Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Forever #21

It's been a while . . .

A while since I sat down without  . . . *insert activity of procrastination / relaxation * ( are they not the one & the same? . . . I guess not)

Occasionally these days, I take a break to nap, to cook a decent meal or to breathe deeply without the presence of technology, but it has been a fare few weeks since I have really settled down to reassess my position.

My position. Position in life. My mental age. My real age. My physical age.

All ranging from being somewhat immature to being old AF according to most of my fellow human peers, especially from a certain individual who never ceases to remind me of my actual age.

It's all a timeline now, just like Facebook, we age & begin to realise that TIME is the MOST VALUABLE resource there is, then we begin to really . . . . .  freak out.

Also, we are very well equipped with all sorts of social media outlets like Twitter to spread panic accordingly with the correct emoticons & such ;) 

OK. Laughter & tears of pain aside, for most of us who still want to manage a good hand at adulting, we being to make changes or improvements on current routines & habits we may already have before it's too late . . . because we still have hope. Hope for ourselves. Hope for our future.

We being to fear REGRET & STAGNATION more than the fear of FAILURE & DISAPPOINTMENT
This is where we truly begin to live.
Some call this the turning point.
I rather say that you just "woke the f*** up"
And the ongoing list of cliche phrases & motivational posts continue . . . 

To be honest, as if I was lying my whole life,  I have thought about this limitless potential we have held in our hands since birth. This God-like mode of being fearless, brave & reckless even. To be truly unchained by self-esteem issues, confidence problems & approach anxiety. I have imagined a fair bit, I might say. The typical cars, money, penthouses & ladies, of course, countless ladies. [Manwhore] I even dreamed of winning the lottery a few times. 

How basic can I be? Please don't answer that.
However these days, nothing does my head in more than a dream being unfulfilled. No steps taken towards it & yet all of you complain about the journey that is required to even get remotely close to that base camp of let's say 'Everest' mountain you have to conquer, to reach the top.

I'm gonna say it. Right to you face as you read this.

You make me sick. Deep inside sick. Sad for you even.

Yet my emotions will always get the better of me & I remember that at one stage I was like you. Still to this day, I actually am still very similar . . . to you.

Young, dumb & broke.

Now I am . . . not so young, less dumb & still broke.

So to be frank, I am also sick of myself. So we're in the same boat. Don't be mad. I promise we will make it one day. I promise.

How? 

Just do it. Whatever is on your mind. Just do it. But you tell me - " I DON'T KNOW HOW?!" Take the time to plan your next move. Execute your plan. Learn from success and mistakes. Don't fear the failures. Relish in the fact that you are receiving VALUABLE LESSONS from your wrongs. 

I could say - " What doesn't kill you makes you stronger " but really I want to say - " But did you die?" Cause you know - trendsetters like Mr Chow really know how to party. =P

Or you could sit on Instagram looking for more #inspo posts to #motivate your sorry ass to become successful by double tapping everything you want instead of working for it.

Other people flick through social media & videos pop up telling us to be the person we needed 5 years ago, 10 years ago even, because what can go wrong with a bit of advice from the future?

I mean retirement homes are literally time machines from the past brought froward to aid our future, if you think about it.

I suggest talking with your grandparents while they're still alive and/or go to a nursing home.

Ask them how they all lived. How they had fun or how they didn't enjoy life, living through the eras til now. Even your parents who gave birth to you or not. All the experience points you need to boost your levels on life are there. 

You have to ask. That's all.

Good luck and see you all IRL.

Don't blame the game, blame the player.



Lots of Love < 3

Your Main Ho

Jeff


P.s. Thanks for reading my rant & dealing with my frustrating personality.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

The Power of Acceptance

“Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” ~Arthur Rubinstein


Some would say it is the act of surrendering, a voluntary submission to what is coming or has been done. Others would refer to it as the peace of mind; recognizing the unchangeable reality of the situation and coming to terms with it. A lot of you may think that it is the approval of the situation or admitting defeat; tolerating it by gritting your teeth in the midst of it all.

In these past few years, I've come to learn the true meaning of acceptance and how it feels to come out on top of your situations with a new found strength.


The actual realisation and complete power you have over yourself and your mind is nothing short of liberating.


