When to ADJUST, When to CONFRONT.It's all about your strength.

Put a frog in a vessel of water and start heating the water.

As the temperature of the water rises, the frog is able to adjust its body temperature accordingly.

The frog keeps on adjusting with an increase in temperature...

Just when the water is about to reach boiling point, the frog is not able to adjust anymore...

At that point, the frog decides to jump out...

The frog tries to jump but is unable to do so, because it has lost all its strength in adjusting with the rising water temperature...

Very soon the frog dies.

What killed the frog?

Many of us would say the boiling water...

But the truth has what killed the frog was its own inability to decide when it had to jump out.

We all need to adjust with people and situations, but we need to be sure when we need to adjust and when we need to confront/face.

There are times when we need to face the situation and take the appropriate action...

If we allow people to exploit us physically, mentally, emotionally or financially, they will continue to do so...

We have to decide when to jump.

Let us jump while we still have the strength.

Think on It !!

6 EXCUSES OUR BRAINS LOVE TO MAKE, AND WHY YOU SHOULD IGNORE THEM

Before you read, I would like to say that the content of this post did not come from me personally but a piece from the internet. What I did is copy and paste, because I find this piece indeed a worthy of your time and facts stated right on the spot.

Resources: Excuses by our brains

Every single day our brains make excuses for us that we don’t even realize. If I was to walk up to you and say “Hey, let’s go climb Mount Everest”, most people’s brains would automatically come up with a hundred reasons why we couldn’t. There is a solution to every one of those excuses and (in theory) there is no reason that with hard work and time, we couldn’t climb Mount Everest. The human brain too often wants to say “it can’t be done” instead of “how can we do it?” Below is a list of excuses that our brains love to make, and why you should ignore them.

THEY ARE BETTER THAN ME

No, actually they aren’t. The people in our lives that exist on pedestals didn’t get up there by themselves – we put them there. We also have the ability to take them off of that pedestal and put ourselves on them. Every single human being on this planet has the same basic opportunities in life as anyone else. What makes the difference between success and failure is effort, perseverance, and dedication. Take Elon Musk, for example. He is self-taught, comes from a bad background, has failed countless times, and has still managed to become one of the most successful and influential people on the planet.
Read: Research: Sex Could Improve Brain Function

I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT __________

Unless the word in that blank above is air, water, food, or shelter – yes you can. We love tot hink that we couldn’t live without our smartphones, cars, social media, and other meaningless stuff. Have you ever just turned your phone off for a day? It can be the most liberating thing in the world. Imagine losing everything you have, it happens to people every single day. Quit putting a premium on tangible things and start focusing on what really matters in life – like living it.

LIFE ISN’T FAIR

You are right, life isn’t fair, and if you ever expect it to be – you will be sadly disappointed. If you allow the curve balls that life is bound to throw at you break your stride, then you’ll never get anywhere. Let your attitude determine who you are and what you are capable of. Remember, that right now there is someone who has been through a version of what you are going through, and they made it out just fine. You can too.
Read: ‘Love Hormone’ And Alcohol Have Similar Effects On The Brain

I SHOULD QUIT

Unless you are talking about smoking, drinking, drugs, or some other bad habit – no one has ever achieved anything by quitting. Anything in life worth having is worth working for. That is true for everything from goals to relationships. We live in a “throw-away” society where people think it is just easier to give up, and start again than it is to maintain or rebuild. True, it may be easier, but think about what you are giving up. How many friendships have you walked away from? How many achievements were never made? Fill your life with things you’ll never give up on.

IT’S TOO LATE

If there is a breath in your lungs, it is never too late. “Too Late” is a concept in our heads. The old cliche of “better late than never” is actually one of the truest sentiments in life. It is never too late to take up a hobby, or say an apology, or get something off of your chest. Not doing something altogether is one thousand times worse than not doing it at all.
Read: ‘Telepathy Is Possible’ Says Most Complex Brain-To-Brain Study Ever Conducted

I CAN’T

Yes. You. Can. If you are realistic about what you want to do, there is only one person that can keep you from doing it. Short of breaking the law and impossible things like flying, there is nothing that you can’t do if you put your heart into it. The day that you realize that you capable of anything is the day that you can achieve anything.

