I believe I am one of the luckiest souls in this world because I have so much going for me.  In remembrance of all the good fortune in my life (and in celebration of this Thanksgiving season), I came up with my top five most grateful aspects and people in my life.  I am most thankful for:

5.  A challenging and fulfilling career. Some people work to live, and although I don’t necessarily live to work or work to live, I do look forward to going to work most mornings!  I am definitely very grateful that I have that luxury!

4.  My health. I was fortunate to be born a healthy baby, and I was fortunate to have grown up in a health-oriented family.  I am thankful that no major illnesses run in my family, and I am thankful that I am healthy enough to take on the many physical and mental challenges this world has to offer.

3.  My introspective nature. I am lucky I met a handful of key people during various phases of my life who taught me that being self-aware is perhaps the greatest gift I can give myself.  While it may not seem that way at the time, I am thankful for all the trials and tribulation I went through so far in life — they have definitely made me stronger!  I am most appreciate of finally learning that this world is much bigger than my own little world.

2.  My awesome friends. I am eternally grateful to have friends who keep me honest while helping me grow spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.  I am grateful that I have friends who would move mountains for me or wake up at 3am in the morning to field my distress calls.  No words can describe what they mean to me!

1.  My family. Growing up, I had a love-hate relationship with my family.  But as I got older, I learned to appreciate everything they have ever done for me and to me.  They have always been there for me, through thick and thin.  It’s as they say, blood is thicker than water.  I love you mom, dad, sis, and bro!

And Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Every Friday is Wisdom Friday.  It’s just a way for me to share with my readers the little gems of life that I’ve learned either during the week or living life in general.

I recently spent a lot of time with a friend who is fun and full of energy.  I really enjoyed our time together because he brought the fun out of me and challenged me to experience life in somewhat of a different way.

While I enjoyed our time together, I never felt I was able to be myself completely.  If you’ve read any of my posts on this blog, you know that I am introspective and philosophical in my approach to living.  I like to think about the meaning of the things around me and discuss/share my findings with others, and I truly believe that’s one of my strengths.  Unfortunately, this tendency of mine brought out the worst in him.  In particular, he liked to argue with me for argument sake.  Worse, at times he went out of his way to attack me and put me down.

It recently dawned on me that he and I are probably not suitable to hang out beyond the superficial level because every time we hung out, I felt that my true self was trapped in a cocoon.  In other words, I was in the wrong place when I hung out with him because I simply cannot be myself.

Have you ever been in a situation for a prolong period of time where you felt you are not able to “just be yourself”?  If so, the place is probably not the right one for you.  Thoughts?

Every Friday is Wisdom Friday.  It’s just a way for me to share with my readers the little gems of life that I’ve learned either during the week or living life in general.

Many of us know that when it comes to the physical condition of our body, we either use it (continue to exercise everyday) or lose it (no longer as strong or can endure as much).  But I find the concept of “use it or lose it” equally applicable to many aspects of our lives.

For example, I noticed that my memory is not as robust as it used to be.  I have become more forgetful than before, and I am not particularly happy about it.  When I dug a little bit deeper to understand why this is happening to me, I notice that I don’t exercise my memory brainpower as much as I used to (thanks in part to technology — why remember anything when you can just look it up or set up reminder alerts?)  Use it or lose it!

Another aspect that I find this concept equally applicable is in my practice to be mindful.  When I first decided to do this, I paid very close attention to the way I live and interact with others.  I made very conscious decisions to be observant, and I keep my attitude in check and my mind very open.  Lately, however, I have not put as much energy into my mindfulness practice.  As a result, I notice I have regressed quite a bit.  Again, use it or lose it!

What do you think?  Leave your thoughts in the comment section!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Every Friday is Wisdom Friday.  It’s just a way for me to share with my readers the little gems of life that I’ve learned either during the week or living life in general.

I am a planner.  Or at least I used to be one.  I’ve learned over the years to loosen up and go with the flow a bit more.  Not only does that change in attitude makes me happier, it also helps me win at the end.  The truth is, no matter how much planning goes into one’s life, one can never avoid the unexpected.  When that happens, it is frustrating and perhaps even debilitating to those with a rigid mind and way of life.  I know — I was once very much like that!  Today, I find a better approach (to success, happiness, etc) is to learn to adapt.

The great martial artist and philosopher Bruce Lee once said, “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.”  Yes, we should all be more like water!

Every Friday is Wisdom Friday.  It’s just a way for me to share with my readers the little gems of life that I’ve learned either during the week or living life in general.

I saw a quote I really liked that I want to share with the rest of the you: “The absence of fear is not courage. The absence of fear is some kind of brain damage.” — M. Scott Peck

Not only did the quote surfaced a brief chuckle in me, it also speaks to me personally.

I like to surround myself with people who are more capable, more intelligent, and harder working than me.  As a result, I am often inspired by what seems like their fearless approach to tackling their world.  However, what may appear “fearless” to me is never quite the whole story.  Truth is, every leader experiences fear in the many things they do; they just choose to conquer their fear on a regular basis.  I need to remember that — the next time I am forced to face my fears, I should confront it because having fear is a very normal part of life for somebody with a healthy brain!

