The New Normal Sunday

In the past, I'll be getting ready to drive 20 minutes from home to attend the 10.30am service at church. I'll be turn on radio via wifi to listen to my favourite Malaysian radio station 988 while driving. This time is also my favourite segment which the DJ broadcasts all the classic old songs from the 80s and 90s.

Fast forward to today when the whole of Melbourne is still in Stage 4 Restriction Lock Down, I'm sitting at home eating my breakfast, typing these words, watching the rain drops dripping from the leaked gutter above me and of course still listening to my favourite station, currently playing the classic from Anita Mui. I'll be attending online worship in a short while.

How life has changed overnight due to Covid-19. Churches are empty and everyone is worshiping from home. At least there is no more excuse not to go to church on Sunday! Well there is always some people managed to come up with creative excuse every now and then.

All the GOD fearing Christians believe that the universe's every moves is being pre-planned by the Great Almighty. Therefore let's take this opportunity of more time that is made available to us during this pandemic and ponder upon this question: 'What is GOD's plan in all this?"

The excuse of not attending church is now being taken away from us as we can worship through internet from home. Unless someone come up with a lame excuse that his/ her computer broke down every Sunday morning! So no more excuse and we have to face GOD out in the open now. If anything, I think we now have the rare opportunity of being frank with ourselves and sincerely get to know GOD during this trying times. Ask Him what He wants from you out of this pandemic. There must be a reason why we suddenly have so much time at our disposal.

For me, the message I get is that I need to share my spiritual experience and that's why I'm writing this post now. We have to allocate this time fully to GOD. There are so many ways we can do that. We can sing and worship Him, we can fully immerse ourselves in the Bible, we can listen to sermon online, we can express our gratitude by listing all the good things around us on a piece of paper, we can refrain from having a bad feeling to anyone during this time and so much more. It is really not much to ask considering that we only reserve one Sunday morning to Him. If all the above is too hard for you, then at least stop thinking about your work, hobbies or entertainment during this time. Just find yourself a nice and quiet place to sit down and meditate. Use this precious moment to calm yourself down and just enjoy the wonderful experience while meditate to focus on GOD.

Don't waste this free time that is now available to us. Use it wisely. Don't ask what you want, ask what He wants instead. Happy Worship!

Gratitude On A Rainy Day

The Covid-19 pandemic has wrecked havoc to the global supply chain. Every corners of the world are experiencing shortage of PPE and other essential items that we used to take for granted. To make matter worse, people rushed to the supermarkets and started hoarding products like toilet papers, pasta and other food supplies. Here in Australia, the government has to constantly reminds the people that supplies are sufficient and advise not to hoard unnecessarily. Seriously, are you going to do your business in the toilets several times a day that you need to stock up one year of supply?

To further complicate the problems we all face, one thing ironically has no shortage during this unprecedented times; that is negativity. We are bombarded with negative news several times a day on a daily basis. People complain about conspiracy theories, reluctant to wear masks, unwilling to isolate etc.

We should instead cultivate the habit of being grateful of what we have. It has been raining the whole day since the morning. Melbourne temperature plunges to below 10 degrees celsius. It is currently sitting at 8 degrees but felt more like 3 degrees when the wind blows. However, I'm grateful that I'm able to stay indoor with my heater on full blast (not that I have a choice to go out during Stage 4 Lockdown anyway). Feel great that I can sit down, quiet my mind and write this block while it is wet and cold outside. Satisfied that I can take a sip of my hot coffee while enjoying the rest of the afternoon.

There are many things around us that we can be grateful of. Start counting our blessing.

The Cost of Migrating

In the past I never have the slightest idea to migrate to another country. After graduating from Australia, I came back to Penang straight away eager to contribute to my country. Asia was booming back in the 90s with mega projects sprouting out all over the place. As a young architectural student, it is not difficult to understand why I hoped to work in one of those projects compared to designing single houses in Australia. 

I had big dream back then before the brutal reality hit me in the face. First, it was the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 that brought the entire construction industry to its knees. Suddenly all potential architectural projects were put on hold. I couldn't find job for 2 whole months. Managed to land a temporary job as an intern with merely RM750/ month; even the security guard earned more than me.

