I Thinketh! - What is Rich?

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

~ William Shakespeare

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

~ Benjamin Franklin

There are people who have money and people who are rich.

~ Coco Chanel

This is rich. Sitting by the poolside, enjoying time to yourself, watching the children play with their blow-up ball splashing in the children's pool. No rush in getting to work, no pressure to meet a deadline. Nice clear sky in cool weather complementing the inviting waters. You just might jump in.

This is rich. Book in hand relaxing at the neighbourhood cafe at the start of the day. People watching. Scurrying citizens on their way to work, all dressed in their Sunday best which has become an every day best instead. Sunday is the time to wear slacks.

This is rich. Enjoying a game of tennis to work up a sweat before heading for a nice simple English breakfast at the nearby restaurant. Laughing, teasing, applauding with every ill-timed return and with every fluke. It's all in good fun. 

This is rich. Having a chat with a total stranger while in the queue in the supermarket. A curiosity question or remark started it all. Your conversation ends when your turn arrives but trade name cards to keep in contact. A year later, you two turn out to be good friends.

This is rich. Taking a plane ride to visit the place of your choice. You spend a week, two, maybe more, experiencing new food, practices, even picking up a new language (vaguely). Exploring cultures and its history. Stepping into the unknown. Perhaps making a friend or two. Your world becomes much larger than you expected.

This is rich. Volunteering to help out with some charity work. Peeking into the lives of total strangers. You see happy faces and troubled ones as well. You feel, you think, you realize life is precious and yet unfair. Perhaps you'll be a better person. Perhaps you'll see a troubled face smile.

This is rich. Your children jump into bed waking you up with their giggles and glee. You chase them out of the room so you can continue with your dream of winning the lottery. You go back to bed and the dream changes to you with the winnings in your arms. Your children being the prize.

Where's the richness in money for money's sake?

Cheers,

~K

I Thinketh! - Do Children Today Fear Failure?

It's a week after New Year. School has started. My girlfriend had to go back too. She teaches. The week past by fine. Then on Friday, something happened that left her thinking, which she told me about. That left me thinking. 

Once orientation's done in the first two days or so, lessons start. On Thursday, she was relieving a couple of periods for a teacher who was away for some reason or other. It was math class. After explaining the steps of the new topic and giving out the assignment to the new batch of primary 1 students, two students cried. One after the other. Apparently, they were afraid of making mistakes in their work. And that bothered them enough to cry. Needless to say, she had a lot of reassuring to do. So that was the incident that left us both thinking.

Why are kids afraid to make mistakes? As a child, these are the times to make as many mistakes without shame. It's their learning years. They're entitled to their fair share of mistakes. 

Or are they? 

This led to a sensitive and controversial question. Are kids being raised to feel ashamed of making mistakes? 

And to end the questions: If they're so afraid of making mistakes at their young age, how about when they're older? How will they handle their personal challenges that require some guts be it in career or in relationships?

Mistakes are part and parcel of how we learn and improve. Observing the failures of others also helps better ourselves. To paraphrase a quote I remember reading once, "A smart man learns from his mistakes. A smarter man learns from the mistakes of others." 

To conclude this little thought with a personal opinion, kids need their parents' support and assurance that it's perfectly fine to make mistakes. As long as they learn, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, move on and try again, it's alright. In doing so, they learn a lot more than just the lesson of the task. They get additional lessons in determination and letting go. Lessons in dealing with success and failure.

It's how we live. 

It's how we grow.

I learnt to cycle that way.

Food for thought,

~K

Christmas Time, Family Time, Lovely Time

"The best Christmas of all is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up with one another."

~ Anonymous

Compliments of the season everybody!

I've been having a ball of a time this Christmas. Loving every second of it. Relatives that I only see once a year, relatives that only come back to Singapore once a year, relatives that I'm meeting for the first time as they've never been back to Singapore since they've left. The feel of family warmth is such a wonderful treat. Furthermore, it's one of those few times the Eurasian dishes come out in full force and when there's so many bottles of wine to choose from at each house. Red, white, sparkling, dessert, ice. One of God's many gifts to mankind. Make that five.

