Dimwits!

I’m sure each of us had encountered some situations where we had to deal with some “not so bright” individuals. Such times are usually testing moments and we would just want to get over with the whole situation as soon as possible so that we can move on unless if we have no choice but to deal with these “not so bright” individuals on a repetitive or ongoing basis. Each time I get myself into such excruciatingly painful situations, I still try to be nice to the other party but an incident today had me blow my top (both literally and figuratively)!

While I would usually head back to the same hair salon for my haircut, I somehow decided to step into a different shop this afternoon. I don’t really know what got into my mind but I figured out that there’s no harm for it’s nothing more than a haircut and since I’m not going for some fancy schmancy curls or latest hairdo, it’ll hardly make a difference. Well, I was proven wrong!

From the moment that “not so bright” stylist (whom I would from now on refer to as “cutter” since calling him a stylist would be an insult to the many other “real stylists” out there) started cutting, I sensed something was not quite right. Firstly, he seemed a bit jittery with the pair of scissors he was holding and secondly, he kept asking me if I wanted my hair to be shorter every 15 seconds. (You never hear an Indian barber asking that question and they would confidently proceed until when you tell them otherwise.) Whilst my guts told me that I should just stop and walk off, I thought he was one of the “nice” guys who wanted to make sure I left a satisfied customer in the hope that I would be returning. Hence, I ignored my guts and let him proceed.

After the cutting part was done, he took out the razor to shave the sides and when I requested it to be shaved a bit shorter, he then took out a pair of electronic clippers and that was when disaster struck. The cutter somehow clipped off one chunk (the size of a 20 cents coin) just above my ears. I was stunned and looked straight into his eyes through the mirror but he coolly mentioned that he can fix it. Well, I again made a dumb call when I agreed instead of stepping out and that was when the 2nd disaster struck. Mr cutter’s definition of repairing it was to clip off 2 additional lines!

I immediately got up and was on my way storming out with my new “Vanilla Ice” lines when Mr Cutter apologized; saying that he’s not good with a razor or clipper. Those explanation raised my blood levels to a new high for it’s almost equivalent to a cab driver saying he doesn’t know how to drive a manual car after crashing with a passenger in it or William Hung mentioning that “he’s not received any professional training and as such can’t sing or dance” but yet wanted to give a shot at being an American Idol. Well, at least Willian Hung is excused for he was just trying out at an audition but this cutter was running a business and he had the balls to state he was not good at what he was charging his customers for. I wonder if I can get away with that excuse when I screw up something basic at work the next time around. By the way, the cutter also reminded me that I had to pay up before I stepped out and apart from some profanities, I did mention to him that I should be the one asking for a compensation!

To cut the cutter and hair cut story short, I have my hair partially salvaged at the regular salon I go to but that too was after the stylist had a ball of a time laughing at me and reminding me why I should always go back to him. Now that I’m sporting my new “Vanilla Ice” lines with a patch in between one of those lines, I guess I now understand why some people have very little patience for “not so bright” individuals.

Personally, I would have no issues with the “not so bright” individuals and I would still continue being patient and nice to these folks who are probably trying to achieve something in their very own way. For those of you who are not already doing so, it’s probably good to give it a shot the next time such encounters happen. Afterall, a good deed goes a long way.

However, I do have a big problem with the “not so bright” dimwits who claim to be good at something they are absolutely terrible with. It’s almost equivalent to me claiming that I am a great chef who can cook up a Boeuf Bourguignon or Gratin Dauphinois when the actual fact is I can’t even tell what is what! I always wonder why people would claim that they are good at something when that is far from the truth. The truth would eventually be revealed to their embarrassment and hopefully, these dimwits would realize that nothing goes undetected for long. There’s a famous Malay proverb that goes “sepandai-pandai tupai melompat, akhirnya jatuh ke tanah juga” which literally translates to “even squirrels who’s good at climbing and jumping from one tree to another would eventually come to ground”.

