Conquer Your Fear

What makes us feel what we feel? Is it the weather, news or the people around us? The fact is all of these affect our mental state at a particular moment of time. So does it mean that if we distance ourselves from all these by hiding deep into the mountain, things will be different? That’s the practice of Buddhist monks where they believe that the only way to set themselves free from the entanglement of the world is to live a reclusive lifestyle away from the world. This may work but it comes at a tremendous costs. It means that they can’t be married and have families. They must cut off all their links to this materialistic world and devote their whole lives in seeking enlightenment.

But it does not make sense that the purpose of arriving to this world is to escape from it. We are here for a reason. If living in this world means suffering, so be it, we just need to learn to live through it. We need to experience every good and bad moments to learn from it. Some experiences may be unpleasant or even unbearable but the best way to overcome it is to face it head on and find the best solutions.

I feel very uncomfortable whenever there is something lingering at the back of my mind. It worries me because I can’t see it clearly when it stays in my mind. For example, there is a task that I need to accomplish today and I woke up in the morning thinking about it. The more I think about it the more I feel uneasy because there is zero progress by just ruminating about it. As soon as I spread it out on my desk and look at the problem in front of me, instantly I feel that I’m back in control. Calmness then overcome anxiety in that moment.

Nelson Mandela said it beautifully: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

The Little Boy's Dream

Simon went to dinner with his friends to celebrate Chinese New Year. He hasn’t been seeing his friends for more than a year due to the Covid-19 Lockdown. It is a perfect time to catch up during Chinese New Year as it is a festival that is full of joy, gratitude and love. The food was great with eight course dinner with fish, prawns, chicken etc. It supposed to be a happy and relax moments with friends.

The festive mood suddenly got hit with a huge blow when his friend asked him when he would like to purchase a house. It was then that he realised that most of the people that night have already got their own home except himself. Simon politely answered that he wasn’t ready to fork up such a huge sum of money as down payment yet. His friend then commented that it is not productive to have the money sit in the bank due to the low interest rates. Simon thought for a moment and silently agreed with this statement in his mind.

Simon is a religious person and he thanks GOD for everything that he has in his life. But there is this knot at the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite get it untied. He was thinking why didn’t his parents leave him some assets so that he can get a head start in his life. In a way, he was blaming for things that he didn’t have.

That night, Simon went to bed with a heavy heart, seemingly unhappy after the dinner. He had a dream that night. He saw himself as a little baby longing for care and love. Simon was an abandoned child and he never experienced fatherly and motherly love in his childhood. But in the dream as he was crying for help, he noticed those people that were always there for him since he was born. His grandmother, adopted mother and aunt were there in his dream. It was then that he recalled that he was actually been taken care of since day one he was born. GOD has never abandoned him and instead sent three angels to take care of him in the absence of his biological parents. He praised the Lord for what He has provided throughout his life.

It is easy to blame others every time we come face to face with challenges in life. Our tendency to focus on the negative has distracted us away from all the good stuffs that we have enjoyed all the while. It’s important to count our blessing every day, the more we do it, the more we realise how lucky we are. It’s good to be alive and enjoy every moments no matter good or bad.

Today I Write My First Song

A historic day for me, today I write my first ever song! Hope this will be my first stepping stone into the world of music. Need to generate more positivity to the world through music. Especially in an uncertain time like this, all of us need more faith, hope and spiritual support to face the ever changing challenges each day.

Lyrics of the song:

You're the only one That we all lean on You're my mountain Perched above it all There is no other Coz you're the only one........mm There's no one above you I know because I believe You'll always be there, til the end of time You'll be there for us No matter where we are And we'll be stronger With you by our side There is no other Coz you're the only one.......oh yea There's no one above you I know because I know You'll always be there, til the end of time When everything has ended, you still be there You're the one and only, til the end of time

A Different CNY During Covid

Today is the fourth day of Stage 4 Snap Lockdown in Melbourne and it is also the fifth day of Chinese New Year. As usual, there is not much new year atmosphere in Australia as it is not a public holiday. This ‘quiet’ atmosphere is magnified this year due to the snap lockdown. Everyone were told to work from home during this five days restrictions. As I look outside my window, there is hardly any car on the road as traveling are only allowed within 5km radius of where we live.

