Live Life With No Regrets!
Google maps seems to have restricted viewing of Singapore. About a month back I could zoom in until I saw my HDB block. But now, the level of zoom is quite high up.
Perhaps it would seem the Singapore government has pressurized Google not to show the images?
Sad day. :(
Most bloggers blog for the love of it. Just putting your thoughts out, helps to unload what's been on your mind and store it for retrieval later. It's very much like a pensieve in the Harry Potter world.
But blogging takes time, and is it really worth the opportunity cost to spend about 1-2 hours each day writing your online journal when you could be doing something else more productive?
Well some anecdotal research seems to put that successful blogs can actually earn their writers annual incomes of 6 figures, and for some blogs even a million dollars.
However, further research shows that most bloggers earn nothing or close to nothing each month.
Just as there is a software engineer who is the richest man in the world, in other words Bill Gates, so will there be a handful of exceptional bloggers who can make big money from their blogs.
The only approach I can recommend to making money, if that is your goal, is not to look at blogging as blogging.
Those who make money from blogging aren't really blogging. They're really professional writers, who have used the web as their publishing platforms, writing for a specific audience with compelling content that advertisers are willing to pay top dollar to put their ads on their blogs.
Their blogs aren't really blogs at all, they're more like online magazines with them as content creators.
The one blog that I researched that almost makes a million dollars is really a company that employs 14 full time writers, creating content for their web log.
However, blogging becomes more mainstream, in the end, the age old market forces will sift the winners from the losers. Porter's 5 forces business model of substitutes, competitors, new entrants, suppliers and clients applies here.
Blogs with untargeted content, that write everything from what they ate for breakfast to the economic impact of hurricane Katrina will probably lose out to specific targeted content.
Branding will be more and more valuable. The barrier for entry to create a blog is virtually nil. Branding will be differentiator, as blogs that are well known or written by people who have made a name for themselves will create a gravitational effect to attract more and more viewers. All other blogs will be space dust.
Tie-ups and alliances may come into the picture as bloggers will need to increase their mindshare, lead more readers to their website and to stave off competitors.
Blogging however should not be seen as the main source of revenue for a writer.
Another side effect of being a famous blogger is the building of your own name and credibility. The Internet being the platform as it is, allows you the writer to build a reputation for yourself so that you can gain side income consulting, speaking and lecturing.
The more and more I read Problogger, the more I believe that his claims of earning 6 figure incomes or a million dollars a year are highly exaggerated or using convenient examples. You'll find that he also charges people phone seminars to listen to him how to make money blogging, charging in the range of US$300-$400. This raises my conman defences, as one of the rules that has served me well in life is to "never trust completely someone who stands to gain something out of you."
A quick calculation depending of the page views needed based on page views only (however click thru rates are higher)
Assuming $8 per CPM, to get $1,000,000 you will need to make $2739/day or about 342,000 page views a day. That's something like the circulation of the Straits Times in Singapore. (Assuming one reader only reads a page).
That being unrealistic, you will need to have several blogs, each on different specialist subject so as to charge higher rates. This again is much like the newspaper business which has general news sections, money, tech, lifestyle, kids sections etc.
My only advice after writing this post is to not let money be the goal of your blog. Do it because you're passionate about writing your subject matter and not for the money. The more and more we chase after an end result like money, fame and even happiness, the further it will elude us.
References:
http://www.problogger.net/
http://blog.qumana.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/5/1282559.html
The bad news is that that is one of the only high points of this movie that leaves too questions and plot holes to be answered and filled in.
Warning: Spoilers Follow.
Jodie's Foster portrays a distraught mother who has lost his husband in an accident and on the flight to New York from Berlin with her husbands body in the cargo hold, her child is kidnapped.
Noone else on the plane has seen her daughter, and the first part of the movie tries to tempt us into believing that she may really be the one who is crazy.
However, this is where we have to start suspending our disbelief. On one hand she is distraught but on the other hand, she is quick thinking enough after a while to realize that there are conspirators onboard, and at one point in the movie to realize who the real hijacker was and quickly think of a way of foiling him.