The problem we come across so often is that we don’t cultivate the ability to truly accept whatever comes and embrace it. But instead you keep wishing, wishing that things had stayed the way they were, that if nothing changed, things would be perfect.

You fight it instead. You fight the truth. You resist reality.

Life is unpredictable and is what makes it a truly beautiful one.  Forever changing. Always moving forward. Nothing is permanent; everything changes and with the snap of His fingers your life is impacted beyond comprehension and you are left to deal with surviving by adapting or . . . perishing into darkness.

Since we are so accustomed to the stability and routine in our lives; change always comes as an uncomfortable threat to our lazy state of mind. We tell ourselves, that it will never happen to us. That you’ll never experience what they’re feeling on the television or in the papers, but inevitably these trials tear into our lives, no matter how big or small, and become such a terrorising factor to our immediate comfort zone.

Then there is the moment that you soon realise they all have one thing in common is . . . that you have no control over them. And that is what eats you up inside to the very core. Every. Time.

So, how do we react to this? How do we overcome this and accept life as it is?

Let us start at our natural human reactions. Fight or flight. Let’s see, fight? You can’t use adrenaline to bring back loved ones from the grave. How do you fight the decision or lack of decisions as to who you are really as a person; who am I really in all these situations? And you can’t exactly fly away from depression, because your thoughts and feelings will eventually catch up to you. How do you deal with issues that aren’t based on immediate life-threatening situations? 

How do you rise above these issues or incidents in your life that you have no control over? What do you do instead, when there is nothing you can do to change reality; what do you do instead of drowning in the feelings, the painful thoughts and emotions

It all boils down to two options. You accept what is happening, see the positive and choose a peaceful state of mind; or continue to fight against it and be miserable and struggle against the universe.

But how can you accept something when you cannot even comprehend why it happened in the first place? You can’t accept it. The cards that you have been dealt are so unfair, that it seems rigged to you and you, even with all the power in the world, can’t change them. Your life is thrown into chaos and people who have absolutely no idea tell us to deal with it?!

Just DEAL WITH IT?!  No. You can’t. Get out of my life. You’re not helping.

What is the point of fighting? To look for answers? What’s the point of trying to push all the emotions away, when it all comes rushing back in a moment’s notice, dropping you to your knees.

But it’s okay. It’s okay to fight. It's in our nature to survive. You just need to find the right way.

You want answers now; sometimes you don’t care; some lock themselves away and some reach out for their friends or professional advice. Seeking support, a validation, a resolution, but it’s all too messed up and you can’t accept the reason or lack of reason to take the blame. And so your friend tries to comfort you . . .

“It’s going to be okay. / What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. / Told you so. / Toughen up kid. Snap out of it.”

Some just try to stay away from you to give you space and  cannot deal with your negativity.

Will they ever be able to know what you’re truly feeling …?

I’m sure some of them have good intentions and what they say may be inspirational, but there’s always a right time and place for it. Most of us are not comfortable with experiencing the pain from other people and so some of your friends try to stop you from feeling that way.

“Let’s get smashed on drinks tonight. / Let’s go shopping. / Let’s get him."

And so we try to numb ourselves with distractions, seek justice through revenge etc.
However, none of these actually, confronts the problem directly and we come back to square one; and most of time, with even more problems to deal with.

When the tornado of drama begins to settle, we come to notice this gap in reality between what you had before it all happened and what you've got right now. And the bigger the gap, the more painful it gets. In our brains, we try to close this gaping void in our planet of reality with say . . .  making rash decisions, sleeping around or seeking dangerous thrills but in the end, you can’t . . .

You can’t keep up the numbing the distractions occupying your mind. 

Eventually you lie in bed, all alone, having to deal with it all the pain and suffering that you ran away from so long and you realise, that the only thing you know how to do so well, with so much practice, is to . . .  run away.

What you don’t actually realise, is that with all the effort you put into running away from the past; you essentially cloud your focus of the present. So when you try to connect with your next date, you end up instead dealing with judgemental prejudices of your past; or when you take your finals exam but end up with a frozen mind full of fears; or breakdown in the middle of your business presentation, cause in the end it finally catches up to you.

Stop. Take a moment. Breathe.

What you have to cope with is that, you can’t change what has happened, but you do have control over your actions from here on out. You can’t control your feelings, thoughts and emotions however but you can still control what you do about it.

