Summary – Situation where mistakes must not happen.

It’s just not easy to becoming a doctor. I once heard (doctors.. please correct me if I’m wrong) that in any test while pursuing medicine, the marking method is completely different from the rest of us. For us, if we answer the question wrongly, they will be no mark for that question. But for the soon-to-be doctors, if they answered the question wrong, their marks will be deducted accordingly. Doctors must train themselves to only be sure when answering, if not.. it is always better to leave the question alone.

They just can’t afford to make any mistake, especially when lives are at stake.

An engineer is expected to make mistake, since this is the only way we can learn and get a more accurate result. Any damage done to the machine, is never an issue, we just simply replace it. But doctors can’t do that. Otherwise, unfortunate cases like the cutting of wrong arm of a baby will be more common. Once the trust is gone… I guess we will have to take up medicine and be the family doctor ourselves.

What I’m trying to say is.. that in life there are two different situation. One, in which mistake is actually allowed and needed to gain experience. And Another where mistakes is never an option. NEVER… not only to doctors, but to us all.

Examples are like when we were going to blame someone. We must be sure that he is the culprit. No mistakes. If not sure, it is better to leave him alone. There is a saying in law if I am not mistaken, that “It is always better to free 10 guilty criminal than to imprison one innocent person”

In Islam also, the phrase “Cerai” is not a words can be joked around. If a husband say “Saya Ceraikan Awak” to the wife, irregardless of intention. The divorce had already occured.

Maybe you know any other situation that mistakes is not allowable?

Summary – Accuracy can only be achieved from multiple point of view

I once heard that almost 70% of our interaction is based on sight. The remaining 30% is based on hearing, smell or touch. The figure is not important, what’s important is that our ability to see is generally what we rely on to live and to learn. Don’t you agree?

However relying only on sight is not accurate. A man draw the number 6 on sand in front of another man. The second man will see number 9. In short, in order to get an accurate picture, we will have to see everything from all possible point of view.

This topic can be elaborated in so many ways. But I’m more interested in this section, where we have only RM10

If we look at people who have RM1000, we will feel humble. We know that the RM10 we have is nothing compared to RM1000. We shouldn’t be bragging to these people about our RM10. Instead we should learn from them on how to get that RM1000 and improve ourself

If we look at people who have on 7 cents, we will feel thankful. If we think, we are unfortunate, that’s a living proof that we are actually blessed. And instead of whining of only have RM10, we should learn how to not only use the money wisely, but also how not to end up like that fellow.

What would happen if we only look in one direction? In the first case, we will be so passionate to chase that RM1000, we will forget more important things in life. We will forget to help others by donating because for us, every cents count to reach that RM1000.

In the second case, we will be so satisfied with what we have for the rest of our life. RM10 for us is more than enough since there are other poorer people around us. We will not dare to venture new things and we will lose all interest to be better, to have better life.

I don’t think the two extreme cases even exist. But I do believe that we sometime tend to look from one point of view and ignore the rest. We actually need to see our life in all point of view and find the best compromise.

An excellent example would be to appreciate the peace we have in Malaysia but still working to improve the life of Malaysian, maybe by giving the best service when working etc.

Please don’t just whine.. Everyone can do that, It helps create awareness yes, but that’s it. Ask yourself… What can we do about it?

————— Personal Note ————————–
There’s so much we can improve in this beloved country of ours. First of all, I noticed that we often take a stand in politics without actually knowing head or tails. For example, there is political party A and B. If our family is all in favor of party A, it is most likely that we will end up supporting party A. We shut all information from party B entirely. This in my opinion is not an accurate way to take a stand. Learn everything about both parties A and B. Go to both political campaign and mix with people from both parties. When you have all the information, judge them yourself and then make the decision. Don’t you think it will be better this way?

Summary – The correct method of giving advice

Note : The above idiom is roughly translated to “Like pulling hair from a pot of flour, the hair should not snap and the flour should not be a mess.” Generally it means to do something with extra care not to do any damage.

warning is basically a harsher way of advising. So what is the correct way of giving advice?

I’ll explain through a story. One fine day, two boys were at the mosque when they saw an old man perform the ablution (taking the wudhu’). Now these boys were quite knowledgable about wudhu’ and they knew immediately that the way the old man was taking the wudhu’ was wrong. They knew they had to advise him. So what they did was to go to the old man…

Boys – Sir, if we can have your time, the two of us are actually discussing, I’m saying that this boy is taking the wudhu’ wrongly, while he said that I’m the one who do it wrongly. Can you please be the judge of that?

Old man – sure, why not.