Event buddies are the best buddies.

You may think it's an ordinary book but it's not. Inside consists of plenty surprises and chapters of awesomeness, reminiscence, priceless thoughts and etc, that you can't buy although you have trillions zillions of cash. 

Believe it or not I teared immediately the moment I opened the very first page, where I saw my name written on it. And I knew at that moment that book is meant for me which I initially thought it's a book belongs to my friend to dot down remembrance that I took a day late to open it. Before I opened it, I actually prepared everything by my side to get started with and then boom, down the tears rolling. I even happily told my friend that I'm honored to be the first to start dotting down. Never knew nor expected that it's meant for me.

I really can't describe how I'm feeling right now. Because I'm busy wiping my tears which non-stop rolling down on my cheeks. Yes, I'm still tearing because this is so unexpected and the way how my friend made it work is so bloody touching. The amount of effort she has input to it, bringing back to the time where I timidly stepped in. Guess having her to approach me at the beginning is nothing but a prideful thing that I'm truly grateful for. Never once I'm gonna lose out her from my mind. Because she's a friend that I must keep throughout my life. Basically the 4 of them which we declared ourselves as PRETTY GANG. 😉😘 well to be honest, all my event gangs that I must maintain the friendship because they're absolutely irreplaceable. They're the type of friends that everyone dream to have. 

I'M REALLY REALLY GRATEFUL SUPER DUPER THANKFUL TO HAVE AND KNOW THEM IN MY LIFE. THE PRETTY GANG and BANANAS. BUDDIES FOREVER! IF I HAVE ONE WISH, I WISH THAT WE ALL COULD GO TO OUR FAVORITE PLACE TOGETHER AND LIVE THE LIFE WE WANT AND DREAM TO HAVE.

WHEREAS FOR THE LAO PENG YOU OF MINE, I WOULD NEVER TRADE ANYTHING, I REPEAT ANYTHING FOR OUR FRIENDSHIP. AND I'M LUCKY TO HAVE YOU APPRAOCHED ME, KNOWING THAT YOU'RE A SHY PERSON. COULDNT IMAGINE YOU DID NOT DO THAT. I DON'T THINK MY UNI LIFE WOULD BE AS EXCITING AS NOW. EVERYTHING HAPPENED FOR A REASON AND I'M DELIGHTED WITH THE REASON. I WILL FOREVER LOVE YOU AND WILL,ALWAYS STORE YOU IN MY HEART, THINK ABOUT OUR FRIENDSHIP AND MEMORIES SPENT TOGETHER WHENEVER I AM, WHEREEVER I GO. 

Much love to you, YPC! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Sunday words.

Such words leave you to deep thoughts. Lesson learned very well. >:)

OCD or Anxiety.

Just recently I realize myself that I have a really huge OCD on almost everything, every aspect. And to be honest, I'm actually quite okay with it despite the fact that sometimes it irritates and annoyed the hell out of me. Still, I found out that it actually defines, reveal your true self.

Could consider almost every day I experience a similar situation like the video above. That sometimes I cracked my head that I couldn't decide on things and worry on matters which I don't have to worry so much about. That sometimes I sat down for some time to figure out the reasons and question myself. All these happened because I have the concept of anxiety kills planted in my mind. 

The truth is, whether or not it's an OCD or anxiety, without them you wouldn't be what you are. It could be a small matter that you yet to realize or a massive one that worries you all day all night long. Weirdness isn't a bad thing in life. Being weird is being unique, in another word, being yourself.

Would recommend everyone to have a read on this article. It actually explained pretty well what is it like for one having OCD or anxiety to go through the daily life, daily routine, which is sometimes unbearable and burdensome.

What is it like to have OCD(s)?

