Five things to keep in mind always

FIVE beautiful images to keep in mind …. always.

- hourglass, mozart, trapeze and the dots and a jigsaw puzzle.

(some taken from Margaret Lobeinstine’s RENAISSANCE SOUL book)

Consider : THE HOURGLASS.

Why do we always picture ourselves living at the top half of the hourglass, where time is always slipping away?

Instead, why don’t we imagine ourselves in the bottomhalf of the hourglass?

There, every minute is followed by another minute that comes pouring in. Every hour’s followed by another hour and everyday is just the first of many days to come …

We don’t have to worry about time being “spent’ or “lost’.

Panicking or being anxious about the future will only eat into our time, it will not add anything to it.

USE time, don’t try so hard to save it.

Consider : sharing our gifts, like MOZART

Mozart lived between 1756-1791, a time when Europe was still a largely agrarian society.

The nobility, which accounted for only 2 percent of the population, owned from 15-40 percent of the country’s most critical resource: land.

Consequently, a large part of the population lived with extreme hunger as a daily fact of life. Did Mozart spend his time doling out food to the hungry or crusading for change?

Obviously not.

What was he doing? Being paid to write minuets for the nobility, so they could dance to the very best. Yet, because Mozart was willing to share his gift, innumerable social workers, emergency room staff, teachers, personal care attendants and others doing stressful jobs can even today relax themselves with his melodies.

Mozart’s gift from 250 years back help them continue giving gifts of their own.

What is your GIFT and are you sharing it?
Sometimes that’s more important than just putting food on the table.

Consider : Fear and the trapeze act

Fear is absolutely normal, absolutely human response to the unknown. It is part of our survival instinct.

We fear that we will lose our footing, that doors may close on us and that we’ve burned our bridges.

But consider a trapeze act in a circus.

A trapeze leaps through midair swinging from one bar to another, scary, yes, but also SUBLIME.

Learn to replace fear with enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos, which means “filled with God.”

consider : the big picture : CONNECTING the DOTS.

This is the game we all play when we were children and remember how excited it was to draw a nice picture, often complex one, most times beautiful by just connecting the dots?

Here’s what Steve Jobs (Apple, I-pod) has to say:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma.”

To that I would add: You have to trust GOD.

“”in Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will,” – Ephesians 1;11.

consider : the JIGSAW puzzle

We were made to be part of a WHOLE. By ourselves, we will never find our fit and our purpose, the meaning of our lives. Only together with other unique, specially created pieces will we make up a beautiful picture.

The picture is INCOMPLETE without any one piece. Our life’s purpose is to fit in and help others find their place in the puzzle, NOT shine by ourselves.

instantly stupid – the remote control-ed life

The instant experience.

We all want it QUICK and we wanted it five minutes ago. Yeah, you know that feeling …

The REMOTE CONTROL is probably one of the greatest inventions of all times and potentially, one of the most dangerous too.

Imagine …  if tomorrow your remote control starts malfunctioning or it takes one whole minute (that’s 60 long seconds!) for the TV to respond to every button you press..

How many people would die of a heart attack or suffer a stroke?

In a famously quoted line from IBM history, it was said that an executive once predicted that the (personal computer) PC would sell maybe a few thousand pieces.

It’s a little unfair to laugh at that executive. He would have been right if windows 95 wasn’t quickly followed by windows 98 and XP.

Imagine if computers were as slow as they were, just 15 years ago, do you think there would be mass demand for it? Lot at what VISTA (slower, supposed to be better) has done.

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The result is that we have a fast-paced life.

“Come on people” as queues want to make you want to shout.

The world didn’t get faster though. The SUN still rises and sets at the same pace it always has.

We still have 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – more or less. So its just YOU.

And lifetimes haven’t changed much at all. All of us, still have just one lifetime – no one has yet been reincarnated.

Pushed by technology and society, it is you that chose to run faster, work harder, so-called live MORE – it is you who rushed yourself in the toilet this morning – because you think you do not have time to waste.

You have too much to do and too much to think about.

Do you?

Stress happens when you can’t do it all and you think you should.

You look with green-eye on the many experiences that you will not have, things you cannot buy and chores you have not done.

So you are always chasing after something …

There will be not enough time, not enough money, not enough energy – not enough, just not enough.