And the best part? It ain't over yet. 12 days of Christmas remember? So there's another week to enjoy the festivities, the atmosphere and the food with family, friends and cherished ones. And smack right in-between this season is another celebration. You guessed it. New Year - which means more food and goodies (I'm obviously referring to the wine). 

It's a beautiful month. 

The prelude of cleaning and choring round the house, the running round for Christmas presents, the disagreements on how the house is to be decorated, the last minute ingredients amassing to serve up the Christmas feast, on hindsight, all play a part in enhancing the treasure of this season. Kinda like bonding during Basic Military Training (BMT). And when the midnight church bells sound announcing the arrival of Christmas, the recognition that it's an effort well spent for a beautiful time dawns. The price of that? Priceless. Thank you Mastercard for that slogan.

So that said, I'll gladly agree with the sentiment that goes to the jolly tune entitled, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" by Andy Williams back in 1963. A recommended listen if you haven't before.

It's a beautiful Christmas.

Wishing you all a fantastic Christmas season.

Cheers,

~K

I Thinketh! - The Power of Words

Some people drift through their entire lives. They do it one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time. It happens so gradually they are unaware of how their lives are slipping away until it's too late. 

~ Mary Kay Ash

There are only two ways to live your live. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. 

~ Albert Einstein

Raymond. You gotta love him. Great guy, good heart. But what an idiot. You gotta love him.

So I was watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond on a rented DVD from VideoEZ after a long day of spring cleaning (which reminds me, why do they call it spring cleaning when it's like winter in most places that celebrate Christmas?), and in this episode Raymond and Robert's mother, Maria, causes Robert's wedding day to be a disaster despite her good intentions. Fortunately, Raymond dissipates the gloom of the groom, bride and room with a humourous yet touching speech that suddenly all the bad didn't matter anymore...And they lived happily ever after. Or so I hope. Gotta borrow season eight to see what happens next.

However, that speech got me thinking about the power words have on us. Words inspire or demoralize, create or destroy, cause wars or bring peace, forge friendships or make bitter enemies.  It's amazing how simple words which we take for granted and even abuse sometimes have this ability to shape our thoughts and actions for better or for worst. The great speeches of history for example have changed humanity because of these well-strung and well-delivered or spoken words that touched a great many.

And this led me to decide to post four speeches that I love and that I'd love to share with all of you reading.

I Have A Dream

The famous African American civil rights speech given by Martin Luthur King Jr. in 1963 most famous for its line "I have a dream" shall remain in the history books for a long time to come. The first time I listened to the recording of it, it became one of my favourite speeches of all time. I've listened to it three times since. I'm too free, what can I say?

What strikes me is the use of pause, intonation, crescendos, melody, and variation of speed, which when blended with substance charismatic yet influential and deep creates such a heartfelt and inspiring speech that the words reverberates long after the concluding line is over - "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last!". Listen to and read the transcript here to feel the energy and magic.

Do Not Work

More recently, famed Teenage Textbook author Adrian Tan gave a speech to the law graduates at the 2008 NTU convocation. Entitled Do Not Work, this speech snowballed into a chain mail of sorts, setting bloggers posting and facebookers facebooking. It seemed that no matter who posted it or where I dug it up on the web, there were always comments - comments from people who were uplifted or touched by it. I'm betting that even some of the grumps and grouches of the web had something good to say about it. I sure did. And I'm a grouch by definition according to my girlfriend. Bah! Humbug!

That said, I wish there was an audio recording of it online (for free of course) though. Would love to listen to that being read. But in any case, you can read the transcript of it here for consolation.

How To Live Before You Die

In 2005, Steve Jobs' convocation speech to the graduates of Stanford University also caught on like wildfire and had people talking about it. It's a beautiful speech. One with beautiful morals similar to the speech given by Adrian Tan. But what's even more beautiful is that you can watch and listen to it live on YouTube. God bless the person who posted it. I've posted the video below for your viewing pleasure.

