if i ever get a chance to send a letter to God, this will be what it says:

for the

~affinity with people i care about
~blessings (uncountable) you've given to me
~childlikeness + creativity in me
~determination bestowed
~everything going on in my life basically
~friendship + freedom which i will always cherish
~great-atmospheres now and then which never fails to sweep me along
~happiness which i felt had never left me and was never far
~igenuity + innovation during spurs of the moment
~joking-ability (laming in a funny way)
~kindness shown to me
~love felt from all around me since i was born
~mum+me+dad = a complete, supportive family which occupies almost all the room of my heart
~never letting me experience unwantedness,aloneness or helplessness
~opposition + obstruction met that are minimal but helped to strengthen me
~pals who cheer me up, surprise me and encourage me
~querying + inquisitive mind
~regrets (which are minimal and i hope it stay this way)
~support + shoulders from everywhere + everyone i hold dear
~trust + faith people have in me
~understanding lot of people by my side
~very perfect house and home
~wisdom to understand things
~"x-ing" and keeping out unfortunate events from me in my life
~you letting me learn about you and staying with me since i was a child
~zzz (peaceful sleeping) every night without me feeling troubled

dear lord,

for all these which you have given me, i have found my worth on earth, felt love and learn to love, believe in love and will try to love others as you have loved me so much that it can't be quantified. my gratitude can never be enough. amen.

destiny.fate.serendipity.finality.prevailing.realisation.awareness

people who are always trying to impress others with only the interesting sides of the their lives usually fail to realise that any envy others hold may only be for that moment and that being impressive or envied by might not actually garner them true happiness. i would rather enjoy living a life my own way even if it may seem simple and unthrilling to others. but if i am content with such it will suffice for being able to feel content is happiness truly.

perhaps as an only child i was never really appreciative of and really affected by others' views and comments unless that person is someone whom i hold dear or is really wise in my eyes. i never thought of living my life the way others deem dazzlingly. i don't think an affirmation is the right benchmark unless it comes from myself. maybe when one goes with the flow, what he/she is looking for is the genuinely comfortable right way out for them.

and maybe what i said i say so because i have a comfort zone which i can quite warmly comes back to for support when what i am doing is not being appreciated or understood by others. maybe i am "others " to other people as they are to me. maybe these might not make sense. but it does to me so i am satisfied. haha.

destiny.fate.serendipity.finality.prevailing.realisation.awareness

currently slumbering in a period of deep thoughts... particularly when there are some choices for me to make and lots of other things to consider... there are times when we feel tiny and unimportant in this vast universe ... like if one day, when we disappear suddenly, it won't really affect the universe. yet it seems like if any of our love ones leaves us, our world will come crashing down. maybe the universe is large because its a summation of all of our worlds.

all of us seem to have different tolerance capacity towards different people? most of us tend to be more tolerant towards outsiders, or should i say to those whom we are less familiar with or close to. i think its probably because of the uncertainty or lack of sufficient confidence in us to gauge the personality and possible reactions of them. in fact, the closer we are to another person, the more we expect out of him/her in terms of understanding whatever we are doing.

the first step to understanding another person is therefore largely dependent on whether both are on the right frequency. and this, in turn depends on the personality of both. in order to become closer, we need trust and for trust, there must be a certain level of knowledge and ability to roughly gauge the person's thinkings and views even before they are expressed. but more importantly, the person must have possessed a comforable frequency which we think we can tune in to most of the times. i guess this is what EQ is about... but this is not what's most important.

i believe fate is. cos it will be seriously hard to find people with similar frequency to us in this not too big yet not-small-either-earth. then both have to dare to take the 1st step, trust, wiling to put in effort in friendship and finally there must be a right timing for some events to happen such that both can go through together to strengthen the bond and eventually have some hurdles appearing so we know what to react in future when similar scenarios surface. (see, i don't really believe in smooth journeys without ups and downs because once there is one, we will not know how to face it.)

well, i guess that's probably why its getting harder to get a good friend as you grow older... people just learn to be more protective of themselves and trust less easily. haiz...