Watching the news for the past week made me realize that I am not the only one who is unable to be with our family back in Malaysia. There are a lot of Malaysians stranded in Taiwan, US, Europe and even those working in Singapore are unable to ‘balik kampung’ (go back hometown literally). Knowing that there are others who are suffering the same fate does not take away the frustration of not being able to go home. Although the authorities and experts keep telling us that we will be back to the so called ‘New Normal’ very soon, it does not help to remove the doubt at the back of our mind whether there is a normal to be looking forward to. The fact is that no one knows when we can get back to normal as each countries is at different position of how well they handle Covid cases.

The pandemic does push all of us into one corner and make us think hard about what matters most in our lives. Most Malaysians who migrated to Australia remains as Permanent Residents because we do not wish to surrender our Malaysian passports (it is required in the event we are to take up Australian citizenship). Malaysian government does not recognize dual citizenship. It is fine with us as most of us go back at least once a year in the past, we still get to see our family and friends back home regularly. After Covid, the situation has dramatically changed. Not only we can’t go back, there are tons of uncertainty ahead of us. Nobody can confidently say when this is going to end, if it ever ends at all.

Such is the dilemma faced by many who currently reside abroad and found themselves stuck. We can’t help but ponder upon the question whether we made the right decision to migrate in the first place. Sure most of us have valid reasons like children education, better environment to raise family, work-life balance, equality etc. But are the sacrifices we made worth it at the end of the day? Recently these questions sound louder and clearer ever since we found ourselves in this pandemic predicament.

Garbage In Garbage Out

In computer science language, there is this phrase called ‘garbage in, garbage out’ or GIGO in short. What it basically means is that if you input nonsense or useless information to the computer, you will get faulty output as a result. The same can be said for practically everything else in life really. If we constantly feed ourselves with junk food, we will have bad body shape or even terrible health as a result.

Unlike our physical bodies which are easy to monitor as we can observe in the mirror everyday if we want to; our mind is what we have to watch out for it is less ‘visible’. If we constantly feed negative information into our mind, we will gradually form a mental perspective that life in general is just terrible. By telling ourselves that everything around us is bad (input), we end up feeling miserable and pessimistic (output).

The Christchurch mosque mass shooting in March 2019 is a perfect example of how bad input to the mind can cause horrible reaction in the physical world. In the midst of his shooting frenzy, the shooter filmed the entire process via Facebook live in an angle that look very much like a first person shooter game. By consistently feeding virtual reality into his mind, sadly it projected into reality in the real world. Perhaps this unfortunate incident may be prevented if the accused was playing Candy Crush instead.

Our mind is a very powerful tool given to us by GOD as a gift, we have to sacredly protect it, nurture it and grow it in a positive way. Think of our mind as a garden, if we are really so busy with our daily lives, we have to at least pull out the weed every now and then to prevent it from overgrown and dominate our entire garden. To go one step further is to obviously nurture the garden by applying fertiliser that will give nutrients to the soil. Our reward will be more beautiful flowers and bigger fruits in our gardens.

Proverbs Chapter 4 Verse 23 summarizes this point succinctly: ‘Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.’ How true this is! 

在电脑学里，有一个口头谈“垃圾进，垃圾出”。它的基本含义是，如果您把垃圾讯息输入电脑，你将得到糟糕的答案。我们的人生岂不是一样吗？如果我们不断吃快餐，那么我们就会变胖甚至也会影响到我们的健康。

我们的思想也是如此。它是上帝赐予我们的一种非常有力的工具，我们必须保护它，培育它和让它能继续成长。

箴言第4章第23节总结了这一点：“注意你的想法; 因它将影响你的人生。” 

There Is No Free Lunch

We all have ambitions, climb the corporate ladders, buy big houses, travel the world, be a successful YouTuber who has millions of followers and the list goes on and on. All the motivational gurus told us that we could do anything as long as we focus our minds on it. Being positive minded is definitely a good thing but this type of teaching only tells us half the story. You see, just being positive is not really enough.

