To conclude on this topic, I am going to be a bit unorthodox and controversial here . I hope that it won’t cause too much of a turmoil among my circle of friends and family.
I would suggest making peace with the person who (in your opinion) has wronged you if all possible.
Firstly, it is very hard on yourself not to forgive and not to let it go. It actually takes a lot of your energy to hold grudges against someone (I am sure most people can attest to it). Secondly, sometimes (not always) relationship is more valuable than justice, money or your pride. Lastly, an apology (if it is the ultimate “fire extinguisher”) costs you nothing. You are no more nor less dignified after offering an apology (on the part that you might have done wrong). You are as strong as what you think you are, not based on other people’s opinions on you. This does not apply to all cases, but just in case it may be an option. One never knows :>

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

In the year of the dog, may your life be:
As extraordinary as a Husky;
As energetic as a Jack Russell;
As solid as a German Shepherd;
As adorable as a Terrier;
…
…

Besides stepping away from the situation, it is also crucial to stay neutral and separate opinions from facts. As someone once said to me, “Our thoughts are not necessarily the reality.” Often time, our minds play tricks on us in a negative way. We make wrong assumptions and create scenarios in our imagination that are far from the reality. We end up “working ourselves up” for nothing,

Talk to someone totally unrelated to the situation may provide you with a more objective perspective. In addition, analyzing the situation by writing it down on a piece of paper may also help.

A friend of mine was unfortunately involved in “a storm in a tea cup” situation which at times seemed to go out of control in a disproportional way.
It affected him adversely and he asked me for advice on the right mentality and attitude in such a situation.
What popped up in my mind is the term (based on a TV series) “Grace under Fire”.
Let us explore how to handle it.
First, keep a distance from the “fire”. A bit of a common sense similar to facing a real fire. Get away from it!
Here I meant to take a step back and “breathe” a bit. At the heat of the moment, we tend to make the wrong decisions out of our emotions (mostly hardwired to the negative energy unfortunately).
Move away physically or go to a place with minimum association with the situation so we can be calmer to think it through.

Does time have quality?
Many people heard of the concept of “quality time” as in “I want to spend quality time with someone.”.
In general terms, it means giving someone the FULL attention during that period of time including listening and caring about his/her needs instead of getting distracted by other things that are going on.
Apply that concept in a broader sense, we can enhance the quality of our time by being more MINDFUL of it. It may mean enjoying the presence and fully living in the moment. As some people put it differently “stop and smell the roses along the way”. It may also mean making an effort (I am afraid that does not happen naturally) to spend time with your love ones and/or do things you love. It may also mean gaining new experiences and venturing out to new horizons in life. As we all know, we only live once and let us live a life of high quality!!!

Is the measurement of time objective or subjective?
From an objective perspective, it is defined as “In common usage, it is either an interval equal to 24 hours or daytime, the consecutive period of time during which the Sun is above the horizon”.
On the other hand, there are expressions such as “Time flies when we are having fun!”,
“I have not seen you for ages”, “It feels like a life time!”, and “It was such a long day!”.
All these suggest our minds can “play tricks” on us by creating a subjective element that change our perspective of time (for better or worse).
Some people say “How you live your life is more important that how long your life is.” Many influential people died when they were young including Jesus, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Junior, but their impacts last forever (“forever” another difficult concept of time).
Food for thought.

After my last blog, I have received some feedback from my blog-readers who share my view on the third stage of life (after mid-life). The next question is why we feel that way when we reach mid-life. Didn’t someone say “mid-life crisis”!. There are many reasons as our feeling is a subjective matter, but here are some suggestions.
1) I achieved what I had wanted in life (career, wealth, relationship, family..). What is next?
2) I didn’t achieve what I had wanted in life so far. Is it still possible with my “prime” years behind me?
3) My physically-strong years are over. I have started facing (big or small) health issues. I am not used to that 🙁
4) My energy level has changed and dropped to a low level and I have lost many interests in what I do.
5) I look into the mirror and I don’t like what I see anymore. What can I do beyond Botox and the like?
6) I started to experience sickness and death more “up-close and personal” which can be heart-breaking.
7) I don’t like how other people treat me like a senior/old person. I an’t that old, you know!

My thoughts to these statements/comments will come soon.

Recently the topic of how we perceive the passage of time has been popular among my friends.
We unanimously agreed that before and during our teen years, we couldn’t wait to grow up. Between young adulthood and middle age, the speed of time seemed to be normal. Some commented that once they are “over the hill”, it felt like a high speed free fall from there.
I think we could not wait to grow up with the anticipation of receiving freedom as an adult. The second stage (between young adulthood and middle age) is trying to reach an equilibrium among independence, freedom, responsibilities, opportunities and maturity. The third stage is a rather complicated one. However, I believe there are many stereotypes and biases associated with this stage of life. For some reason, some people think we enter a “slow” state and feel like being drifted away with time instead of taking the driver’s seat. I would like to explore a bit more on this topic. Not intended to throw in a “cliff-hanger”, but to be continued.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best in 2018. May your 2018+ be filled with wonders, joy, happiness, good health and colors 🙂

Today a friend of mine discussed with me about his work situation and he concluded with a sigh, “Well, I will let nature take its course!”. I asked, “what NATURE are you refer to?”.
To me, there are at least 2 dimensions to the word “nature” in the expression “Let NATURE take its course.”
The first common one is the meaning of circumstances and “going with the flow”. The second and more subtle one refers to our own nature and default personality. In other words, it is our natural tendency and mentality of dealing with such a situation. When we decide on “letting nature take its course”, we should be mindful what we are referring to.
We may not have a large influence on the circumstances and what happened/will happen to us, but we probably have a much more meaningful impact on how to react and cope with it (the second “nature”).