One step at a time

I happened to be reading Kenneth’s post while listening to this song by “Stereophonics” at youtube. Kenneth was sharing about this experience in running the 10km Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon. The music; his words. They all seem to fit nicely. Kenneth was describing what he observed and experienced in the marathon. I thought it alluded to many things in life.

They say that we just have to row our boats merrily down the stream. I think it’s more like a marathon. Or a slow walk. Whatever we choose to be.

So long we complete it.

The optimum length for being disappointed

I love this quip:

“… being disappointed is okay, but don’t be disappointed for too long. Two or three seconds is the optimum length.”

From a comment left by Sami, who wrote it in response to one post where the author expressed disappointment (the author chose to keep the blog private, hence no link to the blog post).

Kids are like Balls-n-Chains

I was reacquainted with an ex-classmate recently. Noticed his name in the CC list of an email. I asked if he was that same person I knew so many years ago. He was, and he rememebered me.

This morning, I noticed he was online (on Gmail) and we ended up chatting for quite sometime. During our conversation, he mentioned something that I thought was blog-worthy. We were talking about marriage and children, and being a father of two, he wrote:

The kids are like ball and chain but for me I kind of enjoy dragging them and watch the world busy themselves and race by.

Heh, he gave me permission to blog that.

He struck me as a philosophical sort. Doesn’t surprise me that he counts Gandhi as a major influence in how he views life. Perhaps Philosophy and Parenting goes hand in hand.

[Photo credit: Elvis Payne]

Acceptance is also a Choice

[UPDATE 31 Dec 06: I've since learned that "Hearing Impaired" is not a preferred term. I should use "Deaf" or "Hard of Hearing". Thanks.]

In my view, those who cope well in life tend to adopt a philosophy that they are comfortable with.

Here’s Joseph, who blogged about his hearing-impairment being deaf. Near the end of his post, he asked — perhaps rhetorically — whether he has a choice in being deaf. It’s clear to me he has made a conscious choice to accept what he can control and what he cannot.

Getting something like a Cochlear Implant, after weighing the risks, is a conscious choice. Accepting that one has to make do with a physical disability as best as one can — that’s a conscious choice. Blaming everything on “fate” and being angry with the world is also a choice, arguably not made consciously perhaps (Joseph didn’t come across as having taken that last position).

“Acceptance is also a choice”, as I inferred in my “I Am Singaporean” podcast. When I read Joseph’s (who is hearing-impaired) blog post, two words came to mind: “Pragmatic Acceptance”. It may seem like I’m trying to be a smart-aleck in choosing such a term; “acceptance is acceptance” right?

Well, I think there’s “acceptance” (as in saying “I’m not even going to try since I can’t change things”) and there’s “acceptance” (as in, “I know I can’t change things right now but I’ll keep a look out for tomorrow”).

“We must be more than what we are”

I like this post for the quotation at the end:

“Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are.” ~ Dallben, The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander.

Enough said.

George Yeo, on “The Three Bs in Life”

I’ve shared this with a few people outside of Singapore. They all had a good laugh. None were offended. In fact, they all couldn’t agree more. From George Yeo, or rather, from his brother:

My elder brother Jim once told me that, to succeed in life, one needs the 3 B’s. What are the 3 B’s? They are Brains, Balls and Breaks.

Brains – well, it always helps if one is smart, alert and able to spot trends. One also needs a sense of social situations. We need both IQ and EQ.

Then you need Balls. Guts, the courage to take calculated risks and persistence. Balls without brains is dangerous. Brains without balls doesn’t get you very far. The person who is passionate is more likely to succeed.

The full post here.

Technorati Tags: success, life

Piers Anthony – on ‘Life’

I was looking through my old notes and documents for a piece of music I wrote years ago. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but discovered this instead — something I wrote on a piece of scrap paper more than 15 years ago. It was Piers Anthony’s preface/ introduction in his 1982 novel, “On A Pale Horse”. I must have been around 16 or so when I read it. It made such an immediate impression that I had to write it down, for prosperity if you will:

“… To try to hang on to one particular section of life is foolish, it can’t be done, and if it could be done, it would not be worthwhile. Change is much of the essence of life. Death is the final change. We cannot hold on even to a day; how, then, can we capture life itself?

Perhaps our whole awareness of individuality, of self, is an illusion. If so, it is better not to grasp unduly at that illusion, but rather to live our lives in such a manner that when we must at last lay down, we will not be ashamed.

Life has meaning only if we live for meaning.”
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob
May 17, 1982.
From the author’s preface to the novel, “On a pale horse” (‘Incarnations of Immortality’ series)

More about the book/ series, from: Amazon.com, and bloggers here and this one (via Technorati Tags).

Technorati Tags: life, death, meaning of life, piers anthony