Author Archives: Raymond Yung

During my trip to Hong Kong, I had breakfast with a high school friend who holds a senior position in the field of social work. We talked about the “old” days and how things are today. She made a thought-provoking comment – “Our destiny is determined, to a certain extent, by our personality.” My friend […]

Last Friday, I left for Hong Kong right after work from London. After passing through the security check at the Heathrow airport, I realized that I had lost my employee i.d. card. There were a few possibilities including the car service and airline check-in counter. I phoned the car service and nothing was found. After […]

For the next 2 weeks, I will be visiting Hong Kong catching up with my friends and family there. Some of my friends are my childhood friends that I have known for decades. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to pose some thought-provoking questions as well as obtain some feedback from […]

From the book ‘The Resilience Factor’ by Karen Reivich & Andrew Shatte (p.46), the last of the 7 factors is reaching out. “Resilience also enables us to enhance the positive aspects of life. Resilience is the source of our ability to reach out, and a surprising number of people can’t do it” There are various […]

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a good friend’s wedding. When I arrived, I “bumped” into an acquaintance that I did not see for years. He was with his partner (a young lady). He introduced her to me and asked if I invited anyone to the wedding. I replied, “No, I am happily single”. […]

From the book ‘The Resilience Factor’ by Karen Reivich & Andrew Shatte (p.45): “Self-efficacy is our sense that we are effective in the world. It represents our beliefs that we can solve the problems we are likely to experience and our faith in our in our ability to succeed.” “At work, people who have faith […]

Last night over dinner with friends, the topic of coping with pushy friends came up. They are your friends that mean well but may come across as a bit aggressive with their advice to you. My suggestions are (I am probably as “guilty” as anyone else on being a pushy friend at times): 1) Stay […]

From the book ‘The Resilience Factor’ by Karen Reivich & Andrew Shatte (p.44): Empathy is the ability to “read other people’s cues to their psychological and emotional states. Some of us are adept at interpreting what psychologists call the non-verbals of others – their facial expressions, their tone of voice, their body language – and […]

Early this week I went to the annual medical check-up. When reviewing my medical test results and figures, the doctor told me according to statistics based on my age, ethnicity and geographic residence, my probability of a heart-attack in the next 10 years is 3.1% vs. the group average of 3.4%. He said he was […]

Last weekend I took the TGV train from Frankfurt to Strasbourg for a visit. My original direct train of 2 hours turned into 4 hours with 3 transfers including a bus ride due to track problem. Despite the delay, I felt grateful to a few good German Samaritans who helped me as I don’t understand […]