Quotes (Part Three)

• In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion.
• Create the highest, grandest vision for your life. Then let every step move you in that direction. #OPRAH
• Be committed, not attached. But more importantly, know the difference. #KAI
• Modern technology makes us think that we are separate from nature.
• Everything is alive, everything has a spirit.
• A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.
• A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best. #RAYMONDCARVER
• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
• Some days you just have to create your own sunshine.
• What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.
• Photography is a time machine. It captures time and space, transporting you back to that exact moment.
• So stop eating yourself up. Things will go where they're suppose to go if you just let them take their natural course.
• True compassion isn't just an emotional response, it's a firm commitment founded on reason, which doesn't change if others behave badly.
• You gotta use all you got. We know you're tired. Tired and scared. Happens to everyone, okay? Just don't let your feet stop. Don't think too hard about it, if you're seeking it, it's here. So stop what you're doing this minute and get happy. Work at making yourself happy!
• Looking back, makes you smart. Looking forward, makes you mature. Looking down, makes you wise. Looking up, makes you strong.
• ...and you see the evening shrink to an artificial two-dimensional slice of time. #SLYVIAPLATH
• I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.
• Happiness is not defined by obtaining everything you want, but by appreciating everything you have.
• Sometimes people have nothing to say because they're too empty and sometimes people have nothing to say because they're too full.
• Value has a value only if its value is valued. 
• The key to artistic photography is to work out your own thoughts, by yourselves. Imitation leads to certain disaster. #GERTRUDEKASEBIER
• The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.
• Rest and be thankful. #WILLIAMWORDSWORTH
• You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. #HENRYFORD
• Sometimes you have to live in precarious and temporary places. Unsuitable places. Wrong places. Sometimes the safe place won't help you.
• That's got to be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend and leaving them that way.
• We love to sleep because it's the closest we'll get to death without dying.

Truly Friendship.

It's the Lunar Festival. It's the weekend, the third day of Chinese New Year. All I could say it's a scotching Saturday. Weather of a toaster.

Mum woke me up from my beauty slumber, and so I did. While I was preparing and cleaning myself up, I received a call from an old friend of mine that she wants to pay me a visit. Of course I gave the green light. In half an hour time there goes the awaits. It's been a very long time since the last time we met, I could say probably 2 years. With the duration of not meeting nor catching up for 2 years it made this time catch up session a pretty good one. Reminiscing about the past, present and future. 

And in the afternoon, something surprising happened. A very true friend of mine dropped by, a friend that left to Perth 2 years ago for further studies and finally came back to Malaysia for Chinese New Year. This friend of mine is a very busy woman. To the extend that she did not has the time for me for any catch up session nor any meet ups. Knowing her arrival date to Malaysia as well as her departure to Perth, I ceased to see her pretty face, her genuinely sweet smile, and her unforgettable tone of communication, all due to her busy schedule. She travelled to Taiwan, after that visitings together with her parents and quality times with her family and friends. Sadly I'm not in the list which I'm absolutely have no idea why. 

That made me angry and upset that why did not she make any effort to stay in touch with me, to fix an appointment with me, to make it up to me, to call or message me, etc. Neither any of that I heard from her, which at some point made me verge to give up on her, give up on our friendship, to let her go and self-eliminate from her circle of friendship. However, until today, this afternoon, that she purposely drove to my house and gave me souvenirs from Perth as well as the 2 special gifts she specially bought for me only. One from Perth and one more from Taiwan. Both are the same character but different purposes. The moment I saw her appearance in front of my house I was rollick through my heart, jumping of joy excitingly that I could meet her, and so we talked. 

If my memory serves me well, I did not talk much because I was so happy to have my best friend standing by my side. I was so happy to hear the laughter, the voice, the support, the love, the thought, the warmth and the care of my best friend. However, to know she's leaving tomorrow my heart pounders melancholy. In addition to the precious souvenirs she gifted me I could never ask for more than hugging her  several times, not letting my best friend go for another time, while tears flowing down on my cheeks. Never in my life I've teared for a friend. Especially your friend that you've spent all of your evening as a child cycling and hanging out together, doing silly things and of course there are some things that cannot be forget and them memories are definitely irreplaceable. 