So, we’ve had our tantrum, drunken ourselves into soberness and had enough of it all . . . let’s come back to step one.

What are you fighting against?

What we actually struggle with is not just the reality of the problem, but also the emotional reaction to the reality.

We let our emotions get the better of us and that in turn affects our attitudes which grate upon our perspective towards everything else, perpetuating this ongoing cycle of deterioration. How do we control this? You don’t. You have to fight it every day. You have to ask yourself . . .





What are you fighting for?

In some of my readings in Viktor E. Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning, he sheds light on the reality of the life in Nazi death camps and his inspiring lessons for spiritual survival. Frankl shows us how we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. He goes on . . .

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

So ask yourself, what are the values that matter to you, what are the very things that you stand for you in your life that give you a meaning of purposeful fulfilment, over all else.

There is no point in dwelling in the past. Gather what you learned and move on. Every moment you spend there, is another moment you lose in the present and your presence is what you lose from your “self”.


Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.” Michael J. Fox



Let's get back to the future.



Jeff

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Stimulus - Adversity

'Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.' – William Arthur Ward

At first, we when I read this quote, I thought about all the successful people who pushed themselves unimaginably far to break such records. [Can I be like them? Maybe~]

Then after it sank in, I realised the clever use of the word ‘break’. [Oh! So smart! Oh, I’m so slow…]

For most, the word may reflect a negative feeling due to its use as a verb. For some, it might mean a lunchbreak at work. For others, they may use it differently, like Sir William here, to change the word and put it on its end.

One word, so many perspectives . . . which leads me to look at my life in a different light.

This year has been a long and short one for me.

Long, because of depression.

Hitting rock bottom wasn’t a great place to be, but at least I knew it was solid ground. Fear was such a huge factor for me though. The wall went so high; it cast a shadow over my common sense and ability to reach out. It took me a lengthy time, a surprise visit from a brother, as well as a kick to the shins to get me back. [You know who you are b*tch, but thanks again]

Short, because of the time left in this ending year of 2011.

From all the adversities I have faced and currently battling, I have being looking at it all from various angles. Searching for positive lessons I’ve missed and opportunities to fix/create new pathways with.

One day, a friend gave me a generous insight and a valuable reflection, which I’m greatly appreciative of.

‘Of all things, when things are going well, life just decides to throw a curveball at you. The way you take it, makes all the difference.

Something along the lines of that.
Words like these mean so much, when one, has been through such staggering hardships. The final outcome might not be expected or desired at first, but the experience of using those hardships as stepping stones to move in a forward direction is always a plus.

However, it is the first step, which might seem the most difficult. Then, maintaining that course of taking the following steps, through the foggy distance, may deter one’s clear view of the destination.

Another friend gifted me a word. 


- Consistency -


Perseverance, pace and potential may be the things that you need, set and unlock, but maintaining them, at a consistent rate, is the biggest challenge.

A sense of direction and drive helps too. A lot.

Easier said than done, like most say. Well, keep saying that will get you nowhere, my friend.

An inspiring blog by Dawn Lennon said: 


We own our adversity. No blaming. No excuses. No hiding. Even when our problems are touched off by other people or situations, it’s still up to us to fix them. Our life is our business and a failed life is unacceptable.’ 


You know it, I know it.

I will leave you, with a final quote.


Adversity is a stimulus. – James Broughton


What will you do with it?



So blessed~


Jeff

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Clarity

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend." - Bruce Lee

I, for one, am far from it, yet I can blank out and completely forget what I was just saying iRL conversations.

Insomnia, sooner or later, will turn you into a walking goldfish who got lost outside it's bowl.

And then jump from one topic to another, because you forgot the other.

Water.

Freely flowing fluid, fitting and forming into any shape, fluctuating waves of peaks and troughs, yet it can be calm, clear, constant and composed when peace has been found.

Water.

Blue or murky? White or clear?

Water.

It surrounds more than two thirds of this earth's surface and is filled with so much pollution, we can't drink it.

Why?

It'd fill your stomach like any other liquid would, but since it has too much "salt" and other "impurities", one would have to "urinate" more "water" than you "drank".

We still need the salt, but not the impurities.

Take care of your "salt" intake in your diet, monitor your levels.

