It’s Sunday. And as always it’s light reading today. Enjoy your weekend!

A charity organization discovered that within their city live a very rich person who has not donated even a single cent to charity. The person in charge of contributions called him to persuade him to contribute.

“Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $500,000, you have never given out a penny to charity. Wouldn’t you like to give back to the community in some way?”

The man mulled this over for a moment and replied, “First, did your research also show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income?”

Embarrassed, the charity organization rep mumbled, “Um … no.”

The man interrupts, “or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?”

The stricken rep began to stammer out an apology, but was interrupted again.

“or that my sister’s husband died in a traffic accident,” the man’s voice rising in indignation, “leaving her penniless with three children?!”

The now humiliated rep, completely beaten, said simply, “I had no idea…”

On a roll, the man cut him off once again, “So if I don’t give any money to them, why should I give any to you?”

/end

Lesson learnt

• Don’t abandon your family just to avoid donating money. That’s just wrong 🙂
• If family do not help family, who will?
• It is almost sinful to justify your wrongdoings simply because you had done worse

Don't want to miss a single tip? Get updates via RSS (Full) or Email

Here’s the tricky part. Some part of the world call the game football, while another part call it soccer. To be fair, I’m going to use the word used in Malaysia which is football. Just to be clear, I’m referring to this.

Why I’m writing about football, when I am actually not a good player to boast? I watched a match yesterday on TV and these ideas just hit me. There’s so many things we can learn from football.

1) Only one aim – The Goal
Each team has only one aim in mind, which is to move the ball to the oposing team’s goal area.

Everything the player did from the start of the game to the end is aimed to do this. You will not find a player just squat down and admire the ball’s roundness.

We should follow this example. Figure out our goals in life. And make sure everything we do will get us closer to that goal

2) Own goal happened – life goes on
Sometimes the player accidentally kicks the ball into his own goal. A lot of people will be frustrated especially his team. Does the game stop to give time for the player to mourn? No

In our life, we are bound to make mistakes here and there. Some mistakes maybe critical and some may not. What ever it is, don’t spend too much time mourning it, shake it off and move on. Time waits for no one.

3) Referee solves issues
Just imagine a match without the referee. I don’t think the game will last 2 minutes without a fight. In a case of foul play, both team will never admit their team is wrong. They will fight and in the end, nobody will win the game.

Sometimes, we also will face crisis. A problem where each party will have different opinion. Neither opinion is wrong but still we insist that everyone follows our opinion. In these cases, it is better to assign a third party decider. Everyone must agree to follow what that referee decide. This is because having a decision is always better than no decision at all.

4) The tougher the opponent, the sweeter the victory
Assuming you are a national player, would you play against the kindergarten football team? No? Me too. The victory if any, will be meaningless. unless of course you are playing with your children 🙂

Never expect life to be easy. It’s not. It is full of difficulties and problems any way you look at it. However it is these difficulties and problems that will make life worth living. When you know you earn your life

So whenever you are stuck with a problem. face it like a warrior and if you survive, enjoy your victory

– I wonder –
Any other lesson we can extract from the game?

———— Personal Note ————
I am not very good at playing football. That fact had been tested many times and it always end with the same result. One of the game that I am good with is Sepakraga. Apparently there is no Wikipedia explanation of Sepakraga, however you can watch the video of the game.

can I ask what game you are good at?

Don't want to miss a single tip? Get updates via RSS (Full) or Email

Yesterday was quite a day. I was in Kuala Lumpur sending my wife for medical checkup. She is now on her 7th month by the way.. 🙂 So as usual I drove back to my place very early in the morning.

Guess what, when I was at the toll in Senawang, a car rammed into my car’s rear bumper. That car’s driver pleaded to me that he only has RM100 (equivalent of USD$33). A mistake done, I, in the rush of going to work, decided to trust the guy when he said that he will repay the balance of the cost of repair later in the evening. We switched phone number, and as predicted, that guy just won’t answer my call until now.

It was still an exciting morning. Just after the guy drove away, I drove my car for about 2 or 3 minutes when suddenly I saw smoke coming out from my car. The temperature indicator had also shoot out to the maximum. It’s still very early in the morning, 6.30 am to be exact.. I was thinking to myself, “that’s another RM300 – 400 gone”.

To cut things short, I let the engine cool down, and went to the nearest petrol station to fill up my bottles of water. Fill up the dried radiator with water and drove to a car workshop. The foreman checked and found out that my radiator was actually fine. It’s only the hose that was leaking. Fixed that at RM50 only. And off I went to work. I arrived at the mill at about 9.30am.

Lesson Learnt From Yesterday

• You abide with traffic rules doesn’t mean you can’t get into an accident.
• In the case of car accident, try to ask for Identity Card number or name. (I don’t even think the name given to me is real)
• Don’t trust people easily. If you’re not at fault, just go together to a police station.
• Always check water in the radiator before travelling
• The hose leak probably a sign that other part of the radiator will leak too. It has been about 8 years since the last change. Change a complete set. (Preventive maintenance)
• Always have spare bottles of water in the car.
• Try to know where the nearest workshop in places in your travelling path. Fortunately I know, and I can go there fast before any damages done.
• Be active. The workshop actually opened at 8.30 am, I however called the owner and he helped by opening it early at 8am.
• Always be thankful..

– I wonder –
Ever been in  a similar situation

—— Personal Note ——–
Somehow I feel very fortunate that the accident happened. I learnt what to do in the case of accident. The car also overheated at the city area which make it easy to find water and workshop. Imagine I got stranded in the remote area.

When bad things happened to you, all you can do is try to look at it in the more positive way. It helps..

Don't want to miss a single tip? Get updates via RSS (Full) or Email

It has been a very hectic week. To summarize, the wedding is a success (At least for me it is 🙂 ). I deliberately am not going to post any picture on the wedding, since I think the best person to post it would be the man (DaPocket) himself.

So my last piece of advice would be to remember that to err is human. I’ll start the entry with a beautiful story on how we should treat this “err” in life.

There was a boy, about two years old. He had been trying to remove a bottle of milk from the refrigerator when he lost his grip on the slippery bottle and it fell, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor—a veritable sea of milk!

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture, or punishing him, she said, “what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?”

Indeed, he did. After a few minutes, his mother said, “You know, whenever you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up and restore everything to its proper order. So, how would you like to do that? We could use a sponge, a towel, or a mop. Which do you prefer?” He chose the sponge and together they cleaned up the spilled milk.

His mother then said, “You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny hands. Let’s go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it.” The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands, he
could carry it without dropping it. What a wonderful lesson!

Lesson learnt

• Mistakes will happen.. There’s no need to be afraid of it, instead, be prepared and handle it maturely.
• The same goes to marriage, there’s bound to be some mistakes from the both of  you. Instead of going the path of anger and hurtful words, learn from them, discuss them. Everything will be fine 🙂

Don't want to miss a single tip? Get updates via RSS (Full) or Email