Sunday, September 27, 2009

Admitting Reality !

I was told that no man can be successful unless he stands before a mirror and admit all his flaws, accepting himself for who he is. I stood before a mirror today and I saw a lost and lonely soul. One that has no determination and perhaps even I dare say defeated soul.

I have always been carefree without much worries in the world. Spending money as I see fit without pondering about its repercussions. All this I did in the name of the "Epicurean Philopsophy". I put self evolution as continuous aim in life yet though I am filled with knowledge in various fields not 1 time have I put those knowledge to practical use to better my life. No, on the contrary having knowledge made my head swell.Being able to articulate better than most people made it worse. I became arrogant. I blocked out the voices that I saw inferior. Much good that brought me....

In all regards what I saw in the mirror was not a man of success. I saw an insecure man covered in an isolated shell. Shell of arrogance and ignorance. One that cuts him out of the outside world making him unable to emphatize with the outside world.
Now there is a crack in the shell. Its breaking. Lets see what comes out.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Another Speech

Feedbacks Appreciated :)


Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Please be reminded that this is a humorous speech contest, I am funny so please laugh .

All right seems like we are off to a good start. In life how ever sometimes things are not always what you expect them to be. Life can be fully of ironies. It’s these little ironies that brings the smile to our faces when we least expect it. It’s nature’s tonic for the weary. I like ironies because they are like nature’s little gem or stress reliever. I had my first dose of irony when I was a kid.

As a kid I used to remember myself being active and running around a lot. But being a bit well rounded I wasn’t the fastest kid on the block. In fact I was so fat when I ran it was like watching TV in slow motion. I would always shout at my friends …. “Hey wait up”….”Wait Up”. Funny isn’t it as a kid you don’t say “wait” you say “wait up”, “hey wait up”. Because when you are little you life is up, the future is up, everything you want is up. Wait up, Hold up, Shut Up, Mom I’ll clean up. Just let me stay up ! Parents of course is just the opposite. Everything is down. Just calm down, slow down, come down here, sit down, Put that down !

Irony is also a big part of human behavior. Take my extended family for instance. I recall a funny incident watching “Baywatch” with my uncle 1 time. To you younger generation out here, Baywatch was the Malaysian version of porn! What you have was a bunch of pretty models playing life guard running around in a skimpy swimsuit suit in slow motion. One of the more popular lifeguards was CJ played by Pamela Anderson. CJ was let’s say more well endowed than most women. So there we were, me and my uncle watching Baywatch as CJ running in slow motion with her big floatation device bouncing up and down. (Body gestures at the chest). Oh come on. Shame on you! You guys are perverts. I was referring to the life buoy. All of a sudden my aunt, who was behind us, says “I’m going to get a pair of those”. And she wasn’t talking about the life buoy. My shocked uncle turned back and said “Dear you are almost 60 why do you need a pair of those for? That would be like hanging a grand chandelier in a haunted house”. The best part is my aunt’s reply: - “Well honey, may be if the house had new lights you’ll stay longer than 2 minutes”.

Even technology itself presents itself with ironies. Take face book for instance. You heard of face book right? For the benefit of the more senior audience think of facebook as the replacement for the house phone. What you have here is a network of people here who really don’t want to talk but face book is like a relationship respirator that keeps this marginally brain dead relationship alive. And we all do it. Why? Cause when we log online its nice to see that little pokes you have in your inbox. You go like alrite messages. It’s very important for human beings to feel that they are popular and well like among a large group of people that we don’t care for.

The biggest irony I learned recently in my working place. How many of you folks here would like to get promoted next year? Alright here is the secret: - resign. Before you gimme that look, lets look at the difference between an appraisal and a resignation. In an appraisal meeting they will speak only about your weakness, errors and failures. In a resignation meeting they will speak only about your strengths, past achievements and success. During an appraisal you may need to cry and beg for even a 10% pay hike. In a resignation meeting you can easily demand for more than 50-60% pay-hike! During an appraisal, they will deny promotion saying that you did not meet the expectation, you don't have leadership qualities, and that you had several drawbacks. During resignation, they'll say you are the core member of the team; that you are the vision of the company, and so “How can you go? "; you have to take the project on your shoulders and lead your juniors to success. There is a 90% chance of not getting any significant incentives after appraisal. There is a 90% chance of getting an immediate pay-hike after you put in your resignation.