Keep hydrated peoples~

Enough said

<3


Swimming through it all

Jeff


Ps. Don't "drink" too much~

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Dreaming of me not you

Ha~  

"A dream has power to poison sleep."  ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mutability"

Choose your poison I ask you or have you already?

What is yours?

The "white knight in shining armor" or the "beautiful Rapunzel in the unreachable tower" or is it a nightmare of your most terrifying fears eating into your self-esteem and confidence to take on life?

I don't get it.

You don't get it.

Some dreams, repeat themselves, every night, some just come and go, as they might, and some are remembered, whereas most are forgotten. 

"You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, Peter Pan. That's where I'll be waiting. -Tinkerbell"

That moment . . . priceless. Just lying there immersed in the feelings of attraction, thoughts of lust, drawing to desires and whatnot. The magnetic pull of love is amazing isn't it? 

But for some reason, when you stand up, it's south pole again.

Or is it? 

That memory . . . oh fuck. Here I go again~ lying there wishing for the "one" you lost to come back. Despondency, desolate, dejection . . . depression. De fails. The double edge sword of love is dangerously damaging isn't it?

So is the aggrandizement of more than an ample amount of alliteration ~ XD

Or is it?

That fear . . . *screams*. Running away from the terror that scares you the most. For some reason it never seems to escape you, or you never seem to escape it. All you seem to do is try and try to flee. And why is that you wonder that it never goes away?

Cause you never resolved your internal conflicts.

Everyone of us, are at various points in our lives, living in diverse conditions, dealing with numerous situations, striving for that something more.

What is your “more”?

This is where we all split.

Career? Partner? Dream?

I ask you again.

What is your “more”?

This is what we all are missing.

If you don’t know what that is, how can you set forth in the direction of your ultimate goal in life?

No matter how many times you renew your lives, reconsider your priorities, if you don’t have that dream, you’ll always be stuck where you are.

But if you like were you are right now and there’s not much to complain about, forget about what I said.

Stay there.

Just don’t hold us back with your senseless and repetitive activities that you try to rope us into.

I think that’s enough said.

I’ll leave you guys with my final quote~

"Life ends when you stop dreaming. Hope ends when you stop believing. Love ends when you stop caring. So, dream, hope and love ...."


I already have my poison.

What’s yours?



Always,

Jeff


Thursday, August 12, 2010

Priorities . . . 1, 2, 3~

Before I start my second blog, hence defying my first priority at this moment, which is completing this blog~ I'd like to thank someone for being that "someone".

It's been a while since I chuckled like "that" in the middle of the night. Especially, to one's self in a way that would make a random on the bus look at you like you're some perverted pedo. Luckily, I'm hidden away in the confines of my study at home, typing away into bleak hours of the morning again.

Which brings me back to the topic of priorities. It's amusing isn't it? The things we try to get done, fall behind due to accusations. Or in other words blame. Blame addictions, blame distractions, blame procrastination. It's all a game to you apparently. Sort of like tekken.

I punch you, you punch me and then we can live together happily . . .  bruised. I can see so many topics that can follow that sentence but I'll just have to focus. Focus. A keyword in prioritizing life. Which is what I've been trying to do, on and off for the past 6 months, no a year, no, it's an ongoing thing. A life thing.

Some people set up their lives really well, it's not that they don't think much, it's more like they know what's important, or they've been brought up by responsible and strict parents. Then you have people who fail and over-think, but that's just them trying to blame things again. Sort of like me.

Amusing really, now that I come to it. I did it well for changing my eating/sleeping habits once this year. Lost 13 kgs and saw my core for the first time in my life. Then stress eating and life situations arose and I sadly bid farewell to my barely visible abs. And there I am again blaming life.

Let me drift away again, for a moment. I was tweaking my resume just then, again priorities, finding a job, since I deferred uni. Drifting away. It's a thing we tend to do a lot. Again, a hundreds topics to digress to. Why is it, that we drift? Isn't the task at hand important enough to warrant a time-span of attention, long enough to complete it? What is so hard about it that stops us from going further?

It really depends on the situation really. It depends on you not me. Or maybe it does. Once you figured that out, that's where you can start working up from. Upon realising what is stopping you, stop what is stopping you and move forward to what was originally was planned.

