The Unspoken Eulogy

Dearly beloved family, relatives, and friends of Uncle Willie, allow me to just say a few words in honour of his memory.

When I first got to know of Uncle Willie’s passing at work, I was with a colleague. I told her about it and she just didn’t know how to react to my breaking the news. Neither did I. The inevitable had finally happened. I remember telling her this - nothing would ever prepare men for death, but as we grow older, we just learn to manage and cope with the loss the best way we know how.

Today, my 3 cousins have lost their dad, and my aunt her husband. Words cannot express the grief that each and everyone of you are feeling right now, but I do hope you find peace and comfort amongst family and friends, in coping with this loss and moving on with your lives.

Apek (as I affectionately know Uncle Willie), was a man of few words. He was quiet and calm in his demeanour, but you can definitely feel his presence in the crowd. I hope that his immediate family members will continue to feel his presence in our lives as we move on after today and take comfort in the fact that he will always be amongst us in spirit.

Apek, my only hope was that when God finally took you away from us, you felt as little pain as possible. You have fought a good fight over the last few years, and it is now time to rest. Your pain and suffering, is no more.

Apek, as much as I take comfort in knowing you are in God’s presence now, I take even greater comfort in knowing that you have Mama and Ah Gong, who have gone before you, in company. Life has gone a full circle and you are finally reunited in their presence.

Apek, have a very good rest. Good bye for now, and goodnight.

Love, your nephew.

Goodbye 2013, you've been kind

I've never been a fan of celebrating the turn of the new year. To me, it is akin to pressing the reset button where all of what you have done during the previous year are erased. That said though, in recent years I have been celebrating it in small ways just because I get to share it with the company of close friends who truly matter in my life.

2013 has been nice. After a terrible 2012, I told myself that in 2013 I would take a step back and just enjoy the view as a passerby. No big moves. No sudden movements. Survive. That was exactly what I did. I fought to get my career back on track. I brought my parents to a holiday as a family as we've not done it in a long time. I welcomed a cute little niece into the family. Kept to all financial goals that I set. Survived the toughest 20 days of reservist in Thailand jungles. Became the pillar of support and strength to my closest friends as they go through their turbulent days, something I thought I have lost in the turn of the year. I was being just that, a passerby. 

In 2014, I do not have any major resolutions to make. Just some positive results on my doctors appointment come February. Also, to survive 10 days into the new year unscathed would be ideal. Keep the people who matter close. 

I leave with a quote from a friend.

"You make time for people who matter"

Indeed 2014 will be a year to rebuild some lost connections, and strengthening those which matter. Happy new year!

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct (logical form) but semantically nonsensical. The term was originally used in his 1955 thesis "Logical Structures of Linguistic Theory". Although the sentence is grammatically correct, no obvious understandable meaning can be derived from it, and thus it demonstrates the distinction between syntax and semantics. As an example of a category mistake, it was used to show inadequacy of the then-popular probabilistic models of grammar, and the need for more structured models.
- Wikipedia

So by now I am sure many of us have heard of this concept which Chomsky came up with. I was sitting alone in my room that night and started thinking about this to myself. The world moves in a very illogical manner these days that nothing else makes much sense. We, the human race, have made things so complex that even the simplest things can prove to be quite a challenge to overcome.

The discussion I had with a friend prior to that was this - normal kids, wearing the same school uniform, 12 years later, look where we are with our lives and what we have become. The paths we took are now all so different, and so diverse, you wonder how at that point in time you became friends in the first place.

To demonstrate Chomsky's point in this, one man, ahead of the paper chase game, had everything in his life working for him, right now he is falling to the back of the pack, and struggling to make ends meet. This just don't make sense to me when logically the fact is, he has followed the very path the system has placed for society. How can someone fall behind when logically speaking, he should be the first person to be standing ahead of the pack and leading the charge?

The only logical explanation I came up with is that emotions and environment played a very strong role in making us what and who we are today. If we disregard our emotions, we would always forge ahead because we know we won't disappoint anyone in that process, thinking of no one else but ourselves - selfishness. And if we were to disregard our environment, not caring what society thinks of us, then no one would stumble in the fear of being judged.