Jodie Foster's acting is one of a thespian par excellence, the emotion of losing her daughter strikes us as well as her desperation. As an actor I believed that her tears in a scene were real and inspired me to be able to act at her level.
The end of the movie reveals that her husband's death was part of an elaborate plot to smuggle explosives in his sealed coffin onboard and a chance to ransom the airline for $15 million dollars deposited into a Swiss bank account.
But that leaves us with too many, "But.." questions.
With so many points of failure for this hijack/kidnap story, you'll just have to suspend your disbelief for the 2/3 of the movie just to enjoy it.
Because of this, the movie gets a 3 out of 5 stars.
I think I understand my disatisfaction with working in companies here in Singapore. Most of the projects I work on are ad-hoc, project basis. The solutions are company specific, not easily ported and resold.
What I really want to do is to work on a project that is used in at least more than one principal. Something that is reused.
One of the reasons why most projects I work on cannot be reused is because of shortcuts used. Because of "budget constrains" the manpower is always never enough. And because of the shortcuts used, the software is always never portable or reusable outside of the company.
And what is the reason for that? Because management involved are not looking long-term. They are watching they're own internal agendas of getting the items done for their bosses.
Most software companies in Singapore are not utilizing the power of software. I.e. It can be reused. Development put into software is a one time thing. If they were to have at least some vision that software can be resold and used in more than one installation, they will realize the benefits of creating a good piece of software that is packaged and resellable.
However, most managers are not concerned about this; and that is because they are rewarded for the objectives they meet, not software sales.
I will learn from this. Any software that I develop must be able to be sold twice. Never only once.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Rich Cook
Scientific proof of Cook's statement at last!
What is retirement?
I discussed this with a classmate the other day. Why do people look forward to retirement to do the things they want to do?
You can retire anytime you want to do the things you want. Just hand in your resignation letter. Whether you have enough money saved to put the food on the table for the next few years is a different issue.
In the end, the discussion boiled down to this. Retirement was created for employers not employees.
Retirement is so that they can retrench older workers without fear of compensation.
Retirement is an invention of the modern world, the industrial world.
Previously, people worked until they couldn't work anymore.
Retirement allows employers to replace less productive workers with newer faster and cheaper workers.
What makes retirement attractive to an employee? It's if he's in a dead-end job, then his a burden. Only then will someone look forward to retiring. If you love your job, wouldn't you want to do it everyday?
The term "retirement" in other words means "mandatory retrenchment with a set deadline".
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." (2 Cor 9:8)
Wired News: What Would Jesus Blog?
"Attended wedding in Cana today. They ran out of wine. Didn't really want to show off but mother insisted."
Interesting article featured on Wired.
You can't tickle yourself. Try it.
Norman Vincent Peale in his book The Power of Positive Thinking writes that we cannot sleep with two bedfellows simultaneously.
They are guilt and fear.
Modern science has thought society to forget that we are spiritual beings.
Now the word spiritual often depicts mystical connotations, something mysterious. And unfortunately, many Christians believe that miracles or in Christian jargon "a touch from the Lord", or "an anointing" is magic. Altar calls sometimes seem to be a wish for God to wave his magic wand on us and '1-2-3-4 alakazam" all our problems are gone.
And sometimes this does happen. God can and still does work in mysterious ways. But more often than not it doesn't.
For me the word spiritual just means will and meaning. The logos or tao if you may call it that.
This conclusion I gathered from thinking about where human free will comes from.
Can we cut open the brain and find the source of our free will?
Science tries to explain from the point of cause-and-effect. Then where is the cause of free will?
And that is how in a nutshell that I concluded that the free will is a product of the mysterious.
There is no cause for free will. It comes out from out of thin-air. Magic or miraculous if you want to look at it.
Yes, there are chemical forces in our brains that can cause a change in our moods that can make us irritable or feel depressive but even under such pressures that mind is still alert and can choose his response in the midst of pressure.
Now if free will is magic. Then we are living amongst miracles everyday.