I continued to work my way up and did spent the most part of my early career in Penang, a total of 13 years to be exact. The first time that I thought about migrating was when one of my colleague asked me this question: "Don't you ever thought of going back (referring to Australia)?" That question was the seed that planted in my head that eventually grew into a full fledged plan to migrate to Australia.

Many reasons that contributed to this decision to leave my home to move to a foreign land. To cut the story short, just simply says that the grass always looks greener when you admired it from afar. I was ecstatic when my Permanent Residence Visa was granted in 2011 and can't wait to start my new life in Perth! The prospect of a new life with better career, bigger house, cleaner air, first world environment filled up my tiny little head and I was confident that life will now change for the better.

But is migrating to a foreign country going to solve all the problems that I thought I was facing at the time? Below was I said on 4^th September 2012, just 2 months after I moved to Perth:

“Isn't it a fantastic idea to migrate to a foreign country and start a new life? Most people will have this same intention especially when they feel that their future in their home country is bleak. The idea does sound great especially when you think that you will be treated equally, have greater opportunity and better quality of life in your new found home. 

However, when you actually take action and start your new life in a foreign land, you have to be mentally prepared for challenges and hardships initially. After all everything has to begin from zero again. You need to adapt to the new climate, culture, lifestyle and work environment. You also have to start establishing your new social network from scratch.   

The top 2 challenges you will be facing when migrating to a new country is to find a job and a place to stay. You could send hundreds of job application online but you won't be getting anywhere unless anyone respond to you. It is indeed tough especially when you know no one in this new land and hard to get a reference from anybody. It is the same when looking for a place to stay; the landlord or real estate agent will only entertain you if you have reference. This almost become mission impossible when you know no one in this place!

Nobody would ever want to leave their home; the place where you were born and grew up in. You will always be emotionally attached to your home no matter where you go. Everybody thought that migration is an enjoyment of life but in actual fact it is one of the greatest sacrifice one can ever make in life.”

Reality is always different from what we think. Yes, I did land myself onto the Lucky Country but things were not as lucky as I thought. I have to first find a place to stay. I thought it shouldn't be an issue right as long as I have the money to pay for rental. WRONG! Renting a place to stay in Australia is not as simple as having the means to pay for rental. You have to be in a long list of potential tenants competing against each other to be accepted by the landlord. Some of the criteria that he/ she will look at is your job, how many people in your family, whether you have a pet or not, basically they want to know your lifestyle as well before they decided to rent you their property.

Then came the next big challenge which is to find a job. Again, I thought it shouldn't be a problem for me as I have more than a decade of works experience back in Malaysia. WRONG AGAIN! For a new migrant, I was considered as having zero 'local experience' in Australia. Hence it is almost close to impossible to even find one job to start with. How can any person has local experience if he can't get hired because he has no local experience. It's really a culture shock to me.

I did manage to work in a few jobs for the first three years but they were all not stable. Getting in and out of job every now and then in the beginning was not a good start for a new life in a foreign land. It was indeed very stressful and I even got depressed at one stage.

It was not after the fourth year that things started turning for better. This is now my eighth year of living in Australia and am glad to say that life has become more stable now. But the first four years really took a toll on both my physical and mental health.

Migrating to a new country is not for the faint hearted. While the monetary cost is manageable, the other intangible costs such as your mental health are not so easily quantifiable. While Australia is a lot better than Malaysia in various aspects of life that one aspires to, living here is no walk in the park. It comes at a huge cost. The question is whether it is worth it. I shall explore this in another post.

Let's not get too stressful folks, Happy Friday!

Lessons I Learnt From Covid-19

Year 2020 is indeed an extraordinary year. A lot of unexpected events have happened. It was supposed to be the year when Malaysia celebrates the achievement of Vision 2020, but we all know that it didn't realized. We then witnessed the sudden change of government early of the year. Most significantly of all, the world was hit by unprecedented crisis known as Covid-19.