No, I'm not saying that both emotions and environment are evil, I'm just saying that people are letting the negatives and the chance for an easy way out get in the way of them reaching the logical utopia. Many become successful because of love. A number of them also stumble because they are scared of losing love. Some stay in the "perfect" environment because they think they have reached the best stage in their lives, when they fail to realise that it is all simply a myopic view of what life is all about.

We will never know where we are headed to in life. We will also never know what is our calling until it is being presented in front of us. My point now is this. Always know that there is definitely more to life than what you are experiencing. Go out there and explore. Look around you and realise. Listen to the things people tell you and recognize. Know the right people to keep in your life and be aware of the wrong ones to cut out. Do also know the moment in life when you call time to the things that you want to achieve, and don't let myopia get the better of you. Don't be a statistic in an illogical equation.

Work Equation

Have you ever wondered what makes you tick at work?

The other night I was hanging out with my friend and we were talking about our individual jobs and careers. Mid-way through the bantering he came up with this equation (see how I always get excited when there is an equation involved somewhere to explain life) which really made a lot of sense on many levels.

Work Equation = Ability x Expertise x Drive

1) Ability: defined as the talent that enables someone to do something

We are all good at something. Be it the gift of the gap, creative work, love numbers, something. Thus as much as we can, we try to find something which is within our realm of knowledge where we know we can carry out the role to the best of our means we know how.

2) Expertise: defined as skill or knowledge in a particular field

En route to growing up, we are always nagged at our parents to study. Back then, for me I could never figure out what the big deal was. But yes it was essentially to build up the basic knowledge and carve out something for yourself as we move along (don't worry I have figured this part out haha).

3) Drive: defined as the compel or force to work, often excessively

In everything that we do, to do it well, we got to have the drive to reach the end goal. Often times this is being associated with passion. Someone used to tell me that with passion, in anything that you do, half the battle is won. This is true as it creates a chain effect of things where passion leads to drive which ultimately leads to hard work and better results.

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For some, the equation is more of an addition (+) for everything and not multiply (x). The problem with that is when you discover that you have zero ability/expertise/drive, you can still manage a good scoring. However, if it is multiplied, if one of the 3 factors is zero, you are as good as nothing. 

Now, out of the 3 factors, one factor is tied emotionally to you and that is 'Drive'. It is the only thing that changes when you are already in a particular job (without ability and expertise, you would hardly be hired unless if you're in a very junior role). So, have you ever felt lousy at work and started contemplating what 'Life' is all about? That's because your emotional self is affecting your work drive. 

Humans are generally driven by emotions and it usually creates a cascading effect on the things that we do. Environment and mindset plays a very pivotal role in whether you go to work today feeling happy or wished the day would end. Depending on which part of the life cycle you're at, drive will determine how you lead your work life in the days ahead. 

So my friends, if you find yourself not finding the drive, take a step back and reflect. Dig deep. Sometimes the problem is not apparent. It can be frustrating because you can't seem to pin-point where in your sub-conscious is it that is affecting your daily life. Talk it out, you might be surprised at what kind of perspective the person on the opposite end of the table is able to give you. Discover.

Alone

You know, I love going cafe hopping. Just find myself a good cafe, good coffee, good ambience, and I'm pretty much set for life (ok no kidding). Lately I've been going to different cafes alone and at some of these places when they asked for how many seats, queer look sets in when I signaled for 1.

The concept of being alone outside, scares the hell out of some. However for me, being alone outside is a sort of recharge as I see the outside world move along by me. I suppose it scares people because the idea of being alone is to be judged as being a weirdo or estranged from society. Is there something wrong with him? Why is he always alone? No friends? He's weird. These are just some of the questions I've had to answer over the course of my life whenever I hang out alone.


Solitude with one self is the most important thing one should be able to achieve in life. Without being comfortable with self, how can one expect to be comfortable with others?

Doing things alone can be quite refreshing despite of how many of us perceived it to be. For introverts like me especially, it helps me focus on the task at hand. 

It is of course nice to have someone to sit and talk with on the other side of the table but it is perfectly okay to be staring at a chair, a coffee cup, and a good book to keep you company during the few hours just so you remain grounded. 