Right at the moment when I do not want to let her go, it got me thinking deep down that I'm lucky and grateful to have such lovely friend. This made me to not give up on any friendship for any kinds of reasons regardless the circumstances. I would need to thank god for not allowing the fact of giving up happened. Had not for the instinct of lunar messaging I think I would be at the point of exclusion. With that I believe the theory of Everything Happened for a Reason. Feeling nothing but thankful with whatever happened, and most of all whatever offered in life. Never once at all for taking things for granted, life for granted. 

Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for loving and caring me. Last but not least, thank you for remembering me. You never know how much your little doorstep surprise means so much to me. With your effort, no matter the size of it, it changes the very moment of mine. 

Loves and warmth. Sincerely regards.

Artistry.

The Coffee Club. 

The Evening Sun.

The Construction.

Secret to Healthiness and Happiness of Life.

Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants, and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Make time for prayer and reflection
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2012.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.

Personality:
10. Take a 10-30 minutes’ walk every day —- and while you walk, smile.
11. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don’t overdo; keep your limits.
14. Don’t take yourself so seriously; no one else does.
15. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Community:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your family and friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:
32. Do the right things.
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. Forgiveness heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, don’t take it for granted – embrace life.
39. Your inner most is always happy. So, be happy.


Last but not least:

40. Enjoy LIFE.

What can a conversation tell you about someone's intelligence?

By Charles Faraone (Quora)

Intelligence, like beauty, is a gift that has more to do with dumb luck than personal achievement. So while I admire intelligence and beauty, I tend to respect compassionate and down-to-earth individuals who exhibit a genuine sense of integrity. If they happen to be intelligent and attractive, all the better. 

Gaining a sense of an individual's intelligence from casual (or intense) conversations is relatively easy. The problem/challenge is that it's often easier to underestimate a stranger’s intelligence than it is to put the energy into finding out how intelligent the person might be or actually is. 

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Unknown

Too many people use their limited areas of expertise or knowledge as the benchmarks of intelligence, which is actually a cheap trick to score dopamine squirts by artificially boosting weak esteem by looking down on others. I prefer to find out what topics people are interested in by encouraging them to share what they know. 

It helps to start out assuming the people I'm communicating with are smarter than me and then giving them the opportunity to prove me right or wrong. 

People's responses reveal their intelligence, especially to abstractions such as humorous comments, creative interpretations, and not-so-obvious observations that connect seemingly unrelated dots. 

One of the most helpful tells is how people misinterpret what was said and how much trouble they go to to avoid answering specific questions. (When people overreact to what wasn’t said they're letting you know what they fear might have been said.) 

Identifying sensitive areas is a lot like how dentists locate cavities by working a probe and watching for winces. 

How people tip toe or tap dance around topics/questions not only exposes where they're actually coming from but how intelligent they are. Dull witted types (especially racist and bigots) seldom realize how much they're giving away (about being craven safety addicts) whereas highly intelligent types tend to catch on relatively quickly and then go to great lengths to cover their tracks.

Quotes (Part Two)

• Want to lose weight? Don't eat anything 4 hours before you go to bed. It makes a huge difference.
• You might gather the same materials and make identical preparations, but you would never be able to duplicate the result.
• Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway.
• You are not what has happened to you. You are what you choose to become.
• Do what is right, not what is easy.
• We're all the same. Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing.
• Grab whatever chance of happiness you have. Don't worry about other people too much.
• Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern.
• Taking everything into consideration, my instincts still tell me to go for it. Simply because that you don't get chances like this very often.
• I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute.
• I guess time doesn't flow in order, does it? - A,B, C, D? It just sort of goes where it feels like going.
• So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken.
• Material development only gives us sensory pleasure, but to be lastingly happy we need to develop our minds. We need calm minds.
• Never apologize for burning too brightly or collapsing into yourself every night. That is how galaxies are made.
• When I didn't understand something, I gathered up the words scattered at my feet, and lined them up into sentences. Anyway, be happy. I get the feeling a lot of shit is going to come your way, but you're a stubborn bastard, I'm sure you'll handle it.
• Whatever you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.
• The years between eighteen and twenty-eight are the hardest, psychologically. It's then you realize this is make or break, you no longer have the excuse of youth, and it is time to become an adult - but you are not ready.
• Stories come to me and I grasp it and write it down. That is all. It is just like catching exotic birds or butterflies in the deep woods. If I lose sight of them once, they would be gone in an instant, and probably for good.
• Have you every had that feeling that you'd like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?
• There burns throughout the line of words, the cultivated act, a fierce brief fusion which dreamers call real, and realists, illusion.