The Last Lecture - Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

As I saved the best for last, this 1 hour and 16 min video (yes, I also saved the longest for last but don't you just love savouring the best for as long as possible?), is not so much a lecture but rather a prolonged speech in a lecture format (if that makes sense) by Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Professor Randy Pausch who suffered coincidentally from pancreatic cancer like Steve Jobs previously but unfortunately wasn't as lucky to survive it. But like the convocation speech given by Mr. Jobs, the video is readily online thanks to YouTube. God bless both YouTube and the person who uploaded it.

A real tear jerker, Prof Pausch is a person I admire and his words and lessons I hope to always remember and live by.

In the spirit of Christmas, a toast to you Professor. Rest in peace.

Wishing you all find your meaning in life too and to always have fun doing it.

~K

I Thinketh! - Christmas Spring Cleaning Reflection

Christmas is not a date. It's a state of mind.

~ Mary Ellen Chase

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.

~ Roy L. Smith

It's one week to Christmas and my back's killing me. I'm stiff all over. I've spent the last week cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, mainly because my family's invited for lunch on the 26th. About 5 hrs a day throwing unwanted junk out, performing the most amazing wipedown of my life and using superhuman strength to do a one-person shifting of my room - cupboards, bookcases and all. The record being working for 8 hrs straight. I'm gifted I tell ya. Not bad for a skinny fella.

As my girlfriend puts it, they should call Christmas, Cleanmas or Cookmas, as that's what we all seem to spend the majority of our days leading up to Christmas doing. It is our day of celebration after all. Of course someone else commented that we could even call Christmas, Drunkmas or Eatmas because that's what we end up doing on the day itself.

On the occassional break from my superheroic cleaning duties however, it's on to more exciting stuff called Christmas shopping. Now as you can imagine, shopping with aching knees from constant kneeling on the floor to wipe down the books and statues in my library is no easy feat. Heck! Being a guy and going Christmas shopping is no easy feat, so you can imagine the amount of superheroic strength and determination this calls for. And I still have yet to buy the presents. My strength faileth me.

As with all people with great destinies, difficulty and strife must be overcome - in order for the hero to get the girl, for Jack to get the hen that lays the golden eggs from the giant up the beanstalk, for the world to keep on turning, for Obama to get his tax cuts passed, yadayadayada. So now looking at it, my room is looking tons better. Oh it's not perfect yet and there's still a mess on my table but I've yet to figure out what I want to do with them. See how difficult life can be for us people with great destinies? We encounter one problem after another.

However as all superhero stories go, there's always an epiphanic triumphant moment and the hero become a better person because of it. I found mine this season. Whether I become a better person however, remains to be seen. But the thought that came to mind and stuck with me as I scrubbed, wiped, lifted and grunted was if we spent so much effort making our exterior look better for Christmas, why don't the majority of us spend at least a fraction of that making our interior look better too?

As someone once said to me, "in order for good things to enter, you must first throw out the bad." Or as paraphrased from a popular story, "how can anything enter when a cup is filled to the brim?"

And with that realization, I think this Christmas is going to be more meaningful this year for me. My superhero triumph and feat.

So said Charles Dickens, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

With that I leave you with that popular story I read ages ago entitled "The Cup".

Wishing you and your family a meaningful Christmas and festive season,

~K

The Cup

Once there was a university professor who decided that he wanted to study zen. He travelled to a local monastery. He was shown in to the abbot’s study. The abbot was about to pour himself some tea. The professor stood before the abbot who looked up. The professor explained that he had been studying and teaching in the univeristy for many years and that now he wished to add to his knowledge and learning by studying zen.

The abbot nodded and began to our himself some tea. The professor watched as the teacup filled to the brim and, apparently failing to notice the full cup, the abbot continued to pour. The cup overflowed and still the abbot poured. The professor was reluctant to embarrass the abbot but finally said, "Master, your cup is full and overflowing. It can hold no more tea."

"Yes," said the abbot. "And how do you who come here with your cup so full expect to fill it with the teachings of zen?"

The professor nodded and smiled and bowed before the abbot.

I Thinketh! - Stuff in My Room & the Need to be Financially Free

This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. 
~ George Bernard Shaw

As I sit up on my bed typing this post with my future wife lying fast asleep cuddling up next to me, I’m reminded how important and what being financially free really is to me from just observing my surroundings.

