You know how people complain of dizziness? Like the head is pumping and beating? I've gone through that a couple of times, and its usually due to signs of fever, or too much sleep, or lack of water.
I've also heard of people complaining that their head is spinning. That I've never gone through, other than repeatedly turning myself around 360degrees of course.
However, for the past few days, this has happened to me twice. I stand up, and then I cannot walk straight because everything else around me seems to move around like waves. I try taking a step forward, and then I feel like falling down. My head doesn't hurt at all. I just cannot walk straight, like there's an earthquake happening or something, everything else seems to be moving. I take a few more steps, sit down, drink some water, and then everything is back to normal.
Weird. Dr. Ezyana. Help!
I've also heard of people complaining that their head is spinning. That I've never gone through, other than repeatedly turning myself around 360degrees of course.
However, for the past few days, this has happened to me twice. I stand up, and then I cannot walk straight because everything else around me seems to move around like waves. I try taking a step forward, and then I feel like falling down. My head doesn't hurt at all. I just cannot walk straight, like there's an earthquake happening or something, everything else seems to be moving. I take a few more steps, sit down, drink some water, and then everything is back to normal.
Weird. Dr. Ezyana. Help!
I just completed reading a book, " The Soul of A Butterfly" from Muhammad Ali and Hana Yasmeen Ali. I was amazed and touched by Muhammad Ali. The words, ideology and thinking is great. It makes me wonder, if he embraced Islam and were proud to his new religion, what am I then? I was born a Muslim and still a Muslim. What have I done that shows that I am a Muslim?
How touching is that?As a Muslim, I am touched and vows to be a better Muslims. Being a true Muslim will not bring me backwards but I believe that God is with me to the better path of my life. I believe Islam will lead me to a place where I have not been. A place of greatness which I have been looking for.
I have been enjoying reading books lately and I guess I should start reading Holy Quran, Tafseer, The Autobiography of Muhammad and his followers. I vow not be a robot and being dictate by someone. I can listen but NOT to be dictate. Only God can dictate me.
The fear towards mankind should be wiped away. No matter how big, rich, intelligent someone is, only He is Great and that's why He is the Almighty.
Well, I am not a pious or a changed person. Don't change. Change will lead to catastrophe as what has been faced by me. Look for inspirations and motivations daily. There are many honestly.
God created people for reasons. Messi, Muhammad Ali and Lance Amstrong for example, they are great athletes who inspires millions of sport fans due to their unique character. Wealth, fame and glories does not bother them. They inspire with their discipline and character. All of em' believe in God. It shows that whoever believe in God and has a good heart, they will not crumble no matter what.
Our life is too short too complain and brag. Let's change the way we see at things and be thankful for once. No matter what religion we are, we are all praying to the same Al-Mighty. Let's smile and do good deeds starting from today.
Small changes, big differences.
Happy Friday all!
Just this morning, I attended a meeting with the project
team to discuss on the mobilization plan for the vessel and barges. Throughout
the meeting, attendees threw out comments like “We’re not sure if this other
vessel will arrive on time,” or “What if the weather goes bad and we cannot
depart on schedule?” and then we were discussing on what ifs and what ifs and
what ifs. Then out of nowhere, an American member of the project team, voiced
out clearly and loudly:
“Everybody in this room DOUBTS, but no one is daring enough
to make a DECISION. No one wants to hold the responsibility to do so. Make a
decision, commit and we tackle the problems as they come. We need to change the
way we think here. We need to change our mindset and stop this mentality,”
And then everyone just kept quiet and nodded, agreeing to
what he just said.
All you need is just an outsider, a different race, a
different nationality, to come up with a different opinion on the whole
situation.
The mat-sallehs
aren’t the best in everything, but when it comes to their ‘out-of-the-box’
thinking and their attitude, their values, I give them thumbs up. It was some of the things
that I learnt during my 4 years studying in Sydney.
But what happened? I’ve learnt a lot from them. Have I not
applied them in my everyday life? Or have I been too absorbed with culture of
the majorities here? It has only been two years since I came back.
That particular incident had me thinking.
If I were to work in an international company, there will be
a variety of people right? It will be good to learn from them and to absorb
their culture, especially at the start of our career years. Imagine what I can
learn from a Japanese! You know what they say. Your surroundings shape you!
It also makes me sad that Malaysians have quite a long way
to go when it comes to the right mentality, the right attitude in life.
But we really can’t be depending so much on the surroundings
right? This is home after all. Malaysia. What I can do instead, is to reflect,
on myself, on the surroundings, and BE that different outstanding person that
sees things in a different manner.
Why expect a change in the society when you cannot even
change yourself?
“If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at
yourself, and make that CHANGE,” Man in the Mirror by Micheal Jackson
It’s funny how I’m such a cool and calm person when I’m with
everyone else but my loved ones. I easily snap and react towards them, in which
I feel really bad about after, especially towards my parents.
