Chinese New Year 2015

My thoughts on this year, the Lunar year of Goat, is a hope for redeeming grace to be abound in our lives. This sounds a bit like deep philosophy but after what we went through in 2014, the year of Horse, which was supposed to be my Zodiac Year (golden horse, mind you), well, sad to say it did not end well last year. I and  many others are still haunted by the tragic endings of not one, not two but three planes affliliated with Malaysia. That is enough bad news to keep us miserable for a life time !

There is a shadow of doubt within us, a dark shade in our mind, a fear in our heart, that this is just the beginning of the end for worse to come. Grieving takes time to heal and it takes moments to rebuild, to gather up strength to carry out.

Last year, with great anticipation, we welcomed into this world a beautiful baby girl into our home group couple, dear friends of ours, little did we expect that she would only live 15 days on earth, in those 15 days gave her parents much anxiety and worries, it was a big blow to our faith and belief. That God will allow suffering to little babies like Grace.

How does one come to terms with the after myth of all these tragic losses, how does one heart search for peace that supposed to surpass the grief, how to build a life with a bridge that runs over troubled water and not be affected, how to have peace that is everlasting and man cannot understand ? How Lord ?

A Poem with Riddles Rings

I have within me,

within my four thick walls,

the complete cycle of emotions :

Love, joy, sorrow,

Anticipation, relief, surprise,

Pain, suffering, despair,

Have you ever wondered ?

Sunrise and sunset,

Monsoons and draught,

Seasons come and seasons go,

But the complete cycle of emotions

is still making the vicious cycle.

All within my walls.

Have you ever wondered ?

Love precedes surprise,

Surprise begets sorrow,

sorrow births forth joy.

Its a pride to behold !

Anticipation precedes joy or sorrow,

No one really knows until the card says so.

Its a surprise that you don’t like.

Its a torment, I know!

Suffering precedes relief,

relief begets trust,

Trust births forth joy.

Its a great delight!

Sorrow precedes pain

pain begets despair

despair finally die !

Its such a sympathy sight !

I have seen them all,

They all happen within me.

Come to visit me often,

Come to bring joy and hope while you can,

Your presence here means a lot to all of us.

To those who work here, they are happy with your care.

To those who stay here, they are blessed with your cheer.

For a day might come, sooner than you know,

You will be here with me,

then you will see the cycle of emotions

turning round and  round

while you at the waiting end.

Have you ever wondered ?

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

So take a guess, what has just been described here ? 

An emotion, A place, A person ?

Poem in Riddles

I am all binary and code,

Boring as can be,

But languages have been written,

Especially for me !

Though I can only understand  0 and 1,

I speak any language as you want.

I come in all sorts of colours,

shapes, sizes and weights,

even gender specific !

I am available over internet

or you could walk into Hypermarket

to select through the aisles of display :

Just me and my friends and

the colourful trendy dressy accessories!

People who uses me are from all walks of life !

Engineers, professors, professionals, all the clever lots;

Teenagers, Elderies, toddlers, this I kid you not.

Some for serious, some for fun,

Some for good, many for evil,

Some making money out of me !

I am the heartbeat behind Governments and Corporations

At the press of keystroke, at the sound of a click,

A decision is made.

Some decision is good, Some to destroy !

I usually get to be blamed.

I am the brain behind many works,

For they use me more than writing on papers:

Ideas, thoughts, pictures and mind maps.

I can remember them all.

I am progressive, dynamic and changing,

Today you see me, tomorrow I could be gone.

So try to cherish me and use me for the good.

I am here to serve you till your works is done !

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

Take a guess what am I ?

Written August 2010

How to deal with Toxic personality

Toxic personality is present in every day's living. Whether we like it or not, they are here to stay. What exactly is toxic personality and what do they do that makes them be graded as toxic ? Well, for one thing, they contribute to the negative emotions of any circumstances, watch as they surface, because it is not just in bad moments that they will say something negative, they are capable to turn a pleasant moments into doubtful and tearful emotions too. 

The key factor is the domineering personality, not loudly but forcefully through behaviors and statements they make about life standards. Often, they will glorify in details how others have fallen short of the standards implying that they have maintained the high standards. They create doubts in the listeners that they also are not good enough. The statements are harmless on their own but it has an under-tune shadow meaning if you listen in carefully. The person is saying one thing but implying another. If you are not alert, you will miss the points. 

"I expect higher standard than this." - This is not good enough.
"Anybody can do this." - This is the job for idiot.
"You all wouldn't be able to sleep after this audit." - You guys get ready for hell.
"I believe whoever still uses this XYZ belongs to the dinosaur age." - You are so obsolete that I could delete you from the face of the earth.
"I believe this is all the faults of Ms ABC." - I blame you for every faults we are about to hear.

They have the capability to reverse work ethics and in a moment, they could wrong the rights and right their own wrongs. They could explain themselves out that what they have been doing as wrong is  now the gospel truths while those who have been doing right is wrong all these while. How does that reverse ethics come to be ? Shocking and really shocking ! 

They could make lone-task worker look greater than the team work, shame on the team, one entire team just got wiped out by one lone worker. They imply that the whole team is just  not good enough. This is like reverse synergy in actions. They agonise over how badly the team performance is over their lone-ranger achievement.  They basically want to frame that we are wrong and to be blamed.