A lot of us have never experience World War I & II in our lifetime. Covid-19 will be the closest experience one can get of living through a war zone liked world. The modern world that we all live in likes to categorize things into different classes. First World Nations vs. Third World Countries; Rich vs. Poor; Democracy vs. Communism etc. One powerful message that this pandemic conveyed to us is that we are all the same after all, we are all vulnerable regardless of your wealth; age or physical fitness. Everyone citizens on earth is still grappling with this pandemic as I am typing these words. No, the virus doesn't discriminate, only human did.

During the period of lock down, I thank GOD for my health and have the rare opportunity to slow down and did some serious thinking. I have come up with a four key points for myself which I think are the real importance stuff in life:

1. Refocus on GOD instead of myself.

Don't you agree that nowadays everyone is only interested in themselves. Just look at all the postings on social medias. It's all about looking at me, like me, me, me and more me. Honestly, who do you focus at every time look at a group photo? Yourself of course! Our over emphasis on ourselves is the main reason why so many people are suffering from anxiety and depression today. Just let it go, look at ourselves in GOD's eye. Focus on Him, we are too small to deserve such attention.

 

2. It's time to stop wasting more time on worry for no obvious reason.

I'm one of those who always worry about anything. I worry about how others will judge my work. I worry about whether my health will deteriorate over (Of course it will! We can't stop the natural process of aging so stop worrying!). I worry about whether I'll still have a job tomorrow (This is universal worry of lots of people especially in this uncertain times). All our worries have one thing in common, they are things that are yet to happen, they are incidents that we imagine in our heads for the future, in other words, they have not happened yet. That day may never come, so why worry? We only have control of the PRESENT which we should be grateful that it is a gift from GOD (See the link here? PRESENT = GIFT).

3. Eat healthy and exercise regularly.

It's hard not to be tempted by all the wonderful food available especially when you grow up in Penang, the de facto Food Capital of Malaysia (some say Asia too). But seriously, if we keep on satisfying just our tongues and neglect about our bodies, our bodies will give up on us.

4. Constantly asking myself this question: 'What really matters in life?' My answer to the question is: 'GOD, Health & Family.'

When you put this in perspective, you will realize that we wasted too much time on things that don't really matter. Just think about it, what are some of the things that you are proud of doing today? Isn't it scary when the answer echoes back in your mind is 'NONE'? 

Start claiming back your life. This pandemic shows us that this has now become the most urgent thing to do!

The News That People Want To Hear?

As I about to enjoy a cup of hot coffee after reluctantly woke up from this cold winter morning, when my eyeballs were still struggling to reveal themselves from the warm embrace of my eyelids, one particular news headline attracted my instant attention. My eye were wide opened by now. No, I wasn't surprise with the news, I was more shocked by why this same news over and over again, it started to sounds like a broken record.

The headline reads: "Waste of police resources, says IGP as Bukit Aman probes new sodomy allegation". Really? I mean sodomy AGAIN!!??? Come on lah! Be more creative lah Malaysian politicians. Can't you come up with something new? Alright, alright, before we get too agitated, let's explore further what the report says.

Apparently Bukit Aman has received a Statutory Declaration (SD) alleging that a prominent opposition politician committed sodomy. Seems like it is a trend now to issue Statutory Declaration freely. SD may become more easily accessible than masks! Anyway, the Malaysian Police Chief Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Bador said that he is sick of such matters. I have to agree with him, I'm sure we are all sick of this, not because there are many such allegation, but the fact that Malaysian politics can get to such low level, it is like watching a low budget movie being played before you over and over again even though you did not purchase a ticket to watch them!

It is reported that the SD contains explicit details which the man claimed that the indecent activities occurred four times in 2013. What? I heard you shout 2013!? Are you sure this guy is not hallucinating about some fantasy he has in his mind? I'm sure everyone is curious to know who this person is, further details of the incidents, how this will play out in the political scenes etc. 

Can you see what is happening here? A piece of paper from someone has already managed to arouse such curiosity in our minds. Is this the best distraction strategy or not? Why these types of scandals kept being recycled over and over again? Is it really because those who made the allegations are not creative? No. I think the problem lies in us, the ordinary Malaysians who read the news. We joked about news like these, we speculate on conspiracy theories like how we talk about our favourite TV series on Netflix. 