When Covid-19 hit last year, a lot of so called ‘gurus’ in various fields popped up overnight in the internet universe. There are people who want to tell you how comfortable they are because of the digital business that they do. That they have work-life balance, they choose when they want to work or not work. Then there are those who boast about how good their negotiation skills are when they managed to close a million dollar deal over a meal at a Mamak stall by the road side in Malaysia. There are even those who would go to the extent of lecturing you that the only way to be happy is to celebrate life itself. They are almost implying that if you find yourself in a bad situation, it is all your own fault as you can simply turn the switch inside your head and you would instantly change your life. Imagine you tell a person who has just lost his entire family to fire that he should celebrate his life, I won’t blame him if he instantly land his foot on your face. Honestly, I’m sick of this idea that positivity will solve all problems.

The problem is lots of people believe them as they make it sounds so easy to achieve success. Most people want to get what they want in the shortest time possible. This is exactly the weakness that the motivational ‘gurus’ focus on when they target their potential ‘customers’. They are fully aware that most people want to achieve success without putting in too much effort. In fact, it would be better if they don’t have to do anything at all!

If positive thinking is the answer to all our problems, then American would still have Donald Trump as their President. He was ‘positive’ that he won the election (even though he didn’t) to such an extent that he couldn’t differentiate reality from imagination. He was basically living in his own bubble. A lot of these so called ‘gurus’ failed to tell their audience the truth, that success does not only come from purely positive attitude. It also requires other equally if not more important ingredients to make it happen - hard work and perseverance. You won’t become wealthy by just sitting on your couch whole day and feel confident inside your own mind that you will be rich one day. It is not only impossible but also stupid!

The success gurus that I would like to learn from are people like Dwayne Johnson. This guy’s achievement is entirely due to his hard work. He wakes up 4 o’clock in the morning to work out. He then eats his breakfast and go on working on his other works like movie and so on. He only gets about 4 hours sleep each day. He believes that he succeeds because he knows he is always the hardest worker in the room. There is no short cut in life. We reap what we sow. If we want to have good harvest, start planting the seed NOW!

我们都有愿望，升职加薪，买大房子，环游世界，甚至成为一位出名的网红，拥有数百万名粉丝，等等。大多激励大师告诉我们，只要我们专注于此，世界上没有任何事情是我们办不到的。保持积极向上的态度绝对是一件好事，但这种教导只告诉我们事实的一半。因为仅仅保持积极态度是不够的。

去年新冠肺炎大流行时，突然在一夜之间互联网世界出现许多所谓的“专家”。有一些人会告诉你他们的事业令到他们有很多生活方式的选择。他们深信他们找到了工作与生活之间的平衡，可以选择何时工作或不工作也可以。甚至还有一些会劝说，让幸福快乐的唯一方法就是庆祝生活本身！他们几乎暗示着，如果您发现自己处境很糟，那完全是您自己的错，因为您只要动动脑筋，就可以立即改变自己的生活。老实说，我非常讨厌这些所谓的专家。

问题是很多人相信他们，因为他们的言论听起来若要成功似乎很容易。试问谁不想在最短的时间内得到想要的东西。这些专家完全意识到，大多数人都希望在不付出任何努力的情况下取得成功。

如果单靠积极的态度就可以解决我们所有的问题的话，那特朗普现在很可能还是美国总统。这些所谓的“大师”都没有告诉大众真正的事实，成功并不仅仅来自积极的态度。它也需要其他重要的要素，包括努力和毅力，以实现目标。一整天坐在沙发上并不会发财，对自己的内心充满信心，相信自己有一天会变得富有是不够的。这不仅是不可能的，而且还是十分愚蠢啊！

我想学习的成功专家是像巨石Dwayne Johnson这样的人。这个家伙的成就完全归功于他的努力。他早上四点醒来锻炼身体。然后，吃早餐，继续从事电影等其他作品的创作。他每天只有大约4个小时的睡眠。他相信自己会成功，因为他知道自己比其他人努力。生活没有捷径。我们收获我们所播种的。如果我们想获得丰收，那就要立即开始下苦工！