Now that my anger had subsided a wee bit, it’s probably best to end this with the moral of the story which is to never claim to be good at something we are not familiar with. Admitting unfamiliarity from the beginning garners higher forgiveness and others might even offer to coach us to be better. In contrary, if it were to be discovered by others after us claiming to be supposedly good at it, chances of being termed a dimwit would be extremely high. I for one would have little patience for such dimwits such as the one who literally and figuratively blew my top off.

For the time being, I guess I should settle with getting used to the new Vanilla Ice lines – at least that would have to be the case for the next 1 to 2 weeks before I return for further salvation at non other than my regular stylist.

That Time of the Year

There comes a time each year when tunes of “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls” gets blasted repeatedly almost everywhere you go. Concourses in shopping malls and display windows of shops would be filled with Christmas trees and snow flakes; Santas and Santarinas would be roaming around giving away product leaflets and offering to have their picture taken with passers-by. One cannot miss the fact that Christmas is just around the corner and I simply “love” this time of the year.

Somehow or rather, people become more friendly and light hearted during this time of the year and this makes the year-end period a good time to go out to mingle and socialize. Even the workplace becomes a lot more bearable as customers will be pushing aside all tough negotiations for the time being and bosses suddenly seem to have higher tolerance for misses in sales forecast. If I recall correctly, I read some survey indicating that the month of December is when the most alcohol is being consumed, most money spent on shopping and also the month with the lowest productivity in the workplace. These data points then brings to life the equation that more booze + higher purchasing power + less work = Happy Society.

Christmas and the year end period have always been a good time to get together with family and friends after a gruesome 11.5 months at work, school or whatever it is that have been keeping us occupied for most part of the year. It is also the time to exchange presents, send greeting cards and to throw parties. While most of us would get excited and enjoy being on the receiving end; that is to receive cards and presents, the giver does have their fair share of joy too. That is something I discovered this year as I decided to send out festive greeting cards with personalized notes to several people who have played a special part in my life throughout the year. The gleam in the eyes of the individuals I chose to present the cards to made the hassle of choosing the cards worth the while and I derived boundless satisfaction judging from the glee of the receivers.

As was mentioned earlier, everyone seems to be more compassionate and friendly and everything suddenly seems to come to a halt in the last week of the year. Hence in the true spirit of the “festive period”, I would be keeping my ramblings short and simple this time around before attempting the other “must-do” during the year end which is a post-mortem aka review of the year. In the meantime, I shall just sit back and chill with a couple of drinks and wish everyone a Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas!

*By the way, I also read somewhere that August & September are the months with the highest birth rate. I wonder why it’s nine months later and not in December.

IF

If I had a choice, I would have said no.
If I could turn back time, I would have done it differently.
If I had more time, I would have been able to come up with something better.
If I had been given the same guidance and support, I would have been able to outdo the other person.

If, if, if…. If only people would stop using the word “if”, life would be so much easier! Matter of fact is that most of us live in the unreal world of “ifs” and constantly ponder upon what could be. If you happen to be one of them - Wake up! All of us need to start realizing that what could be would always remain as what could be. In the real world which we all live in, “if” is an unreal word and the 2 letters – I and F would probably be better off as an acronym for “Ignorantly Foolish”.

Why “Ignorantly Foolish” one might ask? I have very little patience for those who has this noun as part of their daily vocabulary and I often hit myself each time I overuse this word. Being normal mortals, none of us could possibly control or determine the situations we are in and “if” is wishful thinking for those hoping for what could be. If we could all predict what is to happen, all of us would have been successful, multi-billionaires by now. There will be no beggars on the streets and every Tom, Dick and Harry would be living in a mansion and driving posh cars.

On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for individuals who often take tough situations and challenges into their stride and try their utmost best to make the most out of the less desired circumstances. This to me is the traits of an individual who deserves the finer things in life. These individuals are realists who live in the real world and are probably wise enough to know that whatever we hope and wish for would only happen if we were to work for it.

