Pick the right battle? January 31, 2007

 

When we were young and passionate, it was a crime to be apathetic and being spiteful was a merit.

Even being apathetic took hard work because you needed to look cool.

 

Now, there is a perfect reason to be apathetic and you are given all the right to do it.

Yes, you are right. "Pick the right battle" is the new excuse.

 

Actually, that’s a comment from all my supervisors.

"You should just let it go. Pick the right battle. This is not the one."

 

Turned out that there are things in life that are wrong, unfair, incorrect and it’s ok to let it be.

And it’s a merit on your score card to let go 95% of things in your career life, because it means you are mature.

 

Some people say the right battle are the battles you can win beautifully = result-oriented.

Some people say the right battle is the last battle before it hits your bottom line = defensive.

Some people say the right battle is the battle that doesn’t cost you anything to fight = minimalist.

 

Using minimal effort to defense and generate result is the most efficient way to work and that gets to be applied to fighting for what you deserved.

 

What you get at the end is a stomach of frustration and desperation.  I really don’t quite understand.

But it’s ok. Sooner or later, you will not bother to care about it anymore.

 

 

Challenge January 25, 2007

 

Just about a week after a post "A Room of My Own" I am faced with a challenge of being on my own for real for 3-4 days.

 

It’s really silly how hormones or our little hunches mess up your brain.

Being alone for 2 days at home + another 3 days is not a big deal. Afterall, it’s like a week of vacation.

 

But it suddenly became difficult this morning when we said goodbye & have a nice trip this morning at the subway train.  Knowing myself, it has to be a chemical imbalance in my body. 

But still, it doesn’t feel nice to fear loneliness.

 

 

And this is the time when it suddenly becomes crystal clear again the reason for me to be here.

I have friends and I am fine with NY. But I can’t seem to really like it as the city I would live in if one day I’m all by myself again.

It’s a little scary to think that your being at one place is so much hinged on another person.

 

 

I guess that’s why in old times people tend to get married –

imagine without marriage to bond you and another together, would you give up your career and your family, and raise 5 children with a person?

 

Commitment may be the reason for a lot of people to get married. Or the need to move to another place together, the need to buy an apartment, the need to have children.

It’s practically a merger-partnership nowadays when women continue to work and bring in money.

 

I have to say marriage itself has the least to do with metaphysical and emotional bonding than realistic materialistic planning in the process of a relationship. 

 

There is nothing wrong with that. Afterall it is a lot to consider for the rest of your life.

And it’s probably one of the things everyone just has to somehow go through.

 

It also doesn’t make sense to say that you would like to be independent so you stay not-married but live together.

When you have started sharing a life with someone in any form, emotionally you are not independent.

And practically, it’s not an independent life anyways.

 

So why do people like me stay away from married? 

 

Mostly an action of procrastination because of fear.

The kind of fear you have when you contradict yourself on a blog and go "omg, do I make sense at all?"

Or the kind of fear you have when you see your bills and put it away…

 

Or it may just be a wrong timing in life to think about this because your hormone and your hunches messed up your brains…

 

 

A Room of My Own January 14, 2007

 

The long weekend is more than half way away.

I’ve been on my own during daytime and I realized that I have pretty much addicted to my apartment.

 

Everyone should be able to enjoy their home so much.

If you are not, that’s because you don’t feel that this is YOUR house.

 

The problem with Asian families is the lack of self appreciation.

That’s what holds a family together. But that’s also why being Chinese I have never really enjoyed my home as much as I do now. 

 

I have always liked the place I lived in HK with my parent. It’s the cosiest place and all my friends loved it.

But it’s different when you know this place is truely yours to decorate, yours to clean, and yours to mess up.

And it smells like your PJ, your closet, your kitchen and your lotions…

 

I always think that a girl should have their own place. 

And it does not mean having your own room in your parents’ apartment, or your house with your own family later.

I mean your very own space where you get to be completely yourself without compromises.

 

But more importantly, a person get to learn a very important thing in life

– No no, not responsibility (that kinda defeats the purpose of having your own place isn’t it?) –

To be able to be alone with yourself. 