When the negative emotions set in to the listeners, it will make them feel bad, rotten, guilty and angry. Often, they are caught off-guarded, they are not prepared for these tactics especially in meeting with other peers and bosses. 

In the course of my 25 years career and working in volunteer works for 10 years, I have met many such toxic personality. In fact, they are my friends, colleagues, comrades. They could make those statements while sitting just next to me and informing everyone in the meeting that I am the culprit, the idiot and the guy in the Wrong while he or she is the Mr / Ms Right ! I have come home from those confrontational meetings, with a part of me died in the process, my personality has been crucified as a public disgrace to all to see, my ego and pride went down the drain. I have done both extremes of strong reactions - shout back with stronger words to defend myself and remaining silence like a lamb. 

I have found some reactions useful that keep my sanity and does not hurt my health that much. Needless to say, after each episode of character massacre, we die a little inside, we are hurt, injured and need time to heal. It is probably impossible to have complete healing but healing is a journey and remember whatever that does not kill us will just make us stronger ! Here are some of my life-saving tactics each time I meet a toxic personality.

Give that personality a name. Name that which hurts you and it helps to explain why you are so exhausted after just a meeting of hearing them out. I often call these toxic personality a name - Energy Sucker. That is who they are and what they do. I could go into a meeting with high hopes of doing something great for the project, I came out depleted of all hope, feeling sorry for the project, my ego crashed. You could call them differently, the Yang Energy, the Sadist etc. 

Choose ears carefully before you speak. Chances are the Toxic personality would have poisoned every one's mind about your character and changed their minds about your seemingly overly helpfulness as motive before your own agenda. So, choose who you share with carefully. You do not need a lot of ears to listen to you, just choose the ones who could really listen, empathise and gives you good advise. Friends who stand by you no matter what others say of you. Friends who love you even when you are painted as unlovable. Run tho these friends and have a tearful sharing to voice out your grievances. 

Silence is golden. The best revenge for the toxic personality is to see them drink their own poison portions. There is no need to defend yourself before toxic personality. It is their great delight to see you having the need or urge to defend yourself. The defense will be seen as your lame excuses to cover your obvious wrongs. Say less rather than more. There is no need to provide an answer to the accusations they made of you. The truth is whichever stood the test in the long run is the winner. 

Ignore and move on. It will be great to say that we could forgive and forget. To forgive is such benevolent act of love. Well, you do not have to force yourself to do that. Ignore and move on is a good option. Work on your own life, improve yourself. After every toxic encounter, remind yourself to come out taller, stronger, firmer, better so that you could go higher and further ! 

Guard your heart from then on. Once the toxic personality has been identified by you and others, just guard your heart carefully, guard it so that it will not be hardened or hurt again. Remind yourself that you do not deserve to be treated so poorly, leave them alone and walk out as a free person. Stop lamenting your sorrowful stage, instead think of their sorrowful stage. 

Heart Matters

Today I learnt about Heart Matters, matters of the heart and heart that matters ! Confusing right ? Just before Valentine Day 2015, I get to put rights some wrong understanding of our heart. Heart matters are not for the weak, emotional group. It is vitally important to our well-being and how we live our day to day. In summary, this is what I have learnt about our heart.

Heart Over Mind - We have been raised to use our mind to rationalise our emotions. We were taught to let the mind to control our feelings. We thought the mind is the command center of our body and it gives out commands and all the body members align to those commands. Well, the command center is actually the  heart. From the heart, all things happen. That is where it starts.

Heart has emotions - The heart determines our emotions. Emotions are important indicators of our true beliefs. Our true colours or true self is often seen during the extreme trial in our life. The true colour will show forth.

Heart Thinks and intends - Our heart is the inner core of us being, the very essence of living. It feels and thinks and decides how we could react in defense or embrace. It is the very heartbeat of our thought life ! Every content of our thoughts come from the heart.

Heart has memory - when we get hurt emotionally, our heart is broken, our heart grieves and it remembers the hurt. In defending our lives from more hurt, our heart get harden in order to protect it from further hurt. When we keep a record of wrongs others done unto us, it is stored in the heart.  Therefore, we should guard our heart carefully. We should do heart detox to examine the conditions of our heart to prevent from further hurts. 

God looks at the Heart - Man looks at the outlooks while God looks at the heart. He is after those who have their hearts after Him. Outward appearance can be folly and we have seen amazing make-up that transform people! Looks can be deceiving. But what we are inside stays forever. At the end of life, at the end of a day, when all glamour gone, when there is no more music, what is at the core of our life, what is left is our heart conditions.

Heart purposes and decides  - The heart makes the decision. From the heart, we set our purpose, we decide and we act. Often, we think the mind is the one that decide but really it is the heart that first purpose and plot the actions to be taken. It set the course of our path. 

Heart could deceive us - Our heart could deceive us. A bad thought entertained by us, long time, it becomes a habit and possibly addiction. From the heart, we already committed offence. Being a moral beings will mean that the heart governs our moral orientation. The heart is the moral compass in our life.

God relates to us heart to heart. It is also heart matters to Him. He grieves in sorrow when we reject Him and choose our own paths. He could see the future suffering we will get ourselves. We get connected to God through our heart. As if our heart has a string and it is a tug between us and God, heart to heart via a heart string. 

Note :- About 543 words