In front of me stands my library. Three 2m high bookshelves cluttered with books.  These books from a wide range of categories – literature (classic and modern), contemporary fiction, finance, philosophy, travel, history, arts, science and language – lie dusty, in need of wiping, and quite a number in need of being read. It’s been a nagging thought of mine to start. Instead, I find myself constantly being distracted by something else that needs looking into causing me to put down the book I intended to read.

The last I had any proper time to really start and concentrate on my book was on a holiday to Krabi in September. That was a beautiful and relaxing trip. I finished the book too - all 300 odd pages of it - in the 4 days I was away. Just like I used to in the past. It helped that it was a page-turner. The Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

Today, I find my eyes constantly drawn to my guide on Italy. The breakfast chatter with my brother has got me longing to travel once more. I love Europe and want to visit it again. Backpacking around for a month wasn’t enough. England, France, Germany, Czech Republic. That was more than four years ago. The mini-trips since then never quite matched up to the experience. Let's Go, the words on my travel guide to Italy says on the cover. I want to. It’s been a dream of mine.

My future wife rolls over in her sleep and my thoughts turn to her. In another year, we should be married. A wedding. Honeymoon. A house. And then kids. I’m not quite sure that they’re always in that order though. But I am sure that I want to be capable no matter the order they come in, and not handicapped by that piece of paper constantly changing hands called money.

I’m also sure that eventually we’ll have a dog. A dog that will provide love to and will be loved by the family. A dog that will be annoyed by the kids, but will play with them all the same. But eventually dogs too, grow old, and a lot faster than us. And at the end, we’ll wish we had spent more time with it before the inevitable. I’ve experienced this before. And I never hope to experience it again, let alone wish it on my children. The mat in the corner of my room ensures this. It belongs to the past.

Old age, illness, they go hand in hand. Personal calamities that need dealing with. The medicine bottle lying on the shelf serves as that reminder.  Zoom out. The world is a lot larger than our own personal problems. Wars, famine, poverty. Animals ill-treated. Species threatened. Dying. People suffering, children homeless. Uneducated. Sometimes all they need is a bit of helping hand. Isn’t that what humanity is all about? A dollar goes a long way. Involvement goes even further.

In short, being financially free opens up options, giving one more time to do the things that really matters to oneself and in that way, living and eventually dying without any regrets.

Able to do what one wants to do, when one wants to do it. The long awaited freedom.

~K

I Thinketh! - The Student and the Barometer

In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you. ~ Frank Wilczek

Here's a story I read that I find extremely interesting for the relevance to our current education system. A laugh out loud punchline with a food for thought moral.

Enjoy peeps!

~K

The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen: 

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer." 

One student replied: 

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building." 

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics. 

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use. 

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows: 

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer." 

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper." 

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g)." 

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up." 

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building." 

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'." 

It is told, that the student was Niels Bohr, who later received the Nobel prize for Physics.

I Thinketh! - A Lesson in Honesty from a Homeless Man

Honest hearts produce honest actions. ~ Brigham Young


I came across this interesting and inspiring bit of news today while surfing the web.

In brief, Dave Talley, who lost his house, stumbled upon a backpack with $3,300. Despite being tempted to keep the money, Dave did the right thing and returned it to its rightful owner.

That is truly amazing.

Most of us here in Singapore live relatively comfortable lives. Most of us earn enough to buy our necessities and even have some left over to enjoy the better things in life. Yet despite this, if we had stumbled upon that backpack just how many of us would have done what Dave did?

By that act, life to Dave is definitely more than just about money. It's also about doing right and living well. I'm pretty sure the personal values Dave held strongly interfered with the temptation to keep the money. A man of high integrity.

I admire that.

I aim to live it too.

~K

I Thinketh!

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. ~ Buddha 

I realized as I revamped my site that I needed to have a new subsection for any postings that are unrelated or only tangentially related to focus of the blog. Questions, gripes, interesting bits of news, gossip, those kinda stuff.

All these will be placed under a new header I decided to call "I Thinketh" heh. Stylo mylo huh? =)

Stay tune for my first thinketh post. Look out for it!

~K