2011 - A Year of Losses and Gains

2011 is a year that saw a big loss for my family and I.. the demise of my very good father and a loving nephew in September.

With life, one will always look back and wonder what if we did this and that; did it differently or not at all; and did it more or some less.

With life, there is no rewind button on the remote control of experience but just a look back and cannot change button for you to cherish, either in happiness or in anguish.

With life, we can either celebrate in its wonderment of it all of criticize it in its full glory. It all depends on not how we start nor how we end, but how we fill the gap in between these two bookmarks of our time on the world.

2011 also marks the revival of consciousness of what is important - family and the love of it.

One tends to pride oneself with the amazement of technology and its extensive capabilities without stopping to ask why we are more pressed for time when we created so many inventions to help us save it.

One tends to differentiate oneself as the busiest and thus most successful when after all, leisure quality time with loved ones is what we sought.

One tends to use advancement to move backwards, creating excuses for being late using a mobile phone because we can. Informing does not mean one does not erode away discipline, in this case of timeliness.

In the days not too far before us, our parents are always on time; are always creating family moments, and doing it all in the most sincere and simplest of ways. No extensively planned holidays; no extensively expensive gifts and no extensively luxurious food.

Today, we have lost time whilst trying to create more; we have erode friendship whilst having all the best of technologies to do so; and we have cheapen love because we have an abundance of ways to show it.

With the passing of 2011, I hope for all and myself to not just realize but to actualize what we realize and make 2012 yet a better year, for one, for all, for everyone.

Inspirations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ae0tzVo8Fw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness

The smell of memory...

Have you ever wondered how memories work? Why do we get such a rush of it - desired or otherwise - when we get it? Does the smell of fresh linen; the pungent-ness of soiled ones; body odour or the cologne dashed onto you in an Indian barber shop brings flashback of yesteryears which in many of these years of rushing around tends to remain the blackbox undiscovered. I recently had a good haircut from the traiditonal Indian barber and upon the whiff of the smell of the familiar cologne, brought me back to when I was a little boy and when dad brought me to the Indian barber close to home for what was then a traumatic experience of a haircut.
Funny how it all came back, vivid, of a memory that I thought I had forgotten.

I can even see the shop, the chair, what I wore and how I embarrassingly - not then - cried.
It was like yesterday.

The mind works in mysterious ways.
There are past treasures which we have forgotten that we had.
There are future rewards waiting to be reaped.

Memories, as a record of our past will continue to educate us, at different times with different lessons, as we pass the journey we call life.

If memory can be stored in globes as in Harry Potter, it can be selected whenever.
But seriously, can we? Should we?

Memory is also copyrighted.
It cannot be stolen.
It cannot be shared.
It is yours, and yours only, forever.

If you chance upon reading this, it will now remain as on of those... memories.
Yours.
Forever.

Who is this person I see staring back?

Who is this person I see staring back?

'Who is the girl I see, staring back straight at me..' coos Coco Lee in the feature song of Mulan.

This is what we sometimes wonder looking into a mirror or simply contemplating a reflection off the TV screen clean enough to do so. And if you have not, you should.

As our journey through life gets consumed every second by time and chalked up what we regard as age and experience, we sometimes forget to give ourselves the private time of looking back. Looking back at our journey, in achievements of success and, not or, of failures. And we deserve it.

On a flight back from Sydney, as I prepared my world's largest reclinable bed-seat, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face which inadvertently looked back.

Me!

I seriously have not seen ME for a while, although we confront the mirror almost daily, in toilets, in elevators, in the car back-view mirror. These were stares that was for a purpose, not one that is to examine oneself. It is to check a blemish, to shave – for men and some women, to check on traffic before you overtake or reverse, or to conform to let time pass by faster when you examine your clothes and hair in an elevator shiny surface.

How many of us look into the mirror at ourselves to see us, to see our soul, to see the track of experiences that sometimes is so evident through laugh lines or lines resulting from stress. I would submit to you that we seldom, or even never.

The fact is that we should.

We spend time to understand others. How much time do you spend understanding yourself?

We spend time appreciating others' success and achievements. How much time do you spend appreciating your own achievements, may it be closing a big deal, getting to a leadership position before 30, or simply offering a helping hand to an old person crossing the road.

We spend time criticizing others' in their doings, wrong by our judgment, and passing it by our standards. How often do we spend learning from our own mistakes – which we all make more often than we care to admit, in love, in career and to our loved ones.

That in itself is sharing our own journey with who is supposedly the most intimate person to oneself – OURSELF.

The question is WHY do we not do that?

Many does not do it because they are too involved in doing it to show off. We most times do things to impress and please others and in return for an exchange of the 15 seconds awe others have for us.

Many does not self-examine or better, self-access or self-appreciate because we are consumed by the need to care for others.

Many does not give time to themselves as their excuse is either too busy doing things for others towards the claim of selflessness.

Well, as I said before, the difference between human beings and animals are the ability to make excuse for what they want to do.

So, why not spend sometime with yourself.

Even if it is once in a while.

It is better than never.

Never never.

Spend time to understand yourself for yourself.

You can be naked with your soul.

You can be excessively honest because you are talking to yourself and you will not squeal on yourself. If you do, it is intentional!

You can be the plain you, the glamorous you, the judgmental you, the lying you, the loving you, the cynical and skeptical you.. as long as it is you on YOU!

Learn from it.

You can now decide what you choose to continue.

For good. For bad. And for all the beauty and ugliness the world care to present.

PS: Can also be done without a pillow. Ceiling staring is also useful before one stares at the inside of one's eyelids.