The boys each then performed the ablution, each took wudhu’ the correct way. After both of them were finish. The old man embarassingly admitted that their wudhu’ were actually perfect, and that his was the one which is wrong. He understood that the boys were trying to advise him and thanked them for that.

/end story

Giving advise is a good thing to do, it usually will benefit both of the giving and the receiving ends. Sometime the person giving the advice may actually be the one who need to be corrected. However, the method of giving advice is my main objective here.

I believe everyone has pride or ego. Everyone will feel attacked and humiliated if being told that they were wrong. It’s human nature.

We cannot give advice in hidden meaning like the story at all time, sometime (usually) they might not get it.

We just need to consider the person’s ego at all time. Because if not, he might feel offended and throw away the advice blindly out of ego. In the end, nobody will benefit. Isn’t it more important for the person to at least hear the advice and think about it?

Of course there are always exceptions, some people, you just need to give it direct to their face. 🙂

Examples of where ego will be affected, children advising their parent to stop smoking, wife advising the husband to help in the house and vice versa, workers advising the boss on how to manage better.

By the way, the story above is actually a true story. And the boys are actually Hassan and Hussin, the grandchildren of Rasulullah 🙂

Have you ever given out any advice, brilliantly delivered? Or are there any other methods / examples of giving advice out there that can be shared?

————— Personal Note ————————–
There was one time, my boss drafted a letter, But maybe he was in a hurry, there were a lot of grammar mistake. And this letter is important because it is addressed to the DOSH (department of safety and health). I’m not that good in English but I have no choice. I corrected it and inform him about it after. I said that the letter was placed on my desk, and that I thought he asked me to correct it. He just smiled. And from that time, every letter he drafted goes through me first. (padan muka) heheh

Summary – Six strategies not to forget things

A friend of mine had just left her purse in a taxi, Remarkably she not only take it very well, she manage to look into the half-full side of the glass 🙂

I believe everyone must have their own method to remember things. Not how to memorize things like my previous post. More on to remember things we brought (to avoid left behind), or task to do.

These are my strategies so far –

1) Always minimize the amount of bags
Most people are already doing this. If for example, you have 5 bags of groceries, put it all into each other making it into two bags. This way, you know exactly that both hands should be carrying something each

2) Create a ritual before going somewhere
What I did to remember things in my pockets, which consist of keys, handphone and wallet is to make it a practice to slap gently on all pockets before making a move somewhere, to the mill or anywhere. This way… I feel something is not right if I didn’t do the ritual. 🙂

3) Learning from OCD people
OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. If you ever watched the tv series – “Monk” or “As Good As It Get”, you will understand it. Simply, these people are very particular about everythings. Everything must be organized and be done their way. Lesson to learn from them is to organize. For me, I put up all my bills and things to do on one desk. Some things are left as a symbol of things I must do, like in order to remember to bring cash tomorrow, I will simply leave the money there. The desk will soon be crowded and with the intention of clearing up the table, I will do every task each items represents. 🙂 It works by the way hehe.

4) Car Alarm Dilemma
I always had this problem. (the word “had” is stressed eheh), I already locked my car with the alarm, but just after 5 minutes, I will start guessing, “did I lock my car?”, “Did I hear the alarm clicking?”. It’s very troublesome when you are already far from your car. So what I do is, whenever I lock my car, I conciously force myself to see that the car is locked. So far, problem solved.

5) Record
One and a half years ago, I used a cellphone so ancient, it can only be used as a phone and SMS. Spoilt already I bought the one I’m using right now, There is a voice recording function embedded. So another way I remember things is simply by voice recording it. At the end of the day, I will upload everything into my computer and take action. If you must know things that I recorded, they are stuff like, blogging ideas, direction to certain places, the self-repeating song in my head, and hey.. I even compose song huhu (which I’m sure will be taken to grave with me).

6) Look for something else
I write this out of experience, when you forget where you misplaced something, it is almost certain you will not be able to find it. Try pretend to look for something else or stop looking entirely, Usually then you will find them 🙂

So there, 6 private strategies I used to remember things in my daily life. I’m sure there’s more. What’s your strategies? Please share 🙂

————— Personal Note ————————–
During my working days, I have accidentally locked myself our of my house quite a couple of times. I often had to resort to break the lock by force. Then I tried hiding spare keys. But I kept thinking that my gardener may eventually found it. My brother gave me one suggestion, to buy those Solex lock. You know, the one with the keys will always be with the lock unless you lock it. Solved my problems. I guess sometime the simple solution is out there.. we just keep looking the harder way 🙂