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27th Sept 2024. 2 min read

First posted at medium.com

It’s the start of September, 2024. I feel the cutting edge of time, depleting my hours, weeks and months assiduously and there is so much to look forward to.

Rather than slowing down, I am picking up speed to savor life. I am changing my gears, charging forward. There are many interesting things to learn, knowledge to imbibe, people and events to cherish. But time is limited.

I want an action packed schedule. Being idle dulls me. Boredom kills me. Busy as a bee and a beaver suits me.

Today, I set up my 30 days challenge- a modest one and they say you can emerge unrecognizable 🤣I shall see

1 Minimum 6 hours sleep

2 Drink 1.5 L water

3 Be on time

4 Some sun

5 Cut Carbo

6 Exercise at least 1/2 hour daily/ rock climb weekly, 2X line dancing

7. Read English, Mandarin and Japanese – at least 1 1/2 hours

8 Get organized ( pack) one corner, one cupboard at a time

9 Achieve my baking quality of at least one bread recipe this month

10 Hug and massage my furry companion whenever she is around

11Thank God for three things every night

12 Empty my brain before sleep and let everything go!

Sweet September, I see you at the Top of my mountain.

26th June 2024. 2 min read

In our hurried, busy and noisy world, we are swept along by the demands and drills of daily life that we may forget to take some still moments for reflection.

Consequently, thoughts are sometimes superseded by impulsive responses which may produce negative consequences.

In this respect, it is advised by the wise and those who have gone through the vicissitudes of life to pause and ponder.

As we grow older, we should cultivate being quiet and calm in the face of troubles perceived.

There is the story of the lost pocket watch. A merchant had a valuable heirloom in the form of an antique watch which he liked to show around.

One day, he misplaced the watch while in his warehouse and he ordered his workers to search for it with a reward for the finder.

It was not successful. As the sun set, the hungry workers decided to search again after dinner.

The merchant’s son returned home and heard of the incident. He went to the warehouse and soon was able to retrieve the watch.

Surprised by the young man’s ability, the workers asked him how he had found the watch. The young man said, “I just sat in the corner, focussed and listened for the ticking sound in the quiet warehouse. That led me to it”.

Indeed, cultivate a calm heart and mind. The ancients often said: “Only when you are calm can you be at peace, and only when you are at peace can you think.”

I tried applying this principle in my clinic recently when my Xray software did not present itself on the monitor. The staff was quick to conclude that the software had broken down and restarting the computer did not help. There was a sense of panic and a loss of what to do.

In the face of having to break the news to the patient at the dental chair who had a bad toothache that her Xray could not be viewed, I chose to be calm and consider the options.

We could tell her that we would go ahead with pain relief and present the Xray to her later. She might be displeased.

We could send her to our neighboring dentist for a repeat Xray which was an inconvenience. Finally, it dawned on me to check the server and I discovered that it was not properly switched on hence the software was not active. The patient was successfully treated after a clear diagnosis.

Throughout the ages, anyone who has achieved great things has been able to maintain a state of calm, because calmness is more powerful than being restless and impatient.

When the mind is quiet and peaceful, quietness can lead to concentration and concentration can lead to wisdom.

16/6/24. 3 min read

Author at the Maldives (90s)

It is a calm mind that can accept any situation, analyses, and executes an appropriate action that brings solution, peace, and positivity to the involved person or parties.

To have a calm mind, one needs patience which is a very important trait and a great virtue. Trying to be patient in the first place already makes one testy so it is a personal achievement.

In this respect, you may notice that many people do not pass the 3 seconds test. Just hold your vehicle for 3 seconds when the traffic light turns green and you will be tooted off to move. That is the level of most drivers’ patience.

The ability to keep your breathing steady, knowing that all unpleasant things do not last and focusing on solutions instead of problems will put one in good stead.

After all, getting annoyed, agitated, and even angry. affects one’s physiology and biology impacting one’s health, self-esteem, productivity, and relationships with others.

Things may become worse before they get better. Meanwhile, it’s the rough ride that you go through, your emotions being ruffled and your brain being wreaked havoc.