Ladies and gentlemen, I spent the last few mins talking about ironies as a kid, with my family , with technology and even in my work place. For what ? Was it because I just wanted to string together a bunch of random events or is there a more subtle message ? Fellow toastmasters, a wise man once told me “The grass is always greener on the other side for nature intended it so”. A man goes after a woman thinking that she is the 1 he can’t live without, and once he gets her, he wonders how did she keep him still long enough to harpoon him. A rich man will complain of not having enough time to spend his money, a poor beggar will cry not knowing how to use his time to better himself. You see ladies and gentlemen, as lord Buddha once said life is suffering. If the grass wasn’t greener on the other side there would be no desire to improve and we would digress into complacency. For that reason as silly as they are ironies exist. So ladies and gentlemen next time you see these little gems of nature have a laugh and remember that someone up there is telling you to work towards a better tomorrow.

Acknowledgement : Jerry Seinfeld and Napoleon Hill

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Incoherent Ramblings

"Out of all my disciples you are the 1 with the least amount of talent.It is because you are talentless that you need to redeem yourself with hard work. Prove me wrong. Prove to me that you are more than just a pile of flesh exhausting the precious resources around us. Prove to me that you can rise above the stench of mediocrity to heights of greatness! That is all I ask from you my worthless disciple." --- Words from my mentor.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The One About Being Real

Hmmm for some reason the following lyrics just keeps ringing and ringing in my head like a broken old record..

I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,
I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

When it comes crashing down, and it hurts inside,
ya' gotta take a stand, it don't help to hide,
Well, you hurt my friends, and you hurt my pride,
I gotta be a man; I can't let it slide,
I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,
I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

I feel strong about right and wrong,
And I don't take trouble for very long,
I got something deep inside of me, and courage is the thing that keeps us free,
I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,
I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

Well you hurt my friends, and you hurt my pride,
I gotta be a man; I can't let it slide,
I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,
I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!
I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,
I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

Here is a music video link for ya !


Wonder what "I am a Real Malaysian" would sound like ?

Monday, April 6, 2009

The One About Letting Go

“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be.”

I first heard those words from a learned friend about 10 years ago. If memory serves it was taken from the Bible. Simple isn't it ? Yet it is often the simplest things that are the hardest to do. Funny how I discarded this little piece of wisdom as bullshit when I first heard about it. Talk about being ignorant and brash ! Yet realization is just half the story. The hard part is practicing what you preach. If you have any sense of attachment at all you'll know what I mean :- it makes no sense to let go of something you love. Especially if you have done everything you can to go after what you love.( Ironically the same person that taught me the quote also taught me "We have to fight for what we love". ) Imagine working like a dog to save up for a new watch and when you finally get it someone tells you to prove your love, go throw it into the ocean, if its yours it will find its way back.How many of you would have taken that advise seriously? If you are you must be smoking some good stuff. Yet this is a flawed analogy. The real story here lies in respecting people both yourself and those involved. Its about having trust and faith. Its about conducting yourself with integrity.

Ric Flair once asked "You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk ?"

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The 1 Where I Pray To God

Dear God,

If I have 1 wish this week, please let me have a good weekend :).

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Here's the speech I used in a recent speech competition. It was based on part of my life but names and timelines have been changed to protect the privacy of the parties involved. Ok yeah so I took some artistic liberties to exaggerate certain points but hey it helps to move the story along :) So here enjoy.

One-itis

Good evening ladies and gentlemen please make yourselves comfortable we are about to embark on a journey back into time. Follow me as we journey back to the year 2000. Back then I was the president of the math club, a top student and not to mention the captain of the track and field team. I there was such a thing as the perfect embodiment of brawns and brains, you were looking at him, baby. On the other hand you had Jamie, Jamie Teh. She was the damsel of the faculty with bright big eyes and an angelic smile that would melt even the hardest hearts. She was the one I desired. One way or the other I had to be with her. So I schemed, I planed and I researched all the love movies I could find to the perfect courtship strategy. Mind you I watched over a hundred movies in 2 months and meticulously took notes for comparison. Then voila! An epiphany! It boiled down to three simple words: - “I love you”. When ever the hero in the movie , be it Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Tom Cruise uttered those 3 words they would automatically sweep the girls of their feed and they would set off to the sunset. I could not help but smile as I looked at myself in the mirror. I was a freaking genius! I solved the riddle that had dumb folded men for centuries.

