Lesson in life is best learnt from history. That said, this is a very interesting classic story explaining love and marriage. I’m sure many of you have heard it before. If you haven’t, I’m sure you will enjoy it. The story was rewritten based on my memory.

A wise man and his student were walking when they reached a bazaar (a street filled with hawkers selling food etc). Both of them were talking about philosophy when suddenly the student asked the wise man, “Can you explain what is love?”

The wise man smilingly refused to answer. Instead he took some money and handed it over to the student. He said, “Take this money and go buy me the most delicious food in this bazaar. However there is one rule, you must treat the street as a one way street, which means once you have passed a hawker stall and you did not buy any food, you cannot buy any food later from that stall. So choose wisely.”

The student excitedly went through the street. He was amazed with the variety of foods offered at the first stalls. He then wondered, “Maybe there are more delicious food further into the street. I’m sure”. He then walked deeper into the street, finding more delicious food at every stall.

After some time, he realized that the stalls at the end of the street doesn’t sell any food at all. They were selling clothes etc. He regretted not buying any food and had to return to the wise man empty handed.

The wise man told him, “This is Love. You keep looking for a better one, but you only realize it when you have already missed the person”

The student then asked another question, “What is Marriage then?”

The wise man said, “You still have my money don’t you? Now go buy us the most delicious food. The food must also be reasonably cheap. And of course, the same rule applies. It is still a one way street.”

The student went back into the street. This time he was very careful not to repeat the previous mistake. After about 10 minutes walking, he bought some delicious food for him and the wise man. He then returned back satisfied with that food.

The wise man then smilingly said, “This time you look for one that is just nice. You sincerely believe this is the best decision you have made. And even if there are more delicious cheap food out there, you will still be happy with this one. That, my son, is Marriage.”

/end story

– I wonder –
What do you think? Does it describe Love and Marriage accurately. Let’s discuss

———– Personal Note ————-
I’m not sure about other countries, but here in Malaysia, every year during Ramadhan (Muslim’s fasting month), we will have a lot of Ramadhan Bazaar specifically selling food for us to break our fast. You can find all the rare delicacies, a lot of which can only be found during Ramadhan. It has now become a culture shared not only by muslim but with all races and religion. Beautiful 🙂

Photo Credit – Erwin

It has been about a year and a half since I started blogging. At first I was merely trying what this blogging is about. After about 20 articles later, I started to enjoy sharing ideas on self improvement. Why? Because the more I share, the more ideas seemed to pour in. It’s still a mystery but I think the best explanation for it is that if you really want something, just work on it and enjoy. The mind will automatically do the rest of the job for you.

Compiled below are some of the most basic blogging tips I learnt. The best thing about the tips is that if you take the time to look at them, you will notice that they can also be applied to real life. I’m sure you will find the blog tips really basic. But the idea of this article is really on how to apply it to both your blog and your life. To make this slightly more fun, I will let you figure out how to apply them in real life.

1) When People Comment, Reply

This has always been my policy. There are now about 1500 comments altogether since I started, and I have replied to each and every one of them. It takes quite an effort for any readers to write their opinion on an article. They are taking some time of their life to do this. The least you can do is to reply to the comment. Personally, comments are the best motivation for me to keep on writing. So if you do comment on this blog, rest assured I will reply them however busy I am as a token of appreciation.

I have also been commenting in others’ blogs. And nothing’s more demotivating than to see that my comments remained unanswered. It’s as if I am commenting to a wall. I know for a site that has hundreds of comments, it’s going to be hard to reply to all of them. I guess in the end, it will be all up to you to define your number.

Appreciate readers, they are the ones we actually write to.

2) Do Not Be Afraid To Change

If you have been following the blog, you will know how many times I have overhauled the whole blog with new themes, articles formatting etc. There was even a time when the blog is gloomy looking with a child-like theme (Yes, you guessed it right. It’s the image above). The articles were also different back then. I even wrote a piece on forcasting weather and ghost theories. It’s really an experiment that continues until today to see what work and what doesn’t work.

There is no such thing as perfection. Everything will have a flaw to it. If you started off something with the idea that it’s perfect, you will soon be disappointed. The best way is always to just start with an idea and perfect it along the way.

If I were too arrogant or lazy to make the change, I don’t think I will still be here writing.

3) Blogging is all about networking

If you want to blog about something but you don’t want anybody to read them, there is always an option to make it private. Or just write in a diary.

Blogging will be useless if you are all alone. Go out there, find new friends and network. That is the most basic foundation of blogging. Without it, a blog will be nothing more than just a paper with some noun and verb written on it.

4) Find the 200 from the 1000 visitors.

Now that you are out there networking. You should know that there are millions of blog readers everyday. There is absolutely nothing you can write that will appeal to all of them. Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to find the readers that will be interested to read what you wrote.

If you write about cars, don’t join a forum about relationship and promote your blog there. That will be a waste of time and energy. Strategize where is the best place to introduce your blog.