Recently, I was exposed to a phrase containing ten words with each word made up of only 2 letters. It might sound corny but I for one could not agree more with the phrase “If it is to be, it is up to me!” Simple as it might sound, this phrase is extremely powerful for it reinforces the power of each individual. More often that not, we would be blaming external conditions beyond our control whenever things do not fall into place. Little did we realize that why it turned out so was probably due to our own doings or “un-doings”.

If we had a choice, if we could turn back time, if we had more time and plenty other sentences starting with the word “if” are all statements made by people who probably did not realize that they did have the option in the first place. Despite being given a choice of yes or no, we could always come up with a third option had we thought about it. Separately, we could all have foresee what would be the outcome and consequences of a certain action had we spent a few minutes thinking about it before acting and this would then eliminate the need for us to turn back time. Finally, we all know that time is gold and there’s the famous saying that goes “time and tide waits for no man”. Our creators were extremely fair when creating us for each of us were given 24 hours a day – not a single second more and not a second less. If this fact is known to a 10 year old child, all of us should have been smart enough to plan our time accordingly instead of hoping for more time. Some “ignorantly foolish” individuals would instead put the request for more time on their Christmas wish list hoping that Santa would perhaps be kind enough one day to grant them a few additional minutes per day. Guess what? This will never happen, Of course, the exception would be a leap year whereby everyone would be granted an additional 24 hours in a year but that too is fair and everyone gets it.

Now that I’ve gone on and on in length about the word “if” which has probably appeared several times too many in the few paragraphs above, I shall draw down the curtains and leave with my parting thoughts. If only I could find the answer on how to anthropomorphize the word “if”, I would no longer be living in a world of “ifs”. Whilst I try to crack this, I would probably have to stick to the phrase containing ten words with 2 letters each. Funny thing is that phrase too starts with the letter “IF”!

A Beautiful Mind

Of late, snippets of the movie “A Beautiful Mind” starring Russel Crowe has been playing on my mind repeatedly. This movie which won plenty of accolades including four Academy Awards was based on a real life story. It was a biographical film about John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Laureate (Economics) mathematician who developed schizophrenia in his obsession with finding an original idea or theory. Throughout the process of coming up with the “next big thing”, Nash’s mind could hardly stop working and he started hallucinating, became delusional, increasingly paranoid and started behaving erratically.

Whilst Nash’s schizophrenia was not cured, he managed to move on with live and was ultimately able to largely ignore his psychotic experiences which included “ignoring” the imaginary people who were often surrounding him. This movie definitely ranks as one of my all time favorites and I could not resist drawing linkages between this movie and recent experiences I have encountered.

I was driving home on a Friday evening and there were several invitations from friends to chill out. At any other time, I would probably be the first to say yes to such invitations and that too if I had not been the one arranging for it. Nonetheless, it was very different this time around for as much as I would have loved to have a cold beer; I was both physically and mentally exhausted. Looking back at the week leading up to the slow drive home that evening, there was nothing too gruesome or taxing which left me wondering why I was feeling so lethargic.

It was then that I realized that a big part of the lethargy was due to my own doing. In the past couple of weeks, I have probably been working my mind “overtime” and to make matters worse, it was unnecessary thinking that took its toll on me. In case one might be wondering, I’m definitely not schizophrenic and I’ve yet to start meeting imaginary people. However, I have recently developed this “habit” of trying to read between the lines for almost every situation. Each time I have a conversation with someone; be it in a work-related or social environment, I’ve had the tendency to analyze if what was being said by the other party was meant to be understood the way it was addressed or could there be some hidden meaning that the other person is trying to imply.

I’ve had late nights trying to draw out various potential conclusions to simple conversations and this was definitely taking the zest out of many things. Being reclusive and not wanting to mingle much was probably some of the aftermaths of this unhealthy episode. Now that I’ve realized the kind of unnecessary torture I’ve been putting my mind through, it’s about time to take things easy and not think too much. Nevertheless, the resting could only happen once I’ve penned down my thoughts on the power of the mind.