Armed with this new found knowledge I marched to her house with a present in 1 hand and a bouquet of flower in another. Confidently I pressed doorbell and waited for my angel to descend. When she reached the gates, I flashed a smile, presented my gifts and whispered those 3 magical words. I waited for a sign of reciprocation, a kiss on the cheek perhaps. Then suddenly there was an awkward pause, followed by a look of disgust as if I was a dog that had just peed on her leg. She left the gifts on the floor and went back to her house without saying a single word. I felt like time had stop :- total silence, the only sound I could her was the of my heart shattering into a million pieces as if a crystal were smashed into a million bits with a sledgehammer. I stood there for about 30 mins, with my jaws dropped not knowing what had just transpired. My mind was blank.

Next 3 months I spent my life in the intensive care unit for the emotional trauma. Have anyone of you ever met a girl so beautiful that all you could do was see, hear and think about her? Then for some unexplainable reason you decided to tell yourself that she was the one? If you answered yes to both of those questions then congratulations you are suffering from one-itis. One-itis a social malady where one develops an unhealthy infatuation for another individual. In my case I was suffering from grade A, one-itis. I had to cure myself. So hence began my journey to understand the fairer sex.

They say to understand someone, you first have to understand the way they think. So I headed down to a local magazine store. On 1 side you had the women’s magazine and on the other the men’s magazine. Looking back and forth I noticed a peculiar similarity. Both magazines featured women in suggestive poses. Yup you heard me right. Both men and women’s magazine feature hot babes on their covers. In fact 80% of the women’s magazine round the world featured semi naked women. Now I stopped and thought for a moment :- if us men half the amount of topless men on our magazines we would be accused of being gay ! That’s a fact. I skimmed through a few pages of CLEO, my circuits blew when I read the content. “10 amazing things to do with a man in 10 mins !”, “Firm up your ass and look good in a bikini!”, “How to make your man happy?” …. The list goes on and on.

Then a light bulb lit up in my mind. It was a humbling revelation. All this while I thought it was the men that were hunting the women. I thought we were the 1 that gets to pick who we want to be with. But how far that is from the truth. There are 2 ways to hunt, 1 way is to stomp around the woods, beating the bush making as much noise as you can and shooting at anything moves, the other is more devious hence a feminine approach: - you set traps. You see guys, we would love to think that we are all in control making the bold move to go after a girl. Fact is, girls are 1 step up in the seduction food chain. Heck they have been reading magazines like CLEO since they were 18 learning how to firm up their rear ends. Moral of the story is that, do all you can, but is the girl that chooses, not the guy. She chooses whether she wants to be with you or not. It is their God given right! As men it is our solemn duty to respect that.

Looking back at the way I approached Jamie I realized that I didn’t give her the proper respect her she deserved. I wasn’t the perfect gentleman that was willing to humble myself to make her feel like a lady. In my attempts to look for the perfect courtship strategy, I dehumanized myself. I took out every single emotional content that I had and instead diluted it into a simple formula. That wasn’t courtship it was looking for a short cut. I didn’t take the time to understand her: - to know the real person underneath those bright eyes and angelic smile. No wonder I got blown off. It made perfect sense now. How could I have been so stupid ? But now realize that those 3 words have a very deep meaning related to it. And I promised myself that I will never use it freely again without emotional content.

Now there was still 1 problem how do you deal with one-itis? While I was busy looking everywhere for the cure for one-itis, little did I know the cure lied deep within me all these while. The cause of one-itis was actually insecurity due to a lack of control. Because I had developed an infatuation for someone I barely knew there was a deep sense of insecurity that she might leave me at any time. And because I could not do anything to prevent that I felt powerless. The key to overcoming this is to know that when you love someone there are no short cuts. You have to open up yourself to being hurt. Hence the saying “Love Hurts”. Take the time to know the women around you :- learn to appreciate them. Don’t settle for mere infatuation go for love cause I tell you women are so, so worth it. They are worth every single investment you put into them. And so what if you get hurt? As the saying goes better to have loved and lost then not to have loved at all.

Recapping back this incident, I’m glad I met Jamie. Although I don’t know where she is right now. She changed my life. I have a new found view in life because of her. So where ever you are Jamie, here is a thank to you! And to all my audience if there is 1 thing that I would like all of you to take away is this :- the next time you guys suffer from one-itis go around and meet more girls you owe it to yourself and the woman you met for just a day and claimed to the the "ONE". Then come back and ask yourself is she really that special or were you thinking with the jewels between your legs? If you think she is still special than congratulations you are 1 step closer to true love.