We can explain the movements of the planets, we can understand how the sun gives out its light, but how do we explain free will? (Though of course some people have tried to explain free will using Quantum Theory and random neutrinos to do so. If that is the case, we remove responsibility and blame it all on neutrinos. The following link is a discussion on this subject. This deserves further study on my part)
We look to God for miracles, mysterious healings, and multiplication of food. But these are just magic tricks designed by God to get our attention.
The amazing thing is that the even the Almighty God cannot do some things. And one of them is to take away our free will.
Now what does our 2 bedfellows introduced in the opening paragraph have to do with the notion of free will?
The link is that in order to banish fear and guilt in our lives is the exercise of our free will.
The miracle of free will is a manifestation of the power of God in our lives.
The first habit of Coveys 7 Habits is to be proactive. I.e. the exercise of our free will.
Authority and structures of command are the ordering of the miracle of free will.
And it is because of this I believe that spiritual warfare is really a warfare of the will and authority between the powers of good and the principalities of evil. It isnt about magic powers, horny tipped and pitch forked creatures. Its all about our free will.
Somebody borrowed this book in class and I glanced through it during the break.
Viktor Frankl has been a favourite author of mine, (Hey, my specialist subject for "Singapore's Brainiest" was the life of Viktor Frankl).
Frankl wrote one of the most life changing books in history "Man's Search For Meaning" and was the inventor of a form of therapy called Logotherapy, derived from the greek word "Logos".
Logos is also the greek word used to describe God and Christ in John 1. "In the beginning was the Logos. And the Logos was with God. And the Logos was God."
I wrote down the brief summary of this book that can be found in the beginning of the book:
IFILM - Music Videos: The Presidents of the United States of America: Some Postman -
I don't really listen to music, I'm more visually stimulated than aurally stimulated.
But this music video is one of the first to be shot entirely using camera phones.
Makes you wonder what else can be done with our little device in the pocket.
"They started well and maybe better than us but in football the first goal is always important because it gives more confidence." -- Jose Maurinho.
Football is a lot like life. But a lot of people often miss that fact.
Often, we think that just slapping together a bunch of people giving them a target and things will turn out right.
No, I've seen too many companies and ventures fail, not because they didn't have the right ingredients but because of their motivation.
CEO's and managers sitting in their ivory towers think that programmers are cheap "$1750" only. However, not all programmers are the same.
And then they prod their staff into getting the goal done.
But football shows us what management really is like.
Even the highest paid players can get demotivated.
But somehow, I felt that managers in some companies don't understand this.
Even worse, if you are getting paid $X, you are expected to be worth $X. You get the message: "You don't need a manager to motivate you or manage you. You're paid enough."
Yes, some degree of self-management is important and maturity. But you read in job adverts "must be self-motivated, able to multi-task, work independently." Read in between the lines it is: "I may be the manager, but I don't have the time to talk to you to understand your needs, motivate you and to help you achieve your tasks assigned. There are so many things to be done that I'm going to dump it all on you. I'm also spending too much time politicking and climbing up my own ladder that I won't be able to mentor you."
If football managers were to manage football teams like corporates, you would really get lousy football teams.
I get the feeling that achieving company goals is just a matter of managing resources, about unit cost, of finding the cheapest, that all programmers are the same, so just find cheap ones from India or China.
With $10,000 I can only hire 4 programmers in Singapore, but I can hire 8 in India. Yes, that is true. But what of the quality?
With $250 million you can only buy a Chelsea. But you also can buy all teams in Malaysia and Singapore with that. Does that mean by just spending half the amount and buying every Singapore team wil win you the Champion's league?
Another thing about football is that. Even the best players train weekly. It is unthinkable to think that a football team not train.
However, in companies, we see companies cut back on training. Or stinge on their training for staff.
"If you're doing what you're doing adequately, you don't need training" which is the message. Or, "training is given out to those who performed well", another message I got from working in a previous company.
This series of football and management will be continued...
A lot of people of have been asking me the type of woman that I like, and I've been always been answering "My type is hard to find!"