The reason that this type of news still sells is because we are all not mature enough. Our principle are not strong enough to instantly reject this type of nonsense. The politicians are manipulating how we think and make decision. It is time that this be reverse. The Rakyat should determine the future of this country. We should send out the message that we are not interested in this type of stupid dramas. We want progress for this country. All the politicians that we voted for should concentrate on doing their job, not wasting time spying on other people's bedrooms. We should tell them that, no, this is not good enough, we are not buying that, come up with something better otherwise you are fired! 

Just ask yourself this, do you want your daily news headlines to be covered with sodomy cases or constructive vision of how the country would progress.

 

Weed and Feed

Anxiety is the most common mental disorder in the modern society today affecting around 7 percent of the world population. Thanks to our fast paced life and multi-tasking work culture, people are becoming increasingly difficult to relax! More serious case can even lead one to depression.

Picture this scenario: a person gets extremely anxious on the busy highway after driving for long hours without having a good sleep the previous nights. He is physically tense and unable to enjoy the ride. He is tired physically and his brain starts to behave strangely. Negative thoughts start creeping in every now and then while he is driving and that leads to fear of having trapped in that situation. The traffic jam doesn't help and is making him worry that he may stuck in that situation and can't escape. He starts to think that what if he suddenly has an emergency situation and the ambulance can't get to him in time due to the jam. He becomes desperate and wants to get out of that situation ASAP! The fear starts the vicious cycle in his mind that tells him that he is in danger even though we know that isn't true.

Have you experience the above episode before? If you have you most like have anxiety disorder without knowing it. A few simple things you can do to reduce chance of that happening:

• Have enough sleep the night before you going on a road trip.
• Stop more regularly along the way, come out from your car and do some stretching exercises.
• Take deep and slow breaths. This shall calm you down.
• Being mindful, stop your mind from wandering all over the places.
• Listen to soothing music and enjoy the freedom of driving!

One important thing to note is that anxiety is largely caused by the brain. Imagine the brain as the beautiful garden at home. The garden requires constant maintenance and care. If left unattended, weed starts to grow very quickly. There is a product available at the store calls 'Weed and Feed'. When you spray 'Weed and Feed' in your garden, it will kill the weed while providing the much needed nutrition to your Buffalo lawn. The first time I saw this product on the shelf, I thought to myself "What a great idea!?" The same principle applies to our mind, we have to constantly feed our mind with positive information in order to get rid of negative thoughts. This has to be done regularly until we completely kill anxiety and can enjoy modern day driving once more.   

The Lost Envelope

We were on the way home from a visit with family in another state when I found it. I was pumping gas when I noticed a dirty, bulky envelope on the ground. I grabbed it, dirt and all, and looked inside. To my surprise, it contained one hundred dollars.

One hundred dollars that someone had lost and who at that very moment was possibly frantically searching to find. I gave our phone number to the attendants at the gas station in case anyone came back looking for it. But no one ever called. 

Someone had that money and lost it. Earthly treasure is often like that. It can be lost, stolen, or even squandered. It can be lost in bad investments or even in a monetary market over which we have no control. But the heavenly treasure we have in Jesus - a restored relationship with God and the promise of eternal life - isn't like that. We can't lose it at a gas station or anywhere else.

That's why Christ told us to store up "treasure in heaven" (Matthew 6:20). We do that when we become "rich in good deeds" (1 Timothy 6:18) or "rich in faith" (James 2:5) - lovingly helping others and sharing Jesus with them. As God leads and empowers us, may we store up eternal treasure even as we anticipate our eternal future with Him.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Story by Dave Branon

Such a great reminder to all of us to stay away from the temptation of the materialistic world which we find ourselves surrounded by in today's society. It's so true that money comes and go and we will never have possession of it forever. But the good things that we do will be registered in our lives' record forever. Go on and help someone today. It can be as simple as just listening to someone who is encountering personal problems.