can one be optimistic and prepared at the same time? cos if you are prepared, then u probably already thought of the worse scenario that could happen and hence make yourself ready for it. but if you are optimistic you will probably think of the bright side no matter what happens? hmmz. so what does it means by hope for the best but prepare for the worst? sounds wierd. how can you have both kinds of thinking at the same time?

anyway recently i realise that actually a lot of unecessary work and trouble are caused by certain misunderstandings where people refuse to clear up... so when people get some parts of the story, they began to come up with their own links, judgements and conclusions which when told to a third party cause even more confusions and complications. some times you can really be amazed at how creative people can get and how they manage to remember certain tiny bits of things from 10 yrs back.

maybe the people who can live a simple and happy life might not have been born simple afterall... they are just more able to forget and forgive much faster than others do, that's why they seem so free of trouble. so far around me, i have only seen one person who can do that. hopefully i can learn such skill fast enough. :)

actually, how many people in this world are sure of the kind of life they want to lead? there'll be a group who does not expect much from life who says that after all life is just a passing phase and when its over, all the things we used to own and fought so hard for won't even stay with us for eternity... so what's the point? ... hmmz make some sense. but what about those who say that life are not meant for us to waste away? like if we lead a life without a goal, a dream, an ambition, we are not living life to its fullest? what kind of a goal and ambition are truly living life to the fullest?

aren't most people's goals in life to strike rich? but so what about being rich? apart from being able to do what you want within the reach of the riches, what aims in life come after that? so for all who attain their goals vey early, have they lived their lives to the fullest yet? or they should continue to have another goal, one after another? what about the people who have a goal which they can never attain? like? haha... world peace? haha. then are they never going to complete their lives? what about those who dream to be somebody or be in a certain profession but when they are who they think they want to be and realised that its not what they want afterall? will life ever be completed?

there's only the few ten-years in life that we spent to carve out a niche for ourselves and if what we carve is not what we wanted? re-carve and spend another few ten-years? or worse, if we never have any dreams to begin with? carve what? life is wierd. people say its like a dream, like a drama, a passing phase, a journey, a game. so many varied forms to so many different people? to me, life is like changing seasons, different people just enjoy at varied times, the springs, summers, autumns and winters and then enter another realm? my dream in life will be to go around the world and see how different everyone's life is like, to enjoy cuisine, to sightsee and relax.

but what if i never attain this dream? what if i attained this dream and still have lots of time left? what will be my next dream? hmmz... i don't really know. life can be quite boring because certain phases in it are expected and predictable. like study - work - marry or stay single - die. boring huh... then again, it can't be helped. :( don't quite get it when some one says to another person you complete me... means if the two of them are no longer together they are incomplete again? divorce how? they shatter into pieces? haiz. life is complicated. yeah... it is boring and complicated?! life is full of contradictions lah! maybe life was meant to be simple and boring. but it became complicated because of man and yet still boring. but how else can life be interesting if for everything we do there'll be a day when we become tired of it?

maybe life is just life. just that people like me sometimes tend to think too much. haiz. :( maybe i am too hungry. better go eat breakfast. done enough mind exercise for now. wahaha.

... to me there is only one kind of love that is truly unconditional in this world. its the love our parents have for us.

other types of love will involve self-interests no matter what. our parents will love us no matter how we've changed and forgives us no matter how many times we might have hurt them. other types of relationship might turn sour as soon as one has changed or in some cases, when one refuses to. but no matter how we change, our parents still love us the way they do in the past. so i can safely say that our parents not only love the way we are, they also love the old us and the new us. so whenever i come across a book about how much a certain character loves the other i will be thinking whether the love will be as strong if in future that character changed for the worse and keeps hurting the other party.

if other kinds of love that can match our parent's love for us, maybe there wouldn't have been so much divorce, break-ups and so little of true "friends-forever" friendships.

maybe part of the reason is that we are all becoming increasingly self-centred and perhaps some of us are afraid getting too close to others as we are clearly aware that once we do so, we are more proned to getting hurt in the case of a mistrust. this may also be because we put a value to too many things in life, hence we have become overly concerned with our own interests, gainings and losings - in other words simply, we have learn to be over-calculative.