Don't judge, don't be afraid of being judge. Be yourself. 

Burst The Silence

I was going about doing my normal reads last night and came across a very interesting campaign called Burst The Silence. It's a campaign done by IMH to raise awareness about mental health in the society and also focuses mainly around the essence of communication. 

This is an increasing concern for many especially in this highly stressed society where the work culture, competitiveness, and the thirst for success triumphs over simplicity and happiness. Coupled with how everything is so digitalised these days, the amount of human interaction has been greatly reduced to sitting behind our computer screens and smartphones (but that's another blog post for another day). 

Due to the technological advances and the desire to achieve growth at all cost, when we meet with setbacks in life, we tend to zone out into our own world, away from the fast paced environment, because that is the only way we know how to cope. We bottle things up as we don't want to exhibit our vulnerable side to friends and family. We find ourselves being alone. 

I think most of us have at least once in our lives, gone through this stage where we just felt helpless and troubled. We think we can overcome all the problems alone and just simply don't or not want to inconvenience our close friends with our problems. If you manage to weather the storm, good for you. If you did not, this is detrimental to self and well-being. 

I have been placed in this situation before, where I'd totally keep to myself and become withdrawn. It wasn't pretty. Talking, is a lost art and many of us these days prefer texting than face to face interactions. Recently I was caught in times where I really didn't feel like talking but did so anyway and I was surprised by how much better I felt every single time. 


Point of matter is, reach out and talk through your problems because it is easier fighting a battle with someone by your side than fighting a war alone. Trust me, you'll feel so much better even though the problem remains unsolved at the end of it all. 

The mind is capable of many things and depression is a real problem. Don't be drawn to desperation. Even if you find that you've exhausted all possible avenues of friends as you keep repeating your story to them, there are always 24-hour helplines out there you could call - CHAT, SOS, ComCare, etc. 

Remember, you are not alone. Never alone. 


#burstthesilence
burstthesilence.sg

In Pursuit of Happiness

I caught a video on TEDtalks the other night courtesy of recommendation of colleagues. It was a video by Shawn Achor (video embedded below) and he talked about the Science of Happiness. A lot of what he said struck a strong chord with me and it got me reflecting on how we lead our lives and how society seems to be influencing the way we lead it.

What is our definition of happiness? To me, happiness is just an ideal that in today’s society is impossible to achieve. This is simply because whenever we reach the end point of what we thought true happiness is going to be like, we shift that goal upwards and work towards another level of happiness without really cherishing what we have achieved. So as a result, we are never truly happy because we keep working towards a goal which is essentially a moving target.

This coupled with the fact that our brains are naturally wired to see the negativity in things before the positives amplifies the fact that we will never be happy with whatever we get. It is also so much easier to judge a person by identifying his flaws first until the person proves his positive side. This is the way that we live in and it is no wonder that there are more and more people killing themselves over problems which they never knew could bring them down.

What do we tie back happiness to? Do we tie it back to career success? Do we tie it back to how much money we make? Or do we tie it back to how many friends we have? Some of us have passions and it is passion for things that keep us going to keep us happy. Social interactions with people makes people feel connected, and that keeps us happy knowing that we are not alone. So is doing the things we have passion for with the people who matter, all that it takes for us to achieve happiness? In most cases yes, but like I said before, we behave in such a way that the end goal to things is essentially a moving target.

Without this mindset in place though, we will never know what our true potential is. It is with this mindset in place that we challenge ourselves to reach the next level of things. It is supposed to be a good thing right? Question is, how we put an upper limit to that and say that we have achieved enough for now and sit to soak in our own success story and “happiness”. Can we be satisfied with whatever little that we have as and when we achieve it?

Life is all about balances and as cliché as it sounds; too much of something is never going to be good for you. Same applies to our pursuit of happiness. When we get too obsessed with going for something and keep changing the finishing line of what we thought could be true happiness, and until we choose to stop this mentality, we will never be too happy. The brain plays a very strong part in influencing any kind of decisions or the way we react towards things when they happen. We are what we tell ourselves to be. What makes you happy eventually?