Sounds so easy doesn't it? Yet we come back to the same thing again & again and yes I'm going to quote 2PM songs in the odd hours of the AM. I think we underestimate the size of task sometimes. We tend to think it is "easy" enough to complete, but when we actually read into the assignment, we realise that it wasn't as simple as we thought.

Speed bumps, hindrances, obstacles always in our way. But, there weren't so many in the first place, when we first scouted the scene and now, there are millions? Why didn't we deal with it at the start? And the cycle begins again. Procrastination.

I'm sure you guys are getting tedious of this but what you should be asking yourself is. . .

Why am I reading this?

I'm sure you guys have more than enough experience and knowledge as to what progresses from here~

Don't stop, can't stop ~ must stop?

Haha, you guys . . .


Love My Life (LML)

Jeff

Monday, August 9, 2010

Newrise?

Usually one, who is normal, would be sleeping in after a lazy Sunday, into a unforgiving Monday wake up to a new week. However, I is full of nonsensical chatter and blabber. I'm not normal.


I don't think many people were ever was. Everyone has their own story, but not everyone wants to listen to it. Given the right time, mood, and numerous of other self-centered conditions, someone might listen, but if it didn't concern them or reflected a part of them in anyway, they couldn't care less.


Another thing that most people couldn't care less could probably be whether the weather forecast reporter had a story. Just another guy telling you figures and conditions that were only true half the time. How are these two things related?


I don't know, you figure it out. I'm just sifting though my thoughts at random.


Back to "not" sleeping in, more like not sleeping at all, and absentmindedly noticing the night turning into day, I feel . . . fatigued. In all three ways. Physically, mentally and emotionally. The cliché scene of grey clouds drifting along a dull sky, moved by the chilling winds unrelentingly pushing past the lethargic forms of evaporative moisture, bore me. 


What doesn't . . . is the sun. 


Everyday, this dying star of our seemingly minute milky way, in this expansive universe that we all live in, rises. The same old sun that we see everyday; warm, hot, fuzzy, burning, tanning - bright, shiny, blinding, overwhelming pops up from the horizon.


A new day, a new beginning etc etc. Many of us say these things, following tragic accidents, after break-ups, poor marks in studies or failed exercise regimes, . Regardless of the incident, does one ever realise, what they mean?


A new beginning? To begin what? Did something end? What was it? Did it end properly? Did it end well?


A new day? How does an part-time insomniac like me realise when a new day starts? When the clock strikes 12:00am? Or when the sun rises? Everything seems to fade into each other in these few weeks of the busy life of mine. I know what I'm doing and I know why I'm sitting here now, not sleeping. Nevertheless, I choose to not fall onto my bed to incur a much needed deep slumber, uninterrupted by dreams or facebook.


Why? Memories? Yes. Is there something wrong with my room? Messy. Is your bed comfortable? Yes, but it   just reminds me . . . 
The train of thoughts that drift to and from revolve more or less there and then onto a million other things. Sleeping pills? No. I do not want to take drugs. I just want to stop thinking for once. I miss those mornings that I could wake up to, feeling refreshed, thoughtless and clear-minded. 


No, not anymore, I wake up, with a cup of tea, to sustain my body of deprived of sleep, and browse facebook for status updates and play pool on OMGPOP to pass time. Time that I shouldn't be wasting, but I continue to do. This state of mind, has been coming around too often these days. I thought it was a monthly thing for me. =3


All the time I say change, change change. They happen everyday. Just one step at the time. Yet, I come back to this same odd hours of the morning, grinding the same trivial topic that interrelates through the other philosophical life attributes that you know I "love" to "think" about. A new start from the change of the old ways. Did you get rid of your old ways? Or do they just come back? Habits are a pest. But is the sun a pest too?


Topic jumps seem to be of the now, since my mind has not rested the required 8 hours, but seriously, the sun.
It's the unchanged fiery ball of light that glows onto us everyday. The constant solar power, UV rays and even the same path it traverses.


On the contrary, we take a sun when it rises, as a new day, a new beginning, a new sun. 


Why do we say these things? When obviously, the sun is still the same, and you obviously haven't grown 10 inches overnight~ =3


We say these things cause . . . 


Why do you think we say these things?


To make ourselves, set forth again? To make ourselves feel better of our past? To really change for the better?


I ask you again.


Why do you think we say these things?