How do I get over my bad habit of procrastinating.

By Suresh Rathinam in Quora
I was a very bad Procrastinator for a very long time, until i really understood the basics of why i procrastinate. 

In order to understand why you procrastinate, first you should have a strong desire to eliminate procrastination in your life and following the methods mentioned below will be helpful.

I. Track down your everyday activity

     When i first started writing down the list of activities that i do everyday, it felt like a waste of time. But later while analyzing the one month data i clearly understood why i don't have enough time to do the necessary activities and it narrowed down to the bad habits that i had created over time.

I was spending most of my time in Facebook and was affected by the "Chain-clicking curse" where watching a video from Facebook will lead to YouTube in-turn to Twitter to see the trend and it goes on and on into loads of unnecessary browsing wasting your precious time

II.Understanding why we procrastinate

We procrastinate because of the habits that we create over time. When we work some random thought strikes our mind, it might be as simple as,
 
where to go for the next vacation?

and I go to online to check details of it.
it doesn't stop there, then to Facebook to see where my friends went?
and something else catches up my eyes and the clicks goes endlessly 

III. How we create Habits

I have been following this routine every day which let me do overtime to complete my work and had no time for the essential things in life. All of these made sense to me when i read the Power of habit by Charles Duhigg.

understanding the basic of habit was big help to me. I starts with a cue/signal in my case it was the random thought and my routine was to search about it and reward that i get is leaving a stressful work for that moment/satisfaction by answering my random thought which sucks my time endlessly leaving only a very short period of time to do the necessary.

Now the trick it to replace the bad routine with a good routine which will lead to greater productivity in life, which could be understood by looking at how runners reward themselves

Here the cue is the Running shoe and it lets you to the routine of running which was created over time, running leads to the reward which is sense of accomplishment on completing a run also satisfying the Endorphin craving that you get by looking at the running shoe

IV. How I cured myself by changing my routine

1. Keeping myself distraction free

a. Turn off internet: Most of my work doesn't need internet so turned 
     off my WiFi whenever i work.

b. Note pad: Whenever some random thoughts strike rather than searching it 
    online i started recording them down in a small note and researched about 
    them later

c. Setting Time limits: Started setting a duration to complete my work which        helped me to focus more on my work, Even had set time on socializing      
   with my colleagues spending not more than 5 minutes on 
    unnecessary talks.

2. Sustaining the habits

a. Tracking your activities: Its quite tough for me to write every activity now and then, so i spent half an hour every day before sleeping to write down the activities of the whole day splitting into hourly activities and do a quick analysis on where to improve next day. It looks something like this,

9:00 - 10:00 : Forecast Meeting
10:00 - 11:00 : Project#1 - Prepared the procedure
 
b. Prioritizing activities for tomorrow: This summary helps me in prioritizing the activities that i should be concentrating more tomorrow and I write down top 3 things that should be completed tomorrow

c. Monthly and Quarterly Review: then i started analyzing my monthly and quarterly data's to continuously improve my productivity

The methods mentioned above worked perfectly for me and I started finding more time to do the necessary things in life. Hope it will be useful for you as well, Let me know if it was helpful :)

What are the most productive ways to spend time on the internet.

Was browsing through Quora and I came upon this interesting and truthful article regarding procrastination and social media. With that I thought of sharing this here so everyone could have a read at this importance. 

P/S: I didn't alter a single thing on this article but copy directly from Quora. Credit to Quora as well as the writer for this interesting section, which frankly speaking, opened my mind about social media as well as procrastination. 