 

When I was a little girl I couldn’t deal with being on my own… 

I feared ghosts, robbers, loneliness.

But the fact is, you can be more lonely with a group of strangers.

It’s all relative to what you feel more at ease.

 

The only thing I need to figure out is just how to sustain this type of lifestyle…hm.

 

TGIF! January 12, 2007

 

And yes, a long weekend too. I took a sick day off today. Finally threw in the towel. It’s crazy how your body is not able to adjust to a different pace of work.

 

Sleep it off, I always say to myself. And sleep is never enough. And sleeping is never reviving…

 

I thought I could make this place different somehow.

And it is slightly different and better than a year ago.

But nothing compared to the effort put in to make that little dent.

 

===

 

I don’t understand how some people can just sit around do nothing and put in half ass effort for years.

How exactly did they keep their sanity sitting at their desk dragging the day away and wasting their lives like that.

If you are not here to make a difference in your life, why waste everyone else’s time?

Why not go somewhere else where any intellectual effort is not required?

Instead, they are like parasites eating away the morale of others…

 

+++

 

And allow me to relieve myself with the frustration a bit more :

 

Marketing 101 =

Tap into what the market wants to sell your product.

If you are faced with competition, outsmart them by anticipating what the market may want and provide it before everyone else does.

Or else, show to the market you are the best with some data and claims so you stay at the top of the current game.

 

Is that difficult to understand? Well some people just don’t get it.

And unfortunately, I work for them as well.

 

—>

 

So which one is worse : Being stupid or being irresponsible? hm…

 

TGIF and a long weekend.

 

 

 

 

As magic slowly fades away January 10, 2007

 

I’m sleepy ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz….

 

I can’t seem to leave my apartment every morning.

Despite the dirty dishes and rabbits shedding fur everywhere, it’s my cocoon against the world.

If only I can carry a bit of security and peace in my heart outside of my little world.

 

 

I have been trying to remind myself of the awakening moment after Pan’s Labyrinth.

The faith in magic and possibilities, and the bigger meaning underlying everything we do.

It’s good to be able to believe…if I can keep it up.

 

Human heart is mysterious.

We believe when we see.

Faith blossoms most during difficult times.

And is forgotten during good times.

 

Gee…even believing in goodness comes in conditions.

 

I wish we can simply remember the good days. And have that memory lasts forever to keep you warm. 

Or maybe I can just go out and catch some sun now…

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Movie of the Year January 9, 2007

 

Pan’s Labyrinth…

A perfect mirror of the extremities of two worlds. A flawless analogy of a world in deterioration and revolution.

 

At one glance it is a fantasy story too dark for younger minds.

As soon as you embark on the journey with Ofelia, you instantly find yourself facing the most harsh reality of facism where everything spirals downward.

While you witness every careful step Ofelia and her friend tread for salvation along the edge of the abyss on both sides of the worlds.

And you are left with the question mark to yourself – what do you choose to believe in?

 

It’s the most depressing movie for those who believe only in the secular world,

a fairy tale with the most surprising ending for others.

 

Check out www.panslabyrinth.com

 

 

***************

 

 

After the movie I cannot stop thinking when was the last time I was still a child, caught in the dilemma of beliefs like those wandering in Pan’s Labyrinth – to dare imagination or to accept reality, to have faith or to give in, to fight to live or to die in glory.

 

How far have I gone from the fairy nature of our being, to a mere mortal sharing the world as we all have it. 

 

And if we lament for the loss of innocent lives in this movie, shouldn’t we first mourn the loss of our fairy land on the day we gave up believing in the magic world of possibilities?

 

What is magic afterall? It’s the power of making everything different at a blink of an eye.  Then maybe there is magic in the world afterall. 

 

It is the moment when our heart skips a beat at the sight of a person. 

A smile unknowingly appears when we catch a glimpse of lights in the grass and through the trees. 

The morning you wake up with a hunch of an event that later happens. 

 

We change without us knowing — all at a fraction of a second when we see in ourselves for what we could have been. 

And even though it is a brief moment in our lives, instead of walking on we stop and believe in what we could have been.