then again, maybe another reason why we don't want to get too close to another person may be because we are able to predict what might be the outcome if we do. i believe we usually have gone through certain considerations before we draw the circles of defence for friends that we have made... knowing that some of them are the safe ones whom we can share our most genuine feelings with. these considerations probably include the characters of our friends to a large extent, whether they are the ones who can be there for you and at the same time will not be over dependent on you or over independent such that their shoulders are strong enough for you to lean on and yours to them.

it may actually be tiring to either keep sharing your problems with a friend and never get to listen to your friend's problem because you might start to wonder if that person trusts you as much as you trust him/her. similarly it may equally be tiring if a friend doesn't know when to stop doing so... friendship might just strain if one party keeps thinking he/she is the unfortunate one and so you must always be there for him/her, listen to her problems and give in to him/her under the pretext of being "understanding and considerate" without knowing that sometimes he/she is the one who isn't.

maybe its best that people who wants their relationships to last knows how to manage and maintain a degree of independency and dependency. it also goes a lot to explain why funny(humorous) people tend to have more friends as they are able to lighthen lots of problems and reduce them into managable ones. (even though they might not be so in reality.)

hmmm. when i was young i used to wonder if there's such a thing called "fairness" in the world. i am still wondering a lot about it now. cos it seems like everyone has been born into a different set of environment and since birth goes on quite far to determine what kind of person we grow up to be and the future, doesn't that reflect the old saying that our fate is sealed the day we are born?

then again there'll be this thing called education that provides everyone with equal chances to excel regardless of background. hmmm... sounds like the phrase doesn't work in our era anymore? not really. in poorer countries it still applies. in developed nations it works just as well. if you are born smart, a little hard work will take u to great distances, otherwise, you'll need plenty of hardwork to do so.

but some might say... as long as one is granted with equal opportunities, that will suffice. since there'll be this "the question should not be why haven't you been given a chance yet but rather are you really prepared for it if it comes."... watching "happy feet" seems to have started me on this train of thoughts... everyone has been born with different talents but not all sort of talent receives the same sort of "welcoming".

the pre-requisite to natural selection is the diversity within a population, but at the same time, nature only selects the strongest, the fittest that adapts best to changing environment. life is simple yet it requires complexity to remain so.

...making a decision usually depends on logic + analysis + reasoning + understanding of + trust for the persons involved but i think the thing that plays the most important part is the feelings of the decision maker. that's why its not too easy to make a decision at all. its like involving lots of "u- know-u-should-do-what-but..." involved in it. but then again, ultimately the ease or difficulty of making any decision depends on the exent and scale of the effect it brings along.

and if a decision is dragged for too long, it might actually become quite stressing for the people directly or indirectly involved. maybe that's why some people prefers to have answers thrown straight back into their faces rather than waiting for it... haiz. making decision is one thing, how you go about delivering the choice you have made is another.

a decision can only be subjective or objective. but there's a saying which goes one man's apple is another's peach... so a decision which seems objective to some may be subjective to others. and so it relies quite a lot on the environment, time frame and circumstances in which it was made. just like certain decisions made now which sounds right to majority would have sounded wrong way back in the past.

maybe because we are all living in a greyer world, no more either black or white, so we are more accepting towards a lot of decisions and maybe thats why its harder to say exactly whether a decision is right or wrong.

is human nature good or evil? is the human will strong or weak? haiz. seems like the more you look for the answers the more questions you find. actually i think most of us like to simplify matters. but end up we usually complicate them. so, you see why we live in a much more complicated world than ever... the more we know, the more we know we don't know and the more we want to know what we don't know. haiz. complicated enough anyway.

christmas seems to be just round the corner when there's still more than a month to go... thanks to all the christmas carols and hoilday-mood everyones' having. hehe. its nice to have such celebrations sometimes cos having holidays do cheer one up... especially when you are surrounded by loved ones and friends. even though there aren't any snow nor warm fireplace or chimneys here for santa to climb into... wahaha.... deck the halls with box of hollies ~ fa la la la la ~ la la la la! hehe

"true giving is the giving away of what you can't live without and not what you can live without"

recently i discovered another paradox.

if time really can heal all wounds then why do some still feel hurt when they recall certain unpleasant things that happened to them in the past? incomplete healing or a scar? perhaps it may be true that as time goes by, we do not feel as intense the emotions we used to feel when the thing just happened to us. but the bottom line is that we probably can never forget those things that once managed to tug at our heartstrings no matter how long it takes.