I tell myself to keep it cool, but the minute something
happens, it just triggers me immediately, without even having the chance for
the head to talk to the heart.
Maybe that is who I really am, that darker side of me, which
can only be seen by them, my loved ones.
But I hate hurting them. I really do.
MasyaAllah, berdosanya rasa bila naik suara dengan mak
bapak. Kalau tak naik suara, cakap dengan nada perli. Nak mintak maaf pun
susah, duk pikir banyak kali. Dengan adik-adik pun, saya senang melenting.
Dengan encik rawakrambling ni pun sama. Adoi.. kena belajar control diri. Nanti
tak pasal-pasal jadik anak derhaka, isteri derhaka, kakak derhaka…pastu muntah
darah, tukar jadik batu dan macam-macam lagilah.. (tulah dia..pengaruh cerekarama tv3 dan
tv9)
Last Friday, me and Mr went to a talk by Shaykh Abdulbary Yahya in Taylor's University. The title of the talk was "The Shepherd's Path'. It was about the story of our beloved Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.
This was our second time attending an Islamic talk together, the first was Imam Suhaib Webb's talk about 8 months back. Its always a good feeling, attending Islamic talks with him. Like for an hour or so, we were both on the same page, gaining the same knowledge on Islam, telling each other "Eh write that!" or giving eye contact or signs that say "Hah! Listen to that!"... and I love the follow up discussions we have in the car later after the talks.. (although it may sometimes turn out to debates and fights haha)
I notice that most of the attendees came in groups, probably a usual thing for them, to attend these seminars with a group of friends who share the same interests. I'm sure they often get invites to attend these seminars to improve their knowledge in Islam, how lucky!
As for me and Mr, I have to say that it has never really been our top priority, but I'm glad that we remind each other, that sometimes, we need to attend Islamic talks, in order to remind ourselves too. "Eh jom! There's this talk on... yadda...yadda...yadda..."
We can be a bit picky and bias though. Honestly, we love it when the foreigners talk. First of all, its because its conducted in English. Secondly, because they're easier to relate to our modern practices and it really gets to the heart. We don't get reminders on how we'll be punished if we disobey, instead we're being taught and reminded on how we can improve ourselves and purify our hearts - a more overall positive approach.
There was a moment during the talk, Shaykh talked about the day of the death of our Prophet S.A.W, and while he was telling the story, he teared. I looked around and I saw another 5-6 others, bringing out tissues from their pockets/bags, and wiped their tears too. Me and about 50 others in the hall just listened to his story, just like it was another story.
At that moment, I felt ashamed. Ashamed that I didn't love our Prophet as much as these people did. If we love someone, when we talk about them or their deaths, we can feel the sadness in our hearts. But how can we love someone, if we don't know the person well enough? I was ashamed.
Here we are in this modern world, trying our best to know every single thing about Beyonce's life and her pregnancy, go hysteria over Justin Bieber, and mourn on the death of Steve Jobs, and we read books of top international footballers, and we don't even bother to know our Prophet a little better? Other than stories being told by our Ustaz/Ustazah?
In order to love someone, we need to know and understand the person well. What have we done to understand and know our Prophet Muhammad S.A.W well?
Oh. What a reminder.
To keep updates on other related seminars/talks in Malaysia, you may check out:
1. Al-Kauthar Institute
2. Al-Maghrib Institute
3. Young Muslims Project
This was our second time attending an Islamic talk together, the first was Imam Suhaib Webb's talk about 8 months back. Its always a good feeling, attending Islamic talks with him. Like for an hour or so, we were both on the same page, gaining the same knowledge on Islam, telling each other "Eh write that!" or giving eye contact or signs that say "Hah! Listen to that!"... and I love the follow up discussions we have in the car later after the talks.. (although it may sometimes turn out to debates and fights haha)
I notice that most of the attendees came in groups, probably a usual thing for them, to attend these seminars with a group of friends who share the same interests. I'm sure they often get invites to attend these seminars to improve their knowledge in Islam, how lucky!
As for me and Mr, I have to say that it has never really been our top priority, but I'm glad that we remind each other, that sometimes, we need to attend Islamic talks, in order to remind ourselves too. "Eh jom! There's this talk on... yadda...yadda...yadda..."
We can be a bit picky and bias though. Honestly, we love it when the foreigners talk. First of all, its because its conducted in English. Secondly, because they're easier to relate to our modern practices and it really gets to the heart. We don't get reminders on how we'll be punished if we disobey, instead we're being taught and reminded on how we can improve ourselves and purify our hearts - a more overall positive approach.
There was a moment during the talk, Shaykh talked about the day of the death of our Prophet S.A.W, and while he was telling the story, he teared. I looked around and I saw another 5-6 others, bringing out tissues from their pockets/bags, and wiped their tears too. Me and about 50 others in the hall just listened to his story, just like it was another story.
