Category: Uncategorized

Sitting in a contemporary chain-branded coffee shop, I’m sipping a cup of traditional coffee.

Taking a quick break while my kid attends the music lesson. His first. The first of many, we hope. Creative endeavours provides deeper meaning to life.

A musician barely surviving with the bare income but enjoying what he’s doing versus a soulless corporate executive living the good life, I know which one I’d choose.

2020 is behind us and many are happy to see the back of it. On 31 December, people were dreadful of the year. But at the stroke of midnight, everyone was suddenly rejuvenated with fresh dreams. What a difference a minute made.

The reality is, we are still confronting the same challenges. Not being a pessimist but (good) jobs are harder to find, companies are still downsizing, virus is still infecting people. Vaccines are our saviour but it would take a long while before things return to the way it was before. If it even happens.

The year of lockdown made us treasure relationships more than ever. Technological shifts are accelerated during this period. But as powerful as a miniature pixel may be, they are irreplaceable for the human connection we so yearned for. 

Despite all the unhappy things unfolding around me, I’m grateful to be surrounded by supportive families and friends. They are the pillars and without them, I don’t think my life would be so fulfilling.

With a hectic day job and office politics aplenty, I always arrived home drained and lifeless. Leaving is an option but there’s no guarantee the next gig will be better. Eat some humble pies, swallow my ego and just grind through this period. 

Hopefully, 2021 will whizz by and things will be rosier comes this time next year.

Here’s wishing you a happy and healthy new year, wherever you may be.

“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”

Albert Einstein

One thing I don’t wait for is: permission. If you have an impulse to create something, go create it. Stop sitting around thinking, “Oh I can’t because I don’t have X or I don’t know Y.”

Steven Soderbergh on “Let Them Talk” and the future of movie theatres

That said, there’s one common way to uncertainty: That’s to ask one more person their opinion. It’s easy to think the more opinions you have, the more certain you’ll be, but in practice it’s quite the opposite. If you ever want to be less sure of yourself, less confident in the outcome, just ask someone else what they think. It works every time.

Jason Fried

Modeling a behavior is stronger than telling someone to act differently.

Kids imitate the habits of their parents. Teammates match the competitive energy of one another. Employees learn to manage like their supervisor.

Be the standard and others will raise their standards.

James Clear

“When I feel overwhelmed or stressed or lose my center, I draw on one or all of these things:

Be kind & be useful.

Slow way, way down.

Let the world speak to you.

Rest your mind on your breath.

I am only as good as the company I keep.

How can I best support my own vulnerability?

Compassion is the highest form of critical thinking.

My life—which includes my work—is only as good as I feel.

Try to put how you want to feel ahead of what you want to be or even do.

This is what I’m doing, this thing, right now; drop the words, stick with the feeling.

Be ready for opportunities & openings as they come along; change is the only constant.

Go toward the good—the good people, the good moments—& let the rest of the static, noise & drama fall away.

While we’re breathing—which is miraculous, and won’t be happening some day—all we’re doing is learning and growing. That’s all, learning and growing.

Follow your interests, wherever they lead will be somewhere that lights up your eyes, or floats your cork; notice when you get excited &/or confused by things, write down these moments & let them guide you.”

Hope Hall (via Swissmiss)

Because there is no predefined finish, you cannot think in terms of ‘how many miles do I have left before this thing is all over’, so in fact, I found it very easy mentally. I just had to think about the next loop. The next loop, always the next loop, it’s very easy thinking. You’re never overwhelmed by what you have left to run, because you simply don’t know what you have left to run.

Guillaume Calmettes

[…] In reality, I wasn’t mourning the writers. After all, their words are with us for eternity. Instead, what I was grieving the passage of time was realizing how much of my own life is now in the past. These deaths dredge up the detritus of memories, which suddenly measure the distance of life lived.

The mortality of these towering figures, who created whole worlds through which we could discover our reality, is a reminder of loves lost, dreams unfulfilled, destinations that one time defined the future.

Om Malik

… Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think …

Robert Henri

Most people confuse work with just a simple economic activity. In reality, it is about self-worth and pride in what one contributes to society at large. A lack of dignity of work leads to a slow erosion of self, no matter how much money/handouts one might get.

Om Malik, in the feature on Dense Discovery