Okay, now I'm going to publicise just a few of the things that I want in my woman. It's not the complete list, but just some, as well as to prove the chances of me finding such a person is hard.
| Attribute | Percentage In Population. | |
|---|---|---|
1. |
Female. I'm straight. |
50% Out of a total of about 6 billion people in the world, we assume that half are female, so that leaves 3 billion to choose from. |
2. |
Intelligent & Educated: Yes, I want to have an intelligent woman. It have observed that it can be very frustrating communicating with someone if she cannot grasp or understand your point of view. Having a similar intellectual grounding allows us to more easily share and understand one another's thoughts and ideas more easily and readily. However, just being intelligent is being vague. The question is how intelligent do I want her to be? Nominated Member of Parliament Claire Chung, or Lee Tsao Yuan is obviously more intelligent than a lot of other women around. So how intelligent should she be? I would say that she should just be as intelligent as I am. An intellectual equal. I happen to qualify for membership of certain society that allows only membership if they are of a certain intelligence quotient. Their standard only allows 2% of the general populace to join. So I say the chances of me finding one as intelligent as I am is about 1.5 - 2.0%. |
2% Out of our total of 3 billion women, we now have (assuming that intelligence is distributed equally among men and women): 60 million women to choose from.
|
3. |
Loves God. |
15%-30% We make an assumption that all people professing Christianity as their religion love God. There still hasn't been a survey done on how much of the populace love God. Also, the percentages are skewed from 15% (General Populace) - 30% (Tertiary Educated) because Christianity is more common among tertiary educated people in Singapore. I will be generous here and also assume that my wife will be tertiary educated since she is intelligent and that 30% of all Tertiary educated women in the world are Christian. At 30%, this leaves: 9,000,000 women in the World.
|
4. |
Independent & Confident. An estimate of the number of people who are confident and living without bondages in their lives is roughly 15% by a noted expert. |
15% At 15% this leaves: 1,350,000 women in the World. |
5. |
Temperament of either a Rational(NT) or Idealist (NF) |
Rationals: 3%, Idealists: 4% At 7% this leaves: 94,500 women in the World. |
6. |
Within my age range. |
14% (I'll be generous here again and believe that I can go for a much older woman or younger girl.) At 14% this leaves: 13,230 women in the World. |
7. |
Physically Appealing & Compatible with One Another. I have to be honest here. No matter how intellectual, how emotionally compatible, how spiritual, we must be physically suited for one another. |
5% At 5% this leaves: 662 women in the World. |
8. |
Humourous & Witty |
25% At 25% this leaves: 166 women in the World. |
9. |
Passionate in life & love. |
15% At 15% this leaves: 25 women. |
10. |
I meet her basic criteria. Statistics have shown that people date about 6 people before getting married. So, assume that out of the 6 people she has dated, I am number 6, that gives me a 16% chance of being "the one" for her. |
16% At 16% this leaves: 4 women in the World. |
So that leaves me with only 4 women in this entire world that may actually be compatible with me.
I can now safely say to my future wife truthfully "You're one in a billion. Or more precisely 4 in 6 billion." Hey, I've done my maths to prove it. *8)
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)
Today's Foxtrot comic illustrates beautifully what it means to learn things your own way.
One of the problems with education is that it imposes its own structure on learning facts on students.
The structures and framework of learning facts may or not be the right one to be absorbed by someone.
In fact, it is because of standard frameworks and structures that we are caught thinking in the box and forget the that facts and ideas can be rearranged to produce different ways of thinking.
For example, one of the constraining facts in physics space-time theory was that time was constant. It took Einstein to come along and think differently that it wasn't and that time could be dilated.
Another way of looking at the periodic table of elements now is the periodic galaxy. (A larger version can be seen here.)
When I grew up, during standard one, my mother tried to drill in me the mathematical times table. I cried when she used the cane to beat it into me. It was only the intervention of my uncle that stopped it.