At that moment, I felt ashamed. Ashamed that I didn't love our Prophet as much as these people did. If we love someone, when we talk about them or their deaths, we can feel the sadness in our hearts. But how can we love someone, if we don't know the person well enough? I was ashamed.
Here we are in this modern world, trying our best to know every single thing about Beyonce's life and her pregnancy, go hysteria over Justin Bieber, and mourn on the death of Steve Jobs, and we read books of top international footballers, and we don't even bother to know our Prophet a little better? Other than stories being told by our Ustaz/Ustazah?
In order to love someone, we need to know and understand the person well. What have we done to understand and know our Prophet Muhammad S.A.W well?
Oh. What a reminder.
To keep updates on other related seminars/talks in Malaysia, you may check out:
1. Al-Kauthar Institute
2. Al-Maghrib Institute
3. Young Muslims Project
These past few days, me and mr. have been discussing on
whether to have our solemnization done at home or in the mosque.
He prefers the mosque as he wants to start this new journey
of ours in a place very much blessed and loved by Allah. He says that in the
mosque, people will automatically be well-behaved, and well-dressed; i.e:
respect the blessed occasion. Mosque also has a bigger space where more people
can witness the ceremony, instead of guests viewing the event through screens.
“I wanna do the solat (prayer) sunat after the solemnization
in the mosque, and then after that I want us both to solat hajat together, as a husband and a wife, with
me as your imam..and then after that we can celebrate with whichever tradition
we want, doesn’t bother me much..” he says.
To tell you the truth, I was deeply touched with that statement. Like wow… he’s such a man! Hehe.
However, yes, there’s always a but…
There’s that concern on menstruating women entering the mosque
– whether its haram? What if I’m the one menstruating? Can I not witness by
husband being wed to me?
There’s also that concern on people not dressing well/behaving
well in the mosque; some still showing off their aurat or laughing out loud,
due to either ignorance or due to lack of knowledge on adab masjid.
There’s also that debate that says that Rasulullah S.A.W
doesn’t agree with solemnization being conducted in mosques as it is a place
for Muslims to pray and not to conduct other occasions; i.e: sell goods/food/drinks,
announce death, conduct khatam quran etc.
And after all, there’s really nothing wrong with solemnizing
at home right? More merrier it seems?
Some say certain mosques have special places for solemnization where women are allowed to enter?
Lagi berkat di rumah ataupun di masjid?
Please share with me your opinions on this. Share with me
links/articles on this matter.
My cousin Tania asked me the other day, "So, what will be your wedding theme?"
I DON'T KNOW! I've never really had a theme in mind before!
"Ok what colour do you like? Green right?"
"Green apple would be nice."
"Eh and then we can literally put green apples!"
...."and you can have a white dress, and the bridesmaids can all be in green,"
...."and we can have the DKNY apple perfume.. and we can hang apples here and there..."
by then, my aunty and my mom were already jumping into the conversation..and then...poooof! There goes my wedding theme: Green Apple!
...."and you can have a white dress, and the bridesmaids can all be in green,"
...."and we can have the DKNY apple perfume.. and we can hang apples here and there..."
by then, my aunty and my mom were already jumping into the conversation..and then...poooof! There goes my wedding theme: Green Apple!
Did some online research and look at what I've found. Simply B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L :)
OK. Now, I'm excited :D
So in September, Mr. bought himself a new toy right? only ONE month ago right?
Such a spoiled brat. Oh God, please tell me I'm marrying the right man here!
Now lets get him a GPS tracking system for this new toy.
Then last 2 weeks, he enjoyed himself in Bali.. lalalala.. and then, he lost it! He 'accidentally' left it at the counter! Like seriously, who 'accidentally' leaves a ONE month old RM2000 Samsung Galaxy Tab?? Like its a RM2 pen??
To make matters worst, he told his parents about it, got some 'adult' scolding, or more like a reminder, and then he magically worked his way out, and then just last night, "he" got himself a new iPad? Like seriously?!?
 |
| Look at how happy he is!! |
Such a spoiled brat. Oh God, please tell me I'm marrying the right man here!
Now lets get him a GPS tracking system for this new toy.
First : Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say, " I want plenty of money." Be definite as to the amount.
Second: Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as "something for nothing.")
Third: Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.
Fourth: Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
Fifth: Write out clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.
Sixth: Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning.
This article is taken from the "Think and Grow Rich Every Day by Joel Fotinos and August Gold.
Most of my friends have gone through this dark phase in life, and then suddenly appreciate this other brighter side of it. They've partied hard, enjoyed limitlessly, and then they decide that they're done with all that and settle down.
Some of us don't go through life to the extremes. I for instance, have been going through life moderately, within the grey area. Not too goody-goody and not too naughty as well.