life afterall, is just like a storybook with all our memories written down, regardless of their worth. that is why pages will either record some precious, treasured memories or be filled with melanchony ones. but without any particular one of them, the ending will be different, so will we.

its a sad thing sometimes when you realise that people only become stronger when they are made to go through the "downs" in life, sometimes unprepared and most of the time unwilling and it is almost always inevitable that, when they do, they are seldom found to laugh and play like a small kid anymore. their goals in life will change and so will their personality.

once, my friend told me that childishness is actually an act. maybe i would rather pretend to grow up and still be childish inside. ya. call me childish. afterall i still prefer to laugh and play like a small kid. wouldn't you too? :P

... are you watching closely? yes. the prestige. one of the most enjoyable movies i have ever watched. extremely engaging and to put it simply - worth the ticket price. something i took along with me after i left the theatre - the audience is fooled only because they want to be. they never truly wanted to find out what's happening behind all the tricks because there are too much impossibilities in this world.

helping someone actually isn't really simple to me. when you actually do it, sub-consciously you have already considered the following:

- whether that person deserves your help
- whether you can afford to help
- how close you are to that person (which also determines how much you are willing to go through and sacrifice to help him/her)
- whether you think you are really in a better position than he/she is

you don't agree? how often are you willing to spend time helping people who are maybe of a higher social status or someone who appears to be or you think are extremely independent and stronger than you in every aspect and comes to you telling you that they have a problem which requires you to spend some time on. even if you can afford and eventually does help him/her, wouldn't you think about why can't they pay someone else to do it or since they are so resourceful and successful themselves, why can't they solve it themselves?

then when you really decide to help, there's so many other things which you have to consider... now, consciously. the method you propose, the attitude/impression you give and his/her unexpected response... the technique needed, in other words, is not really easy.

there are some people who, when they do help someone, expect the person to follow everything they say (because they think what they told him/her to do is best for the person) and they might actually be right... these are usually the people who have seen previous examples and are experienced in one way or another, hence the mountain of confidence.

but this is one approach which i will appreciate the effort but not accept it.

to me, help comes in many forms and of course, majority of the time people who wants to offer assistance do so from their hearts. no one doubted them yet some times its really very funny when certain people are just not so receptive to new ideas...

its like whenever you wish to suggest another method to solve (your own problem), they (most often than not) say that its right to just trust (him/her) because they have seen plenty of things like this before and sometimes even go as far as telling you that they ate more salt than you ate rice and ultimately post you this question: why will they want to harm us?

haha. its really exasperating because no one questioned their sinceirty and suspect that they want to harm us or anything and they are saying all these for whatever purpose? to make you feel guilty about telling that person what your feelings and thinkings on this matter are. isn't this very stressing?

i find it a "yes". so i don't really like asking for help unless i've really really used up all possible methods i can think of. and even if i do try, i will go to my friends or family whom i think will be able to help me in the way i truly needed and it usually takes the following forms:

1. a hug
2. a pat on my head

plus the following words:

- it's okay to cry.
- i am always here for you to lean on
- i believe in you. i am sure you can think of a solution
- tell me how you might want me to help you

i am sure most of us will prefer this kind of help and support rather than in the form of $ or suggestion in the form of issuing a command. :)

hmm... recently i've been thinking quite a lot and discovered that nothing in life is absolute. relativism is what reflects the present time.

some people like to say:

the accomplishing and attaining of certain goals isn't important,
but rather, its the process, the "how" we got there that matters.

while others prefer:

it doesn't matter how long or what it takes for us to get there,
what is important is that we do get there eventually.

hmmm. both sound correct to me. so then, its down to relativism again isn't it? hehe

someone from my family once told me that

"we live for and because of our love-ones, not for ourselves..."

which i find makes a great deal of sense. i also find this phrase from sir william osler particularly meaningful...

"to have striven, to have made an effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle.we are here to add what we can to, not get what we can from, life..."

but in case you are wondering, i caught this phrase one day while i was waiting for MRT on the NEL... not adapted from some very "chim" book la... hmmm. anyway so here's the end of my first post. :) hehe