Good things come to those who WAIT. and wait you must or you will be drinking ribena instead of wine.

Let me break it to you :Real life is s-l-o-w.

RICE, for example, takes months to grow.
Trees can take years.
Mountains need a millennium or more
and Land takes many times more than that…

Can you rush the rising and setting of the sun?
Can you make the Ocean waves roll faster?

So- why are you in a hurry? Where are you rushing to?

why are countries competing to build the tallest towers, grandest stadiums and biggest malls, longest highways etc … ?

We were made to think, to contemplate, to feel, to love and to converse. And to take care and enjoy nature.

These are our shared human experiences. They help make the MOMENTS that make up our lives.

But instead, in our fast-paced life, we often miss the MOMENTS and relish instead in doing without thought, seize the day rather than enjoying it, meeting deadlines rather than seeking perfection, we exchange information rather than converse, we look for solutions not explore options. we build unthinking cities and fill it with unthinking citizens.

- and worst of all, we prefer to REPLACE rather than LOVE and fix that which is broken.

Fighting against our true nature, trying to fit several lifetimes into just ONE,

why are we surprised then that when we truly have a quiet moment alone, time to spend by ourselves, we often feel uncomfortable.

We fear that this means we are lonely, miserable, unfulfilled, even unhappy, confused and we think ……

there must be something INSTANT, a quick solution within reach …

ah,… where’s the REMOTE CONTROL?

click. click. click.

end of thought.

…. and we let television take over.

Lessons from a COW

time, stress and problems

if a problem is defined as the gap between reality and expectation, then stress happens when you feel that you may not be able to narrow the gap in time.

The most stressful thing driving society today is MONEY, followed closely by POWER, both of which many of us feel we cannot have enough of.

We are the post-war generation who are brought up on movies, television, newspapers and now internet  – to  be superstars, millionaires, celebrity worshippers , who want equality but believe at the same time that we are SPECIAL.

We worship leisure, we hate work but we’d love nothing more than to strike it rich.

Stress happens when we have to wait for these good things to come.

If you put a watch on a cow, or if you put a clock on a mountaintop -

can you speed up the rising of the sun, can you make the cow piss faster, give more milk?

Then why do we put a clock on ourselves, right there on our wrists and force ourselves – because no one has a gun to your head – to run the RAT RACE ?

But even if we are NOT in the rat race, problems will inevitably EXIST. It is the persistent condition of imperfect human beings and the result of community living. Everything will not be as we expect it to be, expect that.

Narrowing the gap of expectations and reality  is what drives us and it’s a good thing.

It’s what makes us want to wake up every morning and try again.

To time it, I am not so sure.

Life is not a race against time.

Life is not about getting from point A to point B.

What is progress but a development plan to enslave the masses to working for the profit of the few?

Who cares what they are going to say about you when you are dead?

Who cares if you have a good death or not?

What’s more important is that you have a good life, that you enjoy the here and now – that you appreciate what you have in case you lose it, that you smile at adversity because you know nothing cannot be overcome.

Listen to yourself and make up your own mind.

And enjoy the moment – everyone of it ….

“So never worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Matthew 6:34

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Does God make transportation for ROBOTS?

Call it what you will – mass rapid transit (MRT) in Singapore, the TUBE (in London), the subway (New York) and Mass transit Rail (MTR) in Hong Kong and other names but the same creature exist in Tehran, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere in sizeable cities where many people live and work.

The city train.

I avoid the MRT and take it only when it’s the fastest way to get from point A to point B. Because it depresses me when I do.

Everytime I take the city train and look at the indifferent, sad, tired eyes, scanning around for advertisements for the things they can buy, thumbing through their handphones looking for a connection, or plugging out through plugged in music – it makes me sick.

It makes me sad to think how easily we sell our dreams for the sake of putting food on the table, how we ignore what makes us special for the sake of   FITTING IN.

It’s symptomatic – mass rapid transit – MRT – is the place where the government puts the rest of us who are not wealthy enough to buy a car, those who can’t afford the freedom to drive where we want to.

So we are crammed together in a train, forced to fit in to a moving compartment, so that we can transported every morning to our assembly line offices to become the “base” of the economy and soon-to-be if not already “middle class” consumers. We make up the foundations of a developing economy and there is a reason they call it “middle class hell.”