The funny thing is that until now, I have never memorised the times table. I still cannot recall instantaneously what is 6 * 8. I think in my mind 4 12's, 2 24's = 48.
Yet, I scored A's in almost all of my math subject. The reason is because I found my own way around mathematics, trying to understand why instead of memorising by rote. Why this, or why that. During secondary school, the teacher gave various formulas for integration. However, the reason was never given. I took it upon myself to read up why it was so. Finally understanding the background and rationale for integration allowed me to look at the subject in a different light and absorb it.
I'm taking a diploma in enterprise development right now. A class on entrepreneurship in other words.
One of my classmates is a lady who has only 2 O' levels. One in English and another in Cooking.
She now has her own security company and grew her company in 10 years time. She earns between $60,000 to $100,000 in profit each month and her company is on sale in the low millions.
How did someone like that do it?
I asked her during mealtimes and here is part of her life story I gleaned:
She started out working as an administrator in the police force. Where do you go anywhere with just two O's?
She volunteered to do anything during her time there, offering to organize courses, prepare coffee, be the prize presenter and basically doing tasks that other people would think below them. She took any courses that was offered by the police force or human resources department and more importantly applied them.
After she left the police force, she didn't know what to do. She sold insurance for a year and earned some money through hard work.
Then came up the offer of security company licenses for bid. She tried it, even without much paper qualifications. But she got it because of the familiarity she had with the police force.
She then grew the company. Doing everything from accounts to sales to invoicing to administration. Futhermore, handling men who have been toughened bythe police force takes even harder steel inside.
But now, she owns one of the bigger security firms in Singapore supplying major construction companies and MNC's like HP with security personnel.
The one thing I observed is her positive attitude and people skills she learned from courses she took and her never say die attitude. When asked "Did you ever think of giving up?" "No, never" was her reply.
Even now, when she could relax and lie back and say she has it made, she comes for an entrepreneurship class. (And a gruelling one I say, 60 - 90 hours a month). For one who has the qualifications to teach entrepreneurship on her own, she wants to learn more.
What an amazing lady.
(Ms Penny Ang recently won a Spirit of Enterprise award. An interview with her is listed here.)
Here's some notes from the talk from Chris Avellone of Obsidian Entertainment. His credits include, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, Baldur's Gate, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Designers are the weird ones.
Good designers would design games for free.
Good designers play games.
Good designers watch others play games.
Good designers play games that are fun.
Good designers play games that are not fun.
Good designers are able to give the reasons for why a game is/isn't fun.
Good designers do not like not having fun.
Good designers play their own games a lot.
Good designers do their own research.
Good designers cross-pollinate.
Good designers are selfless.
Good designers fail a lot. (But that doesn't let it stop them).
Good designers are not married to their ideas.
Good designers play well with others.
Good designers communicate well with others.
Good designers know exactly their goal.
Good designers know when to stop.
Interesting meeting up with other fellow game developers.
There were a few people here from Singapore, but it was mostly the entire game development community in KL.
It's interesting to know that at least two of them are working on XBox games. There are none that I know in Singapore that are doing this.
I learned that the problems I faced are the same problems faced by any other game developer, which is convincing people that you are able to pull off a game proposal. Things like writing 485 page proposals for government agencies are part of the game. From pitch to funding takes at least 9 months, and that is quick!
In the 1999/00 season, I supported Manchester United. I wanted them to win the Treble and they did so in incredible fashion.
For 2003/04, I supported Arsenal. I wanted to see them win the Premier League with an unprecedented season unbeaten record.
In 2004/05 I supported Chelsea and Everton. I wanted to see Jose Maurinho win the quadruple of the FA Cup, EPL Championship, Carling Cup, and Champions league. I supported Everton who almost got relegated in the 2003/04 season but stunned everyone by qualifying for the Champions league. I was hoping that they could go somewhere this year but they got knocked out of both the Champions league and the UEFA cup. I was wanting to see a record 5 English teams in the Champs league.
This 2005/05 season, I'm supporting Chelsea and Wigan.
