Nigel Ang =)

The very first time we made eyes contact was two years ago. Within this time period, life has changed, people have changed and the chemistry between us has changed as well. For what’s worth, I am glad that we have come this far. It is rather interesting to see how one incident in our lives leads on to another, where we come across with different individuals, go through various situations,  and finally come to where we are today. When I first knew you were about to leave the programme and I was going to lose someone I could ‘click’ on with, I got somewhat emotional as the future university life without you in it seemed, unimaginable. Just when I thought the distance between us will be further apart, it turned out to be the opposite. Talk about unpredictable destiny. Like many other passersby in my life, you and I met each other as our lives collide, but the difference is, you stayed. I am grateful to meet someone as special as you. You have always been there for me when I need you most, providing support in any way you can possibly think of; accompanying me to watch horror movies despite the fact that you dislike them, giving me hugs as to encourage me to keep going and most importantly, accepting me for who I am regardless of my flaws. I appreciate the attention you have given to me, and all the time we have spent together, as they have definitely made my day. Thank you for being so patient with me, thank you for listening to my many ‘stories’, thank you for helping me to learn so much more about life and finally, thank you for being part of my life. I may not be equipped with the best sense of romanticism, but I write you the most sincere words from the bottom of my heart.

Happy 21^st Birthday My Dear! ^^

Continuum

Continuum can be seen as the backbone of many descriptions. For example, when a person is said to be enthusiastic, the enthusiasm level is measured based on this continuous non-spatial extent. From time to time, we describe ourselves with the use of words, such as cheerful and hardworking. What people may tend to miss out is the degree of it. In other words, those descriptions work as some sort of a mask, semi-covering the true description behind each description, until the day where it is shown via the portrayed behaviours. Using the previous example, a friend may claim herself to have the enthusiasm in completing the assigned task, but at the end of the day, she seems to be producing nothing. Is her enthusiasm sufficient enough to get her moving towards the goal? Most probably not. Frankly speaking, having a desired characteristic does not necessarily mean that we have the quality of it. Perhaps it is somewhat similar to the threshold principle, where we are required to hit the minimum requirement before we are capable of activating an action, creating a force which cannot be stopped by any obstacles ahead. And when we do not hit the threshold level, well, we do not get what we wanted the most. Everything comes back to us at the very end, where we hold the key to strive for our purpose and goals. It does not matter whether we possess the quality or personality, but how we make full use of it by pushing it to the optimal level along the continuum in order to hit the threshold. 

Rituals

Every day, we engage in particular processes or actions under certain situations, whereby personally would see it as some form of ritual. Some of us may perceive the rituals as something meaningful, but what we may not notice is that, these so called rituals might not be as meaningful as we thought to be. For example, a person has been instilled with the concept of not wasting water usage by making sure he maximizes the uses of water. What he does is as simple as putting one hand in the running water while brushing teeth. It is his very own ritual to not wasting the water, but the truth is, he can just turn the water supply off while carrying out his daily hygiene care. There are other rituals such as saying particular something in order to console or cheer a person up. “I will always be by your side.” “Let’s go out and spend some time together.” Certainly, we may mean what we say, but, there are also the times when we say it for the sake of saying it, to help balancing the uncomfortable or reducing undesirable atmospheres. We can easily come up with our own rituals to deal with certain situations, but it is more difficult to determine whether they are as meaningful as we thought to be. 

The Eyes

Most of us are taught to initiate and maintain eye contacts when an interactive communication is taking place, as it reflects our sincerity and respect. Nevertheless, how often do we look into our own eyes and attempt to communicate with ourselves? The eye allows us to extract much information regarding a person, such as the genuineness and determination in the certain behaviour. In other words, it also helps us in establishing contact with our deepest desires and wants, or perhaps even the needs. Why so? Go to a mirror and have a good look at yourself, then slowly shift your gaze to your own pair of eyes. Notice the tiny sparks within the eyes, showing some sort of greed towards particular something, hidden yet visible, in which awaits us to disclose further. Personally went through heart-breaking incidents, resulted in pessimistic self who sees the world as grey, ignoring other possible colours. Nonetheless, the negative perceptions diminished on that very fine day, when the eyes met up with the same pair of eyes mirrored in reflection, landing the focus on the little hope which still lives in self: the want to push all unexpected and unwanted events aside, stepping out from the current pathetic self and transform into a whole new being, ready to take on many more upcoming challenges. It may be referred as suppression, or it can be part of our growth, depending on whichever stance we hold onto. The point is, the desire to survive and live on is implanted in us, but it is up to us whether we are able to gain access to that particular want or not. There will always be the pair of eyes watching over our actions, and when we are able to find them, we are then able to locate the determinism in us, hence strive harder than ever to achieve what we intended to achieve. The eyes which symbolize strength, await. 