I don’t enjoy an MRT journey, it is functional and sometimes that is how our lives have become as well - not special, just functional.

Fuck middle class dreams and its icon of imprisonment – the MRT.

Why should I settle for someone’s else’s dreams and be who they say I should be? Because we are special – because God made us so.

Each of us carry information, from generations and generations in our genetic make-up that is unique. We are all survivors for one reason or another.

Our dreams, which I believe is imprinted in our soul and sometimes come when we sleep directly from God.

Making them a reality is following God’s instructions, and being used for what we were made for.

A pencil is not a doorstopper. A fridge is not a paperweight.

Although it can also do that.

Instead, many of us try hard to fit in, to jump from company to company as soon as we leave school -  begging for jobs, or staying loyal to one company building a so-called career – neither of which allows us to fully utilize our talent.

I see many of these people on the MRT and that’s why it makes me sad.

Not that they are poor and cannot afford a taxi ride ( I don’t pity poverty)  but because MRT riders exude a smell. The smell of people who have no dreams and are happy to take the most convenient way out. They are only there because the government offer this as the most affordable way to get to work and they have to comply and even pay for the displeasure of being FIT IN – stuck in the middle between the smelly armpit guy and the woman who chats loudly on her cellphone.

To join the rest of society, to conform to the pressure of the morning crowd. You don’t know what you are missing if you don’t MRT – mass rapid transit – that is.

We are INVENTORS, all of us. We are CREATORS because we are made in God’s image. We are not assembly line workers – these are trained not created.

Corporations do but I don’t think God makes robots,  moreso transportation for them.

5 lessons from a humble pencil

5 lessons to learn from a humble pencil

1. Everything you do will always leave a mark
2. You can always correct the mistakes you make (just turn the pencil around)
3. What is important  is what is inside you and not outside of you
4. In life you will undergo painful sharpenings which will make you better in what you do.
5.To be the best you can be, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the Hand (God) that holds you.

A longer version of this lesson, from a Sikkhism Guru, can be found >here <

The BLINDSPOT of mankind … and you are already a BIG winner.

If humanity suffers from ONE BIG PROBLEM, this is it – a blindspot. We are not able to see that eternity has already been given to us, as a free gift from God… and paradise follows whoever is faithful to His command.

We are all CHILDREN of GOD not a sexual accident.

Because we don’t see the Love that God – the invisible creator -has for us, that sets us apart and makes each of us significant, we don’t learn to enjoy life, cherish it and worst of all, we CHASE after it in meaningless alternative pursuits.

We pursue pleasures of sexual intercourse, status, wealth, work, legacies, standard of beauty, and anything that would make us ‘special’ because we believe we are not yet fulfilled. We falsely buy into the fact that we are just one among six billion and counting, and have to stand out or be rubbed out.

From Adam and Eve biting on the apple because the serpent tempted them with “truth” to Spanish chasing Gold which heralded the NEW WORLD ORDER, to Hitler exterminating Jews, the U.S. race for nuclear supremacy, scientific knowledge and space in the Cold War and now fighting Muslim terrorists and British explorers maping the world to enviromentalists protests – we live in constant dread of a world not yet made perfect but believe can be remedied, merely through valuable and concerted human endeavor.

In such a world, we leave no room for God – whose work we claim to admire, and in this century, prove fantastic through scientific discovery of the laws of nature.

We search for ways to bring about utopia on earth, to save the world from Armageddon and we fight because we believe that we can only rest when what we perceive as ‘good’ (and this changes over time) triumphs over ‘evil.’

But what if …

all that we can really want as a human being – peace, love, joy, hope – is a free gift from God?

What if it’s in a special package that comes with an instruction manual which some of us have not yet opened or missed…

… for we rushed off too soon as soon as we learned to walk – in excitement, eager to experiment with our bodies and our minds, we fumbled and then looked almost immediately for a worthy “pursuit” because parents and teachers told us that “ambition” drives great lives, and carelessly enough, left out the subject of God.

How foolish then to live our limited years in our little blindspots, not realizing what we really are and failing to claim the gifts which we were promised and is our entitlement as children of God – peace, love, joy and hope.