I like supporting record breakers and underdogs. I'm hoping Chelsea beat Arsenal's unbeaten record in the premiership, I hope Petr Cech can beat the world record for minutes of clean sheets, and I hope that the fairy tale of Wigan coming from the 4th division and staying in the Premiership happens.
Someone accused me of being a fair-weather fan, another accused me as someone who "supports the winning team".
Now, if someone asks me, I'll diplomatically reply that "I support the English game."
But the concept of being loyal to a team to me is is really purely arbitrary. For goodness sake, what has someone who has never really lived in England let alone anywhere near Liverpool, London or Manchester say that he supports so-and-so a team?
Why so many Man U fans? Why so many Arsenal fans? Why not Barnsley? Why not Preston-On-End? Why not Kidderminster? For that matter, why not Cologne in the Germany's Bundesliga?
For all intents and purposes, Roman Abramovich could very well have bought Crystal Palace instead of Chelsea and gotten all of the best players and coach into that club.
The only reasons would be purely emotional (which is how we make decisions anyway). First, because of the quality of players skill.
One good reason for support of the EPL is that it is exciting. It just doesn't make for entertaining TV watching local S-League teams lob balls badly around the pitch than seeing Chelsea play pinpoint passing and silky tactics.
Secondly, I credit the marketing prowess of EPL clubs and their players agents.
In fact, a lot of our loyalty to brands and decisions are the result of the marketing genius, plus the fact that the more media coverage the greater the attention.
A plausible reason could be that Singapore and Malaysia love the EPL because we are former English colonies and because we understand English. Goodness knows how I could support the Spanish La Liga or Italian Serie A. I wouldn't be able to relate to Spanish culture. But not just that, another testament to the marketing genius of the EPL is even Thailand which was never a British colony has a large EPL following.
So before the knives are out against me of just supporting the "English game" and being a "fair-weather fan", I would like to know how other fans choose their teams to support and their choice to remain "loyal".
If what attracted me to a certain team is that they were very skilful, would it be disloyal if I support another team if that team were just as skilled?
I am amused by armchair fans who refer to "we won the championship". No, I'm not making fun. Just realizing that people borrow their identity with teams. Perhaps I'll analyze that in another blog entry.
On a final note, I declare that I support England through and through. And that's because I lived in England for 27 months of my life.
What's your reason?
I don't know about you, but a lot of us may have been approached by insurance agents who give us their spiel to buy unit trusts or some kind of insurance policy using the case of us needing funds for retirement.
Based on various calculations, the figure needed for retirement normally comes up to between $500K to even $1.5million.
However, thinking about it then, how did our parents ever survive? They never had a million dollars in their bank accounts and for some, not even $10,000.
Sure, they may seem a burden in the early years, but say you have 3 kids and by the time you are retired hopefully they are contributing about $500 each. That makes a tidy sum of $1500 a month to sustain you for your retirement. Not bad huh?
So, go on, have more kids,not only does it please the government, by going over, you're also contributing to your own retirement fund. Consider it as an investment... literally.
So doesn't that give you an incentive, to groom your sons into doctors, lawyers, champion footballers and golfers; and your daughters into ladies that will attract the best men to marry them? :)
Imagine, your son becomes a champion golfer, okay, not a Tiger Woods, but hey someone in the top 10. He could rake in something like $1-4 million a year depending on endorsements. And if he does it when he's 17 years old, you'll hit it even before retirement age.
So instead of worrying and being influenced by those insurance agents and ads on TV, go out onto the fields, fairways, courts, and pitches and turn your child into your biggest investment.
And if they need a good reason to support you, you can even say its written in God's Word. (Gen 47:12; 1 Timothy 5:8).
Sigh, so they finally caught the white elephant protestors.
I wish they didn't.
Actually, I did think of a way to defend them.
Remember the last scene from Spartacus? "I'm Spartacus", "No, I'm Spartacus", "He's lying! I'm the real Spartacus".
People from Buangkok could all make their own white elephants and then claim that they were the ones who put up the white elephants.