By Evan DeFilippis in Quora.
I think a lot of these answers miss the point of the question. The real issue isn't that there's a paucity of useful webpages on the internet, it's that taking advantage of those webpages is difficult. What does it say about human beings that we really can get an Ivy League education for free online but nearly nobody does it? The Coursera and Udacity and Khan Academy attrition rates are so phenomenal that it makes the completion rates look like round-off errors. We live in an attention-deficit culture, and the solution isn't better websites, it's better humans.

In view of spending your time more effectively, I suggest the following tips:

1. Completely cut Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and any other social sites out of your life. If you are unable to do this, strictly regulate the total time spent on these sites to 30 minutes to an hour each day. You can download Chrome extensions to help you with this like StayFocusd. But, I cannot emphasize enough how much these sites will ruin your life. Everyone always comes to the defense of social media with excuses like, "well, I use Facebook to keep in touch with my high school friends and relatives overseas," or "Twitter is how I stay up-to-date with current events," or "you can learn lots of great things with specialized subreddits," and so on. Yet when you look at a distribution of how people actuallyallocate their time, nearly none of it is spent doing the very things that people point to when they justify their behavior. It's always just mindless scrolling, animated gifs, cat videos, the first twenty seconds of a really neat lecture, and so on.
   
   What could be a more devastating rebuke of social media than the fact that nobody uses it for the reasons it was designed? This is, of course, auxiliary to the more important reality that research on Facebookconsistently shows that it makes everyone more sad and less fulfilled with life on average.
2. Practice efficient procrastination. If you need time to recharge in between difficult activities, find outlets in which you can still develop yourself as a person. For me, that's chess. I'll play a couple games of Blitz in between projects to recharge, and, more importantly, I'm not watching cat videos. For other people it might be practicing an instrument, or reading a book, or drawing.
3. To-do lists. There may be nothing more insanely effective than a to-do list. Write down what you have to do, prioritize the list by difficulty, and be excruciatingly detailed when you write down your objectives. Don't get fancy, don't use Evernote or a Chrome Extension, or some app, just use paper and pen. Don't write "Finish research paper on ethics." Write "Write one page on Chapter 3 of Peter Singer's 'Practical Ethics." The smaller, more discrete the tasks, the more superable they become. Also plan howyou are going to efficiently procrastinate in between the tasks. Write "play chess", "watch a Noam Chomsky lecture", "do one lesson of DuoLingo," and so forth in between big tasks. Take a power nap if you're too exhausted to be efficient with your procrastination. 
   
   Remember: when you don't plan your time, you fail to take advantage of opportunities that avail themselves, and you go for the path of least resistance -- which usually happens to be AngryBirds and YouTube videos.
4. Who cares? This is perhaps the most important point. Next time you are about to post something to Facebook, or watch a funny video, or read a blog post, or get involved in an internet argument, ask yourself: Who cares? If something isn't helping you to become a better you, don't waste your time. 
   
   Today I read a BuzzFeed article on "Epic Twitter Comebacks." I was baited into reading the article by the outrageous title, and subsequently became angry at myself for finishing it. The article just didn't matter. Nothing productive could possibly come from reading or writing it. The most popular articles shared anywhere -- Facebook, Buzzfeed, and the countless copycat sites-- are the journalistic equivalent of McDonald's. Consuming them makes everybody worse off.
   
   I have found myself knee-deep in an hour long compilation of Vines, and twenty minutes in, I have to do a reality check: This shit literally does not matter. The world would be a better place if all of it just disappeared. What possible value could there be spending all your time mindlesslyconsuming 7 second videos for hours at a time? It doesn't make you happier, it doesn't leave a lasting feeling of satisfaction; it is just raw, unproductive consumption.
   
   Now step back, and think of all the countless hours spent in front of screens, convincing yourself that it's just one more video, or just one more picture, just one more.. and then remember that this is your life. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. This is it, this is all we have; you are the aggregate of your experiences. Do you want the average of those experiences to be summarized by a few URLs, a couple videos, and some half-hearted commitments to better yourself? 
   
   So be vigilant! When you find yourself immersed in mindless consumption, ask yourself: "Who cares?" If what you're doing right isn't helping you become a better you, do something else.

Quotes. (Part One)

Suits me in terms of personalities, motivates me in terms of believing, teach me in terms of lessons. .