It is an easy thing to say but difficult to do as it’s the body’s reflexes that reacts to unfavourable situations.

My strategy involved using

1 Acceptance – Do what I can and accept what I cannot.

I can help by looking for the good in the situation. Many times, unpleasant situations bring valuable lessons though painful.

2 Focus – Being solution oriented instead of thinking of the worst that may happen. If the worst happens, we still need to live on with courage and hope.

3 Smile – The power of a smile is under rated. While it is not appropriate to smile when there is a severe injury, a smile can put others at ease and elicit some ideas or answers that may be valuable.

Negative emotions impact everyone’s thought processes.

4 Clear your mind – When all else seems to fail, take a long walk, a restful sleep or an exercise to boost your feel good hormones.

This has a scientific basis.

We are also as happy as we make up our minds to be happy.

Better make being happy a habit.

5 Communicate gently – When one is riled up, it is easy to speak unkindly but that would only stoke the fire, in others as well. Speak gently, rationally and calmly and a solution or at least a compromise may be reached.

A case in point: We were two friends with differing opinions as to how to reach a destination when we travelled together.

As I believe then, that reaching our desired place would be easier taking public access, my friend wanted to drive there.

We ended up on a narrow, winding dirt road which I suggested that we reversed quickly to avoid being stuck in a rut.

After much difficulty, she managed to reverse out and was quite upset to the point that she wanted to return to the hotel and abort the travel plan.

After letting her released her frustrations, I calmly and gently suggested that we return the car to the hotel car park and that we could my method which was tested. By then, she had cooled down and we then had a successful trip to our remote venue.

On another day, we were heading to a destination which I was not comfortable for her to drive there as I do not encourage driving long distance overseas.

I decided to exercise patience and calmness and chose to focus on being a good navigator instead of fearing about the worst.

Eventually, we had a fantastic journey along a road less travelled.

In all situations, stay calm and carry on doing what is best.

Acquire and develop this skill and your relationships will flourish.

21st March 2024. 4 min read

Image From Canva.com

Recently, I wrote about Wabi Sabi which is about embracing the beauty of imperfection, Impermanence and incompleteness in life.

You may read about Wabi Sabi under “Flaws in Beauty” written on 26th January 2023.

This time, I want to add the Japanese principle of kintsugi.

What is Kintsugi? It means golden joinery.

Kintsugi 金継ぎis the art of repairing broken pottery by putting together the pieces using glue made from tree sap and the cracks are filled with molten gold, silver or platinum.

What you get is a beautiful piece of pottery.

Image by Matt Perkins from splash.com

Origin of Kintsugi

Story has it that a 15th century military ruler, Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent one of his tea bowls to China for repair but was disappointed with the result.

He asked a local craftsman to find a more aesthetically pleasing method to repair. The craftsman’s solution was to emphasise the cracks instead of concealing them and Kintsugi was born.

Like Wabi Sabi that embraces our imperfection, Kintsugi also accepts imperfection and aims to make it better.

Lessons from Kintsugi

1 Kintsugi teaches us not to waste.

A broken object is not necessarily useless.

By repairing it using the right technique, we develop a more beautiful object keeping our memories of that object that we treasure.

As each object breaks randomly, the art that ensues is never the same.

2 It also teaches us that in life, we will meet setbacks, disappointments and feel broken sometimes.

Our traumatic events may scar us but we could heal ourselves by filling these cracks with hope, positive attitude, determination, new skills and creativity and other positive traits. That makes each of us unique and precious.

In essence, it is about resilience to the hard knocks of life.

I think of Aimee Mullins whom the world admire immensely. (You may watch her Ted talk presentation on YouTube)

Aimee Mullins is an exceptional person. She is truly inspiring to the world.

As a baby, her legs were amputated below the knees due to a condition called Fibula Hemimelia but she grew up in a very positive environment.

Aimee defied the doctor’s limited expectations. With the aid of prosthetic legs, she not only learn to walk but run fast!

Aimee became the 1996 Paralympic champion in Atlanta, setting three world records in 100m, 200m and long jump!

