has yet to be written, it is up to you, what you do today determines what happens to you or what your outcome is tomorrow.

I have learnt from watching too much downloaded Fringe episodes that the reason why we are not able to see into the future is because there are too many versions of it and it keeps changing as we go along. A planned one may not materialize the way we want it to be because of events or choices that are made everyday, hour, minute or second. If a situation has became or is becoming hopeless, try to remember how you have talked yourself or the action or series of actions you have taken to get to that situation and know that you and only yourself has the power to talk yourself or do something to create a 'new' future for yourself. That is how you can take control of the outcome of your future.

If you are my 1 year later future self and you are reading this, congratulations to you! You have successfully made yourself someone with a 1 additional year of life experience feather to add to your cap, to help you to think rationally and analyse things more thoroughly before making decisions in life. You would have gained a year more of experience as compared to me in being a son, colleague, friend, brother and husband to your spouse and people around you. You would have seen more events happening as compared to what we have seen so far, some of it could be exciting and others would be depressing but always remember to have a solid goal and objective in life and change it slow. It could make all your future selves, our future selves live this life more smoothly and happily till we are old and green.

Other people reading this blog posting may find it kinda weird or maybe to the extent of absurdity to fathom someone writing a blog post to his future self. But, have you ever thought about how exciting it could be to be able to communicate with your past self and see how far you have came or turned out since the last time your 'past self' wrote the blog posting? This is my way of looking at the power of this new technology and how it can assist people in self-improvement. Maybe for me it's not really about self-improvement but more like a way for me to link my past, present and future to create a balance in life.

The grass is always greener on the other side?

"The grass is always green on the other side" That was what I thought so as well when I was younger when I set of to Australia to study and then later to Singapore to work. Then I grew older and realized that, being single and staying overseas is never easy. For one thing you don't have your family and loved ones close by (unless you have a girlfriend/boyfriend or husband/wife with you). After making the money I had wanted to make in the first place over and over again, I started to realize that in fact, money is not everything. It's true what people say, but then, living alone, everything is money and at the end of the day, you're still alone. 

That's when I decided to move back to Malaysia, a place where, many things may not be right at the moment but it's somewhere I can be proud to be a citizen, not a permanent resident or foreigner. Now I believe that, no matter where you are, there are opportunities abound, you just need to know where and when to find it. Then I read the book 'The Alchemist' which further cemented my opinion about the whole thing. No matter what situation we are put in, we have the power to decide what we are going to do about it and how we want to end up. A close friend of mine once shared this with me, 'Whether you make it or not in life, we will find out when we are old. What a powerful statement. This blog post will serve as a reminder to me about that.

May 12, 2012

This date is very special to me, why? Because it's my birthday! I was born a day before my dad celebrated his 24th birthday back in 1977. Mother's day happens to fall on my dad's birthday as well so for the past 35 years, as a family we will celebrate my birthday, my dad's birthday and mother's day at the same time.

Today, as I grow older I don't really remember how we celebrated 2 birthdays and mother's day in the past years but this year because my dad was outstation attending some functions on my birthday, I didn't go back to my hometown to celebrate with them. Instead my wife and I went for Japanese Shabu Buffet in KL and stuffed our faces full of food. The next day while browsing Facebook, I came across some friends postings of a wrecked rare Ferrari 599GTO which I have never heard about even (maybe because I'm outdated! haha) which hit a taxi and was driven by some PRC young rich guy. Being the natural kepo I am, I dug deeper into the story because I'm a sucker for stories about car crashes (not that I am a fan) but because I feel sympathetic for the victims especially the innocent ones.

I also find it creepy to think that while we were enjoying ourselves on a very special occasion, there are people suffering because of a split second of carelessness of one person. Over the next 3 days many stories related to the accident surfaced, mostly about the victims which drew a barrage of criticism of foreign nationals in Singapore and their supposedly horrendous driving skills which claimed innocent lives.

There is one thing I find particularly interesting about the whole thing which many may have missed out. Although I must mention beforehand that this may not have any connection whatsoever, it creeps me out just thinking about it. This is something typically out of a Final Destination 1-5 type of movie plot. Ok it goes like this. Think back 4 years ago to May 12, 2008. This is a day that is etched in the annals of history forever as the day of the Sichuan (China) earthquake that killed up to 70,000 people and left another 17,000 or so missing.

The young 'private investor'  Ferrari 599 GTO driver whose supercar rammed into a Hyundai Sonata taxi killing him on the spot and the Singaporean driver of the taxi and his Japanese passenger later on hailed from Sichuan, China. So what do you reckon? Death caught up with him to 'collect' his dues?

May 12 also marks another disturbing international incident that may not have had much coverage by the media was the May 12, 2007 Karachi riots. May 12, 1969 was also the eve of the May 13, 1969 racial riots here in Malaysia more than 40 years ago which saw more than 2,000 people dead on the streets.All the major events that occurred on May 12 in history was:

- May 12, 2003 - Bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing 35 people and injuring 160 others
- May 12, 2007 - Karachi, Pakistan riots killing dozens of people
- May 12, 2008 - Earthquake in Sichuan, China killing around 70,000 people
- May 12, 2010 - Afriqiyah Airways flight crashes killing 16 passengers
- May 12, 2012 - Rare Ferrari crashes into taxi in Singapore killing 3 people and injuring a few others

History has proven with a few events to testify that this date may be one of the more unlucky days of the year but for me and my family, it's a day of celebration rather than one of mourning or gloom as a select few are forced to go through. Something to ponder about...