• Results aside, the ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess.
• "To get what you love, you must first be patient with what you hate.” - Imam Al-Ghazali
• You've come so far. Pour a cup of tea & brag to yourself. Truly, you’re a #miracle creating the miraculous.
• Profound emotional intensity, blood-tingling spiritual ardour, spellbinding metaphysical chutzpah.
• One thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
• Fatigue has accumulated this week like a leaden sludge into which I sink.
• Our worlds are all connected. We are free to come and go, so don't be sad and always know we'll come back soon to say hello.
• "Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path to joy." - Sarah Ban Breathnach
• With each new dawn it's not the same world as the day before. And you're not the same person you were, either.
• "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein
• I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.
• You and me together, that's how it always should be. One without the other don't mean nothing to me.
• I just put my heart into it. That's the difference. It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something, you can do it.
• "In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go." - Jack Kornfield
• “To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” — Sylvia Plath
• You've got this deep well inside of you, and you should shout into it.
• " To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal." - William James
• "We all have possibilities we don't know about. We can do things we don't even dream we can do." - Dale Carnegie
• Knowledge is knowing what to say. Wisdom is knowing whether or not to say it.
• Really enjoyed The Imitation Game. A useful reminder to tech culture: diversity of any & all kinds is to be embraced. #AlanTuring
• Look for something positive in each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.
• Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second." - William James
• It is just a matter of what you are looking for. Motive is the root of desire, so to speak. The important thing is to seek out the root.
• Dig beneath the complicated surface of reality.And keep on digging. Then dig even more until you come to the very tip of the root. 
• Like the ebb and flow of the tides. No can do anything to change them. When it is time to wait, you must wait.
• It takes some courage to stand up and speak; it takes even more courage to open your mind and listen.
• Embrace adventures before they flutter away.
• "Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." WJ Bryan
• I wish I could cry my feelings out all in one night and never feel them again. But alas, they always return at the most inconvenient times.
• Don’t pay any attention to me. Nobody ever does. –Eeyore
• Beauty is about living your life & being happy with yourself inside & out & not worrying about what people think of you.
• I don't have any regrets but I have several life lessons. I'm starting to be able to read the markings on this map of mine...
• “Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned.” — Haruki Murakami
• Always end the day with a positive thought; no matter how hard things were. Tomorrow is a fresh opportunity to make it better.
• Some people pass through our lives in a shorter time frame than we had hoped to teach us things they never could have taught if they stayed.
• My sword shall be ready to dissever all manifest embodiments of malign forces that conspire to your ruin.
• My grandfather always told me not to confuse "motion" with "progress" because a rocking chair moves but makes no progress. I understand now.
• Life has been some combination of fairy-tale coincidence and joie de vivre and shocks of beauty together with some hurtful self-questioning.
• I've said laughter is created by true affection; it's also created by quite the opposite, by a recognition of where we are ugly.
• In the world we live in, what we know and what we don’t know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.
• Go where you are celebrated – not tolerated. If they can’t see your true value and worth, then it’s time for a new start.
• A true friend sees the good in everything, and brings out the best in the worst of things.
• I would like to stand by the sea. It is there.
• "A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself." - Frank Crane
• I just disappeared. I do that. I move into another world, a different world. Like boarding a train running parallel.
• If you never noticed, it never happened.
• This is one piece of advice I have for you: don’t get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can’t do anything.
• Don’t get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it’s ready to come undone.
• You have to figure it’s going to be a long process and that you’ll work on things slowly, one at a time.
• "A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Life's blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm." - Norman Vincent Peale
• It's a world of silk. It's a world of organdie. It's a world of flower arrangements.
• After a certain length of time has passed, things harden up. Like cement hardening in a bucket. And we can’t go back anymore.
• Lots of different ways to live. And lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn't make a bit of difference.
• “I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
• “Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” — Gary Snyder
• Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course.
• People made an effort to change. Dont go barking around town blinded by your mindset. Then what's the point?