Process vs Outcome

From time to time, we face the obstacles in life, which may instill the sense of helplessness in us, and hence the urge to give up arises. As some may say, how we initiate a goal somehow reflects how it may turn out to be, whereas some may see the process holds the key to desired outcomes. Personally is skewed to the latter concept, in the same time values process more as compared to the outcome. Reasons why? Taking the first step to start a commitment is indeed difficult and requires courage; nonetheless, a strong determination is needed to go on with what has been originally drawn out, and needless to say, to overcome the obstacles ahead. Challenges come after one and another, as though they are meant to put us to test and evaluate our qualification to achieve what we wanted to achieve. It is noteworthy that challenges as such come in many forms, range from people to events occurrences, pushing us to the edge of the world, forcing us to choose between giving up and moving on. Therefore, it is crucial to understand that we are responsible over our very own actions and every decisions made, whether to fail or to succeed in accomplishing the tasks given, thus scoring the goal. Whenever we are worn out and not wish to carry on with our original plans, take a deep breath and rest our mind, replenish our souls and re-strike, for we are merely the human beings who need to take a break from time to time in order to be effective once more. 

Quality & Quantity

It is fascinating to see how people often focus on their demands for qualities instead of quantities, despite the fact that they themselves fail to carry out the message via own behaviours. Look at the many advertisements across highway and television show cases, putting the slogan such as “Quantity does not matter, but the quality,” and “We provide quality services.”  How they truly define the terms quality and quantity really? And how they differentiate from one to another apart from the alphabetic differences? Time is different now, so is the life and its people. Back then, academic achievement is seen as something qualitative, where the higher we go, the better we are. Nonetheless, it is somehow more towards the quantitative side in the current days, where the higher we achieved not necessarily equals to better skills or higher knowledge. Why so? Look at the so called quality education system; there may be tons of doctorate holders as educators, but the work they produce might not even meet the lowest level of quality. How pathetic. In this case, education achievement is more on the measure of quantity, because the higher we achieve simply shows the longer list under the column of academic achievement as we draft out on our resume. Seriously, where is the quality? Well, some of us may say educators are there merely to assist us in academic growth, and spoon feeding does us no good at all. Indeed we are not supposed to be overly dependent on people whom we assume to be reliable as knowledge sources, where we only seek them for assistance, but here’s the catch. If they cannot provide moderate or high quality assistance, what else do we do? Depend on self may be one way, or perhaps we seek for other better sources. So, at the end of the day, we still seek for quality even when it comes to help and assistance. And when the educators cannot meet our needs, what is the point of us registering ourselves into private institution for the quality education as they claim and pay tons of money for the unmet standards? Quality and quantity; what a argumentative topic when given the right case study.

Peer Pressure

In one Hong Kong drama series, a female cop accepted the ex boy friend’s marriage proposal in public, accompanied by tons of people who non-stop urging her to say yes. Ignore the fact that situation like this only occurs in created stories and the probability of it actually takes place in reality, did the person really say yes because she still has feelings for him or merely due to the pressure applying by the public? It is fun indeed when we start repeating some words such as “kiss her” in particular situation, intending to urge the recipient(s) to commit in some behavior where the crowd follows our lead and repetition continues. From one point of view, we may see it as something positive and hence, there’s nothing wrong with doing so. Nonetheless, things might be viewed differently as we judge it from a different angle. In another words, we may urge people in terms of decision making in which we think is good for them, but will we be the one who is responsible of the subsequent consequence? Certainly, some of us may say we should be credited if the person who listens to our advice actually succeeded. What about when it happens the other way round where things went wrong? Will we be brave enough to admit our contribution to such unwanted incidences? Well, it is the person’s choice of making which leads him to current situation, regardless the outcome of success or failure. But how many do realize the fact that what we say not only may, but do indeed affect how the others come to finalizing their thoughts? Believe it or not, the peer pressure is there, working in different degrees, depending on how strong the recipient’s mind or determinism is.