I’ve read somewhere that an average human only utilizes between 10 to 12% of the brain’s capacity and Einstein whose name is probably synonymous to “genius” was utilizing 20% of his brain capacity. If a genius utilizes only 20% of the greatest gift to mankind, does it then mean that the power of the human mind knows no boundary? Come to think of it, a computer, a calculator, a space shuttle and countless other revolutionary and live-changing technology (including the PS3 and I-Phone) were all conjured by the human mind. This is probably testament to the fact that the human brain can do almost anything if we were to set our minds to it and the list of things would probably include some thoughts too scary and unbelievable to even mention.

Thankfully, there’s only one Einstein whose mind was mainly dedicated to sciences and physics for I cannot imagine a world with several million people utilizing 20% of their brain capacity thinking of how to outdo each other. It would be disastrous for that to happen as every other person you meet on the street would probably then be a Saddam or Hitler in the making whilst the remainder of the population would then be a Bush not knowing what’s happening next. I for one would not want to be living in such a world.

In that context, I should probably just put my mind to rest and not think about anything else apart from what is necessary. In the same spirit, we should all start calling a spade a spade; and interpret the spade as a spade if the other person says so instead of trying to read between the lines. That way, the mind would always remain beautiful!

Blinded by the Moment

This piece is dedicated to a friend whose “propositions” inspired me. You know who you are. : )

We have all probably been through a situation whereby we’ve been blinded by the moment. In that moment, the object blinding us could be love. It could be money, power, greed, people or anything else for that matter. In science classes back in my early schooling days, I’ve been taught that there are some blind spots that the eye would miss and I guess that being blinded by the moment would probably fall under the same classification. The bright side of this lies in the fact that we will somehow move out of the blind spot if we were to look at it from a different angle.

Having been blinded by the moment before, I would be one to admit that it more often than not revolves around desires, wants and perhaps even lust. It is only human for us to always want more yet we fail to realize that good things hardly come easy. A lucky spell of luck might hand certain things to us on a silver platter but most of the time, such situations only occur in fairy tales. I’ve been waiting for years now and I’ve yet to find a money tree. Neither has the girl of my dreams walked up to me to say hi nor had the banks called me to inform me that my loan repayments have been waived. In fact, I’m still dreaming for the day when I will wake up to be told that I have just inherited a million bucks!

Back to being blinded by the moment, I recently had an interesting tête-à-tête with a friend who was probably going through that phase. What made it more interesting was that this friend was blinded by more than one single thing at the same moment. Call it luck or pure mishap but what the friend was blinded with was a combination of money and lust. A proposition which combines both these elements was made to this friend who was on crossroads in deciding whether or not to pursue.

Looking back in retrospect, the same thoughts would have probably gone through my mind if I had experienced the same situation as my friend. In fact, I was initially urging the friend to go for “it” and we were both talking about reasons as to why it was perfectly fine to proceed. As the conversation went on, we had pretty much justified why “it” was perhaps the right thing to do. We did of course discuss the potential implications but since living with the consequences was something this friend could deal with, I myself thought that there was nothing wrong in proceeding.

As we were coming to end the chat in consensus that there was nothing wrong in proceeding; something struck us. Apart from the potential implications, there must be some risks associated with wanting to go for “it”. We then started a risk assessment and analyze what could potentially go wrong. One by one, the risks and potential damages as well as possible losses started popping out and it made the initially “attractive proposition” offered to my friend a whole less attractive. By then, I was sitting on the fence; leaning towards a “no” whilst my friend was still partially keen to pursue the proposition.

The turning point was when the question of “what would you lose if you opted out” popped up. To that, we both realized that nothing would have been lost if the choice was not to pursue. On the other hand, there could be some losses and damages which would probably be left “incurable” had the choice been to proceed. No doubt, there could be some potential gains but then again, those gains were not there to start off with. My conversation with the friend went on for a while more and we still kept in touch for a couple more days till this friend was affirmative and certain that the proposition was not worth pursuing afterall.