• ♫ In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun! ♫
• The spider had no confusion, no despair, no regrets. No metaphysical doubt, no moral complications. Unlike me. I have to move with purpose.
• It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare,it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
• Keep smiling, because that’s just what a princess does.
• A dull and aching void was left where careless hands had reached out to destroy my silver web of happiness.
• "When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." - Viktor Frankl
• Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.
• I'm an ambivert, will be quiet around people I don't know and still keep myself to myself, but will flourish when I want to.
• "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." - Mahatma Gandhi
• When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable. –Walt Disney
• Loneliness is like a disease of the blood, dispersed throughout the body so that one cannot locate the matrix, the spot of contagion.
• "Hope is not a feeling. It is a decision -- a choice you make based on what we call faith or moral conscience"
• If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s not easy to look for it.
• I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy.
• Our lives are like a complex musical score. Filled with all sorts of cryptic writing, sixteenth & thirty-second notes & other strange signs.
• I haven’t danced like this in ages. I don’t know, when you move your body, it’s kind of like your spirit gets liberated.
• I've got people I want to understand and be understood by. But aside from those few, well, I figure it’s kind of hopeless.
• #African #proverb: An insolent tongue is a bad weapon. From: The Wisdom of Africa, BBC, 2002
• "Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw
• If I think any harder about anything, I won’t know who I am anymore.
• Becoming serious was not the same thing as approaching truth. I knew I should be doing some serious thinking, but I had no idea how to go about it. And, to tell the truth, thinking was the last thing I wanted to do.
• We have a clear obligation, which is to resist.
• I’m scared I’ll never get better again. I’m scared I’ll always stay twisted like this and grow old and waste away.
• Now all you can do is wait. It must be hard for you, but there is a right time for everything. When it is time to wait, you must wait.
• You’re here. At least you look as if you’re here. But maybe you aren't. Maybe it’s just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you've hidden yourself behind a cloud of probably.
• There has to be pain. That’s the rule.
• How to describe all the minute, exquisite, sensuous joys! I am becoming calmer in the core.
• I guess never is too strong a word. Maybe someday, somewhere, we’ll meet again.
• There's no better teacher than life. Whether you fail or succeed, it will be an experience.
• You might gather the same materials and make identical preparations, but you would never be able to duplicate the result.
• Reflect before you act. –Mulan
• And after a time I couldn’t have cared less about the difference between what I knew and what I didn't know.
• Telling stories and laughing with friends: precious moments you'll never forget.
• Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?
• "We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey." - Kenji Miyazawa
• “There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look.” — Henri Matisse
• You only have so little time to make a good first impression. I hope at least, I'd make a decent one.
• She was tired. The journey. The rush hour. The weather, so unpredictable.
• Our life here was just a momentary illusion, and someday reality would yank us back to the world we came from.
• Sometimes memory helps you think, sometimes it impedes. Doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. Probably means it’s no big deal.
• Now all you can do is wait. It must be hard for you, but there is a right time for everything. When it is time to wait, you must wait.
• The film of your days & nights is wound up tight in you; the occasional flashbacks faint, blurred, unreal, as if seen through falling snow.
• Every story has a time to be told. Otherwise you’ll forever be a prisoner to the secret inside of you.
• I couldn't just shelve those feelings, for there was nothing to take their place.
• This storm is you. Something inside you. All you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm...and walk through it, step by step.
• Train your mind to see the good in everything.
• They sat back down again, across from each other at the table, and took turns opening up about what was in their hearts. Removing the lids on their hearts, pulling open the doors of memory, revealing honest feelings.
• "Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." - John F. Kennedy
• Think of the happiest things. It's the same as having wings.
• Your gut guides your overall well-being. If you want better immunity, efficient digestion, & improved clarity, focus on rebuilding your gut.
• "The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." - Mark Twain
• It's a world of laughter, a world of tears. It's a world of hopes, and a world of fears.
• "It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer ." - Albert Einstein
• Sometimes I feel like running away and leaving it all behind, try to find a place where I belong.
• Sometimes life requires a little bit extra creativity. –Mickey Mouse
• Try not to say anything negative about anyone for a week, month, or even a year, and watch what happens to your life

That's all for now. Oh and this would be my first blog post of 2015. Yahoo! (Y)