Like machines, robots even, using short-termed, constantly in need of replacement, disposable batteries to run our lives on instead of drawing on the Great source of insatiable power and energy, we run ourselves down … and then some of us grow regretful when our bodies wear out and our ambitions wear thin.

Will you empty yourself of all unsatisfying worldly desires, empty promises of human love, pursuit of foolish dreams – turn away from silly insignificant and meaningless pursuits and lift up your hands to heaven and receive the gift …

Go ahead, tear open that special package which contains the gift of all you truly need to be a fulfilled human being, use it.

You can.

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still don’t know what a BLIND Spot is ?

click >here<

otherwise : Read Ecclesiastes, a chapter in the Holy Bible, for further information on how to claim your prize.

Life is a piece of luggage

Like a piece of luggage

“if you are in the jaws of an upwardly mobile social class, you can find yourself feeling like a piece of luggage on a conveyor belt, that’s getting all the right stickers on it and you inside, feeling dead.”
-David O’ Russel, filmmaker.

A wake up call to Asians

Asia’s new ideas

All Asia’s new ideas are the West’s old ones. The West chief export is modernity and the construction of cities which suck away the best resources of every country – from water to oil and diamonds- ships it at a discount to the developed countries in the name of “free trade” and in return, poor countries get consultants and old things, N.G.O.s and English teachers.

And for the few who are smart in every country, the ones who figure out the international game of exploitation, they are quickly bribed into submission.

The Multi-national Corporations (MNCs) will hire them and abduct the most innovative and inventive people – and make them legal aliens.

Asia will never catch up. It must WAKE UP.

No Access to the top floor

No access to the top floor

God’s Will is above intellect and emotions, it is the highest sphere through which we have no access card.

Too much credit is given to man’s ability to achieve… the idea that anyone can be Bill Gates, Michael Jackson or Barrack Obama … the heroes of our modern times … is ultimately false.

Sure they have something in common – our heroes work hard, they practise their craft (at least 10 years according to some) and they do have some inborn talent (father’s gift) BUT the one ingredient which made them successes of our times cannot be obtained by all.

And this is opportunity.

Things happen for a reason. Even those with opportunities have wasted it. Who knows how God chooses some men to succeed at what they do, others to fail.

Ambition is a good thing. It keeps us striving to serve others. Whatever happens to us, whether we get to serve or not, we just have to play along, accept that it’s God’s Will and draw from Him the power to overcome and triumphant because if God puts blocks or opportunities before us, he does it for a reason.

Like I said, we have no access card. No explanations.We will never know why. Just accept it.

Ultimately, we have no choice over how our work turns out. Don’t worry about it. Listen to career counsellors, some wise advice but don’t follow everything. They don’t apply to you. Your Life’s path is not something someone else can solve for you either.

Only God, residing on the top floor, has the power to set it.

Whatever happens … Accept it, thank God and ask for God’s grace to live through it faithfully. And occasionally, check if it is His will or our own undoing. That is about all we can do.

Now go… enjoy life.

what does a free bird really want?

 

Buddhism has a concept called Karma. You get what you give.

If you visit a temple in India, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, you may be offered a bird in a cage and asked for money. You are given the choice to free the birds from the cage, so that you get good karma points.

But it’s usually a tourist trick.

The birds return to their cages over and over again even after they are freed by people who so-called paid for their freedom. This is because the birds are trained pets. They know that the cage represents shelter and food – two out of the three things – that all living beings are supposed to want most out of life.

Even with freedom of an open sky and wings… birds are looking for a home – what about you?

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

a scary place

The world’s scariest place lie just behind the eyes of a regretful, lonely old man whose time is about to run out.
You can hear him want to scream endlessly in pain but cannot. Only tears fall occasionally as he looks around for sympathy but finds none, as everyone else is busy with their own lives.

Nothing else in the world – not ghosts, criminals, war nor disasters – can be as scary as not using your time well. Because for everything else, you can count on God being by your side – he has defeated evil and the devil is nothing. He has promised to walk with you.

The only thing we should truly fear is not using fully the time that we have been given, and hence not exchanging it for our birthright – eternal life in heaven. Not carrying out our duty.

This life is a test. Our death is a certainty. What happens in between is a very, very, very scary choice.

Know this and … Choose well.