I love to cook and really savor my once a week trip to the grocery store.  My grocery of choice is Trader Joe’s.  There’s so many aspects of Trader Joe’s that I just absolutely love and that make my shopping experience a positive one 99% of the time.  But perhaps my favorite part of Trader Joe’s is how small and quaint it is.  I can go in, shop, and be completely done and out the door in 15 minutes!  Best of all, I never feel overwhelmed by the product display and choices, which makes the shopping experience that much more positive.

Contrast that with the other chain grocery store near me, Safeway.  To be clear, I have nothing against Safeway (except maybe the price), but I almost never shop there unless I have no other choice.  Why?  Because I always associate Safeway with a feeling of dread.  What do I dread?  I dread not being able to find what I am looking for; I dread having to walk up and down the aisles multiple times to look for one ingredient that is missing in my recipe; I dread the feeling brought about by having too many choices once I’ve located the product display. The association is a very strong one because I always feel that way every time I step into a Safeway store.  Consequently, my shopping experience at Safeway is neutral at best, apprehensive at worst.  The feeling isn’t terrible, but it isn’t pleasant either.  As a result, I try to stay away from the store as much as possible because my subconscious tells me so.

What is the moral of this post?  Subconsciousness plays a big role in the way people make decisions.  Whether you are trying to develop relationships with others or sell products to your customer, make sure you are appealing to their subconscious as much if not more than influencing their conscious decisions.  This kind of approach requires time and a lot more thoughtful consideration, but it’s well worth the effort because everybody taps into their subconscious when making decisions whether they know it or not!

Every Friday is Wisdom Friday.  It’s just a way for me to share with my readers the little gems of life that I’ve learned either during the week or living life in general.

I am not sure if this true for everybody, but I find that it is infinitely easier to change myself if I first adjust my attitude to fit the new me.  For example, I’ve been trying to practice patience for most of this year.  Patience comes in many forms, but for me a lot of it is about having compassion towards others who have done me wrong.  I realize a lot of the mishaps that lead to my angry state are unintentional, yet many times they anger me just the same.

For most of this year, I tried hard to control my anger without much success.  The problem with that approach is I was treating the symptoms and not the cause.  It wasn’t until I actively tried to adjust my attitude that I began to make progress.  In my case, instead of artificially telling myself the incidents should not bother me, I told myself there was no reason to be angry because the consequences of what happened were unintentional.  The more I actively changed my attitude towards the environment that triggered my anger in the first place, the more I was able to divorce myself from anger.  The result?  I am proud to say that I have not been angry in over a month as of this writing!

Whilst I’ve been away from posting on this blog, I haven’t been away in checking the traffic to it. What I consistently find is that some of the most popular posts belong to the series I had written about online dating. Apparently, it’s such a hot topic somebody actually did research on the validity of some of my claims.  As an analytical person, I couldn’t be happier to see real data to back up my own experience.  A summary of the findings is below, but here is a link to the research for those of you interested in diving deeper into the raw numbers.

1. More isn’t always better when it comes to the introductory email. In the study, the author correlated the time it took to write the email (and indirectly the number of characters in the emails) with the email response rate.  Not surprisingly, brevity trumps ramble: “The shortest messages get almost the best absolute response rate, and the reply rate actually goes down as messages approach extreme length.”
2. There’s a magic number — cross it and you start to scare people off. According to the research, once you approach 360 words (or 1800 characters), the effectiveness of your email goes way down.  THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY words??!  I don’t even read emails that long from people I know, much less a stranger!
3. Men don’t actually read women’s opening email. Their conclusion is based on the fact that the most effective outreach from a woman to a man is 50 characters long!  Just to give an idea of how long 50 characters is, write the entire alphabet twice but stop at the letter “X” the second time. I don’t know about you, but that’s simply not long enough to convey any kind of message, really!

Personally, I find the result fascinating.  I am awaiting the next installment of their research to see what other findings are up their sleeves.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on this blog.  While I was away, I was exploring other areas of my life and simply could not commit to updating the blog regularly.  While the exploration had been fun and enlightening, I found myself missing the pleasure and joy of sharing my thoughts and words with my readers.  After some contemplation, I decided to recommit to writing my blog again.  No doubt the content will change since I am now a different (albeit perhaps just slightly) person than I was when I penned my last word many moons ago.  But I hope to continue to share the insights and learning with all of you all the same.  Cheers!

Or is it “What goes around comes around”?

English is not my first language (although it is my primary language now).  As such, I sometimes mix up my idioms and sayings.  Recently, I noticed I’ve been using the phrase, “What comes around goes around” backwards.  In other words, I’ve been saying, “What goes around comes around”.

But upon closer examination, I am not too sure if the way I use the phrase is all that wrong.  It may be opposite of the way it is conventionally used, but it reflects how I see the world.

When one says, “What comes around goes around”, one is warning bystanders that what happens to him/her (usually bad stuff) can happen to others as well!  In other words, watch out as you may be next.  To me, that’s rather negative as it implies others should suffer with you.

When I say, “What goes around comes around”, I take it to mean whatever bad stuff I do onto others will come back and bite me in bigger chunks.  In other words, don’t do onto others what I don’t want to happen to myself.

Both refers to the karmic world we live in, but the former perpetuates bad karma and the latter tries to stop bad karma from happening in the first place.

What do you think?