5) Be prepared for disagreement

People rejecting each other’s idea all the time. Of course there will be some group of readers who will hate what you write or at least disagree with it. Don’t be alarmed if suddenly there’s a comment which gives you 100 reasons why you should quit blogging.

Reacting to this positively is very hard to do. I know, I’ve been there. And as a human, it is very normal to feel down after a bash like that. What you have to do is to shake it off and take a step up. Try to find any positive side of the comment and work on that. At least, you should feel appreciated that there is one person who care enough about you and write an article with 100 points. 🙂

/end

Very basic, don’t you think? But as basic as they are, these are five of the most important lessons I learnt in blogging. Can you see the message hidden in them? Apply them in your life and you will be good to go.

– I wonder –
Do you have any other tips on blogging based on your personal experience?

————– Personal Note —————
BloggingTips.com is currently running a post asking their readers to give critiques on Lesson In Life. I invite you all to join the discussion there. If you have any comment on this blog in term of design, contents or anything under the sun. Post them there. You will stand a chance to win USD10 for the most helpful and constructive comment.

You can also post the comments here. 🙂

What is temptation?

• You are on a diet, and everything you see looks delicious.

• You just got your paycheck, and somehow there’s a voice in your head telling you to spend some time at the mall.

• You are exercising in your house and suddenly that same voice in your head is telling you that all the exercise will not make you healthier.

All of that my friend, are temptation at its best. That feeling of wanting something so much when you are trying your best to avoid it. It is a part of you and thus you will never be able to stop it from haunting you your entire life.

However, not being able to remove it doesn’t mean that you have to surrender to it. You will need to declare a war with your temptation. Of course, not to all your temptation. Just the ones that are holding you back. I personally call this the greatest war of our life simply because it’s very hard to win a war when you yourself wanted to lose the war.

You will have to fight with all your might. If you want to make yourself healthier, you will have to fight that temptation to be a couch potato. And if you want to study, you may have to fight that urge to go out with friends clubbing. This war will never be easy. But it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE either. To actually win this great war, you may want to consider applying these tips.

Again with the diet example, if you are on a diet, remind yourself why you are dieting. If you want a better health, print some articles about people dying of heart disease, or how older people are able to run a marathon when they are healthy. Read the articles a few times a day. Or create a blog specifically for your progress to health. You will be researching a lot of health related issues and that itself will kick the temptation of ruining your diet out of the window.

There’s always “the shame” to help you win that battle with temptation. Publicly announce your diet plan. And if you ever want to break your diet, make it a rule that you will have to do it in front of your friends. This way, that shame will stop temptation from ever winning that round. Other emotion that can be manipulated are of course “Laziness” (Make the process of breaking your diet to be as hard as possible) and “Happiness” (Make every winning day a celebrated day)

I actually got this idea from a tv series about “Black Hole”. According to the show, our body and gravity are in a never ending war. An example is like rock climbing. You are fighting gravity with every step we took. Just imagine halfway up, you decided to let go, you will fall down to where you started. You may get a hold of a rock but you will be terribly injured and there is no way you can climb the rock as efficient as your first time doing it.

Just like the analogy, the fight with temptation is very much the same. If at any point you give in to temptation, you will fall back to our starting point. And most of the time, the journey to return back to our current place will be hundred times harder.

So whenever you are feeling like giving in to temptation, decide whether or not you want to drop back to where you started, and bear in mind that the next time will be so much harder.

The worst way to combat temptation is when you are being defensive. Being defensive means that you start giving excuses. You want to diet, after two weeks, you start craving for chocolate cakes. You will then start giving excuses to avoid chocolate cakes. Excuses like “Chocolate cake is bad for you”, or “There are too much calories in that cake”. These are debatable excuses which means that you will be able to argue with the excuse. You may eventually say that “If chocolate cake is bad, people will stop making them” or “It’s true that there are too much calorie, but what harm can a slice do?”

All these excuses are debatable. And when you start entertaining the conflict in you, you are losing the war by the minute. A good script to put an end to inner conflict are “I’m not discussing this” or “Period”.

What will happen to you if you were in a competition and you were defeated at every round. Your motivation will get weaker no doubt. The same thing happens to temptation. If you keep winning the war, the temptation will eventually be weaker.

Believe in this and you will see the amazing result faster. It is when you are totally in control of your desire and from that time on, only good things will come to you. What ever you strive to do, you will get it done, your focus will be razor sharp. Now, let me be the first to congratulate you on all the success waiting for you your entire life.

– I wonder –
Any other tips on conquering temptation that I may have missed?

————- Personal Note ———-
For my Muslim friends reading, I wish you all the best with Ramadhan (Fasting Month). This is the time when our control on temptation will be tested. I actually wrote a few articles on Things About Ramadhan You May Not Know last year. Hope you will enjoy it.

Photo Credit – Phooey