It would have been interesting to see the gahmen try to lock up an entire constituency. That will probably embarrass the government more and drop the whole thing.
I flipped through a book on the Tao Te Ching in the library and was pleasantly surprised with the many similarities between Taoist teaching and Christianity.
After more research, I found out that the Chinese translation of the Gospel of John really does use the word Tao for the Word.
Paul on his missionary trip to Ephesus saw that the Ephesians had paid homage the the "Unknown God", whom he later proclaimed as Christ.
In the same way. The teaching of Tao paves the way for Christ, who is fulfilment of the Tao.
Here are some similar sayings between the Tao Te Ching (TTC) and the Bible.
"Tao begets one; One begets Two; Two begets three; Three begets the myriad of creatures". (TTC).
"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." (John 1:3)
"I do my utmost to attain emptiness" (TTC).
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34)
"The way is forever nameless". (TTC)
"Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' " (Genesis 3:13-14) [I AM because I AM is everything, I am the Alpha Omega, I am the beginning and the end.]
"The submissive and weak will overcome the hard and the strong" (TTC)
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5)
Lest I be accused of promoting syncretism or proposing that all religions lead to God, I conclude that even Lao Tzu points the way to Christ who is the Tao made flesh.
Rather, the road of Tao leads to the only highway to God which is Christ, the Way.
"The World had a beginning, and this beginning could be the mother of the world. When you know the mother, go on to know the child. After you have known the child, go back to holding fast to the mother." (TTC)
"Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me." (John 6:45) " "'You do not know me or my Father,' Jesus replied. 'If you knew me, you would know my Father also.'" (John 8:19) " Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
What an amazing prophecy of Christ embedded within the Tao Te Ching!
The Horatio Alger awards are given each year to people who have faced and overcome significant personal adversity through hard work, integrity, determination and a strong dedication to helping others.
Among the people who have been awarded this award are:
James Kimsey, man who, in his youth, helped support his family, went on to graduate from West Point and then went on to steer a struggling 10-person, basement start-up into America Online.
Dr. Vincent Norman Peale, who grew up helping support his family by delivering newspapers, working in a grocery store, and selling pots and pans door to door. He was a reporter on the Findlay, Ohio, Morning Republic prior to entering the ministry and becoming one of the most influential preachers in America and went on to author 40 books.
Billy Graham, who grew up during the depression. He cut lawns, trimmed hedges, and washed dishes to help pay his bills in college. He later became one of the worlds best known evangelists.
Wally Amos, Johnny Cash. Tom Selleck, Buzz Aldrin plus a host of other people have received this award.
Hard work, perseverence and a belief in yourself that allows you to become a better person that's what makes America great. Somehow, you don't get the same feeling living here in Singapore or from Malaysia.
Success is a journey, not a destination. It's a lifestyle.
"Life often has a way of making people feel small and unimportant. But if you find a way to express yourself through writing, to put your ideas and stories on paper, you'll feel more consequential. No one should pass through time without writing their thoughts and experiences down for others to learn from. Even if only one person, a family member, reads something you wrote long after you're gone, you live on. So writing gives you power. Writing gives you immortality." -- Antwone Fisher
Write your thoughts. Blog for a good reason.
This is my first entry into my own blog that I set up on my website. Sometimes I wonder whether I should use a blog. Did start one on blogger.com but didn't publish anything. Didn't continue anything. But I decided that there's no better way to publish your thoughts.
There probably will not be any secret skeletons that I will reveal. I think a blog isn't the place for that.
I discussed this with a friend and I think writing about other people and your opinions should remain in your personal diary under lock and key rather than for the public to view.
Saying so-and-so is a b**** or whatever you think about someone doesn't reveal that person's character but rather yourself.
Thinking out too loudly is like intellectual flashing. "Look how clever I am in slandering someone else."
I just read today that the blog was actually invented in 1997 by a guy who is now penniless. But other people are capitalizing on the ideas.
So really, you don't have to have a great idea to be rich. In fact, just take others, improve on it, give it a twist and run with it.
Bill Gates did the same thing. So can I.