Having gone in circles on the story about the friend and the “proposition” being offered, I would draw back to the fact that being human; all of us are bound to be blinded by the moment. Temptations are always the mother of all evil but in this whole saga (that my friend was kind enough to share with me), I came to realize that we can never lose anything we did not have to start off with. As such, the moral of the story is that it is perfectly fine to be blinded by the moment but what matters most is not to be blinded for good. There will always be the temptation to go for more but we often fail to realize that we could potentially be losing a whole lot more if we were to pursue the greed, want or lust.

Having said all that, I guess it’s true that nothing comes easy. Whilst being blinded by the moment at times leaves us with the thought of what could be, we should always thank our lucky stars for what we are currently blessed with. What could be would always remain as what could be which might or might not be. If we chose to pursue what could be, we need to realize that we could potentially lose what "is". At the end of the day, I would now need to constantly ask myself “What would I be losing if I did not pursue." The answer to that question would most likely end up being "nothing would be lost" and it serves as a good reminder not to act foolishly.

For the time being, I guess I would have to politely decline the e-mail from Africa offering me a million dollars that would be banked into my account whilst I continue working my ass off to make that million myself.

Sabbatical

As I tried to get a proper understanding of the word “Sabbatical”, I referred to my Oxford dictionary and I was enlightened by the history from which this word was derived. Sabbatical comes from the word Sabbath which is a day of rest and religious observance kept by Christians on Sundays, Jews on Saturdays and Muslims on Fridays. There’s a whole load more to this word but in recent times, sabbaticals have been widely understood as an extended leave of absence. Based on my own interpretation, it is for a much longer period than the annual leave would grant and the only difference between a sabbatical and MIA (Missing In Action) is that the former is formally granted.

Back track a bit and one might wonder why I have suddenly developed such a keen interest for this word or any other words for that matter. In all truth and honesty, I was actually trying to find an explanation as to why I have had taken such a long break of absence from posting. (Not that anyone really cared or noticed anyway). Could I probably say that I was on a sabbatical from writing? Or would it sound better if I were to say that I was suffering from “writer’s block”. Either way, it would just be a lame excuse on my end when the actual truth was that I have had plenty of stuff I would have loved to write about but simply could not be bothered to lift my fingers to start hitting on the keyboard.

This would then lead to the next question of why the sudden keenness to write again. As much as I would wish to declare that I have found a new source of inspiration or experienced some life changing moments that needs to be penned down, the truth lies in the fact that I’ve probably been doing a fair bit of reflection and as a million and one thoughts starts running to my mind, I figured that the best thing to do is to pen it down. On a separate note, I was also probably influenced by a friend who has started writing all about nothing in an interesting manner though he would claim that his writings were devoted to life, liberty and happiness of pursuit as stated in his blog http://resident-dormitus.blogspot.com

Moving back to the word sabbatical, my personal definition for it would probably be “in avoidance” or “false escapism” as I struggle to understand why someone would need to take a long break of absence unless if it is under circumstances beyond our control which are usually tough and torrid such as the loss or potential loss of a loved one. In recent times, I have come across several acquaintances who have decided to take a long sabbatical in the context of trying to “search for the meaning of life” or “to reflect on it”. From the outlook, it might sound profound and philosophical but one corner of my mind tells me that this is merely an excuse to avoid the daily challenges that we face in the journey of life. A holiday or even an extended break is perfectly fine but with all due respect to those who have been on or planning to go on sabbaticals, my thought that it is a form of escapism would not be altered. Adding on to that, I am in fact a bit ashamed of myself at times when the thought of doing the same did cross my mind.

Now that I have returned from my “sabbatical from writing”, the past couple of months had been an interesting journey with plenty of ups and downs. I have experienced and witnessed so much that the thought of penning these priceless experiences down is by itself getting me all worked up and excited.