She also became an actress, successful model, all on prosthetic legs. Nothing could stop her.

Today she is a motivational speaker and her TED talk has drawn millions of people.

She has an amazing 12 sets of beautiful prosthetic legs and could decide how tall she wants to be.

She has given people inspiration, fresh insight and empowerment to anyone who is limited by other’s expectations.

In a sense, it’s likened to practising Kintsugi, becoming the strong, remarkable and beautiful person she is today.

She has inspired many by never bemoaning her fate or yielding to her condition. All the positive traits of courage, creativity, cheer, grit, confidence, positivity, etc are evident.

Kintsugi, a principle I will always try to apply when facing any setbacks or disappointment.

5th March 2024 5 min read

It’s hard to take that first step. I never thought I would procrastinate so much. Months and years have slipped by and I have not attained many things that I had set out to achieve.

To continue like this, I can only be good at one thing – day dreaming. Even my cats are living a purposeful life, one scouting for intruders like cockroachess and rats and making it a success.

The other lying on the couch, inspiring me to chill in this hurried, harried life.

I remember the most important slogan that I did not act on;

Nike said, “Just Do It!” This short, sharp, and succinct command reverberates in. my mind every night.

So here, I am, coming up with a short speech for my speech contest.

A speech with a purpose; it is about not delaying what you have set out to do. It is about procrastination. It is about the obstacle in my path; in this case, the obstacle to improving public speaking.

My friend had threw me this challenge to join the contest and I avoided it like a plaque because of laziness, uncertainty and fear. I gave the excuse of going away but deep down, I wanted to try but my devil’s advocate said, “Give up! There are too many obstacles “

My secret reasons;

Laziness because it involves mental work, coming up with a title, collecting evidence to support the speech and writing a persuasive one.

There. is so much to contend with. already daily but I know that I can do it if I only get started.

Uncertainty because I have not done project speeches for eons and the skills have been placed on the back burner. To warm them up again requires effort.

Fear because of performance anxiety, discomfort being scrutinised by the audience and the fear of losing my words .

Nike called again in my mind;

Just do it! If not now, when?

Do you want to return all the skills to TM like your language learning? Do you want to slip back into a loss of self confidence?

Do you want to be a scaredy- cat always?

What’s there to lose?

To err is human.

So I wrote this speech in 5 minutes because of Nike. This speech contest has started me on another resolution that’s been in Cold Storage – reactivating, rehearsing and reliving my love of a foreign language.

In fact, it had started me on a long list of things I wanted to do ;

1 To embark on a new skill in my career

2 To spruce up my practice so I can hand over to younger people and retire partially

3 To read more so that I can imbibe wisdom from books and live wisely

4 To find more meaning in my life

I find that being able to achieve is a habit, it is not an endowment from Heaven. If you do something enough times, it just gets easier. Procrastination is a bad habit. Persistence is a good habit.

A Case in point

When I wanted to improve my Mandarin, it presented as an obstacle because my mind thinks so.

The mass of words looked formidable not to mention the phrases which I needed to check up constantly for its meaning and pronunciation.

Somehow due to a deep seated passion, I struggled with its constant reading and now the mass of words does not hinder me so much anymore. Rather it is. the choice of topics to read that takes my time.

This makes me realise; We set up the obstacles ourselves. We need to just do it. A habit to keep working at it until the obstacles disappear whether it is laziness, uncertainty or fear .

10th November 2023. 1 min read (Published in ‘The Power of Poetry’ on medium.com)0

Man, fear as you grow older,

That you become more and more grumpy 

Woman, fear as you grow older,

That You become more and more frumpy

That is the manifestation in reality

This is rather common in actuality

It requires a certain mentality

To get out of this normality

Hark back to your youth in detail 

When Memories of smiles and laughter prevailed

You ain’t got a care in the world then

Till the troubles of life made you comprehend

When you allow life’s events get you down

You react to everything with a frown 

Rather, stay free and easy at all times

Above all, be serene and sublime

Life’s trivialities are there to tone and hone

Never lose sight of this even when all alone

The grumpy man will  start to smile

The grumpy woman will start to style