I've always been happy the way I am, the way I live. I'm happy at how moderate and well-balanced my life is. I have never really wanted to try to 'fit-in' or 'blend' in with the crowd, no matter how diverse they are from me.
But I can't help but wonder: Do we really have to go through that extreme phase in life? Everyone seems to be going through it that and there's thoughts in my head, wondering, "What if I wake up one day and realize that I haven't live life to the fullest? That I haven't experience all that life has to offer? That I suddenly go out partying at the age of 40?" That would be crazy!
I hope if I do wake up with a sudden thought in my head, the thought would be:
"Is Allah satisfied?"
or
"What have you invested in this life for your afterlife?"
Hah take that yo! Heeeee ;)
Some of us don't go through life to the extremes. I for instance, have been going through life moderately, within the grey area. Not too goody-goody and not too naughty as well.
I've always been happy the way I am, the way I live. I'm happy at how moderate and well-balanced my life is. I have never really wanted to try to 'fit-in' or 'blend' in with the crowd, no matter how diverse they are from me.
But I can't help but wonder: Do we really have to go through that extreme phase in life? Everyone seems to be going through it that and there's thoughts in my head, wondering, "What if I wake up one day and realize that I haven't live life to the fullest? That I haven't experience all that life has to offer? That I suddenly go out partying at the age of 40?" That would be crazy!
I hope if I do wake up with a sudden thought in my head, the thought would be:
"Is Allah satisfied?"
or
"What have you invested in this life for your afterlife?"
Hah take that yo! Heeeee ;)
 |
| Life is a balancing act. via Up In The Stars |
Check this video out. We will be having one in Malaysia soon! Wanna be part of it? Watch this space and follow twitter topic #Mp3xKL
Will share the promo video soon!
<Stanford Report, June 14, 2005>
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
"Help yourself before you help others"
Recently, I went to Bali for the second time as my photography buddy paid the ticket for me. I went there with two others friends of mine. Both have never been to Bali and were excited to see what Bali is all about.
Throughout the trip, I discovered a few things:
- I always want to change others when I really don't need to. - Hey, I just noticed that people don't need to be changed unless if they require any. Accept people the way they are and we will appreciate their existence;
- Everyone who believes in religion will never be shy to pray. Looking at the Hindu's there, they pray at any places. Why should we be ignorant when others do bow to their God?;
- Party never ends. Someone who loves to party will not realize how different life is to compared with normal people who enjoy their life in a different manner. There's a lot of ways to enjoy our life ; Food, travelling, reading books, charity etc. getting pissed and high on drugs is just a way of life which shouldn't be practiced;
- Young people tend to be rebellious if we control them. What we should do is to educate them on the life and let them decide. Human nature, we control because we are afraid but if we let go our fear, it will be much better;
- One of the best ways to connect to people is to be a good listener;
- Sometimes we need to look at others as they might be our mirror;
- Self-reflection is good as it shows how good or bad we are;
- Change is a process. If you fail today, keep on trying to change as you'll add on experience and values to your life;
- The most respected person is someone that can live up to their values. They don't leave the society just because they are changing but they instill and believe that their values will eventually be the eye openers to others;
- Respect others and share the love with others and you'll be blessed.
p/s: I've always wanted to change all my life but unable to follow through. Why? Is it because of too many things that I want to change or is it because for the purpose of making other people see it?
I talked to a lawyer yesterday, and she told me about some of the things I should consider when purchasing properties. Being an engineer, all these terms were all Greek language for me. Never once was I exposed to any of these terms:
All the time throughout the conversation, I just nodded and jotted down all these weord terms and then referred to my best friend: Mr.Google & Mr.Wikipedia. Suddenly. I feel all grown up. Wahh wahhh.
- Strata Title
- SPA (Sale & Purchase Agreement) - aka SNP
- TA (Tenancy Agreement)
- Maintenance Fees
Before buying property, it is advisable to appoint a solicitor to inspect the original title documents of the property being purchased. It is advisable not to secure any property in a hurry and without subjecting all the property documents to rigorous legal scrutiny. Find out any minor claims, court litigations, government acquisition proceeding, zonal regulations and other subsisting charges on the propertytaken from Beginners Guide for Buying an Apartment
All the time throughout the conversation, I just nodded and jotted down all these weord terms and then referred to my best friend: Mr.Google & Mr.Wikipedia. Suddenly. I feel all grown up. Wahh wahhh.
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| In 2 weeks time, she'll be married! |
Event organizer: Miss Tania Eggplant
Taken from Zenhabits's '5 Ways to Turn Fear into Fuel'
Multitasking is out.
Turns out this badge of honor from the ’90s is more fiction than fact. Our brains don’t multitask, they just rapidly switch between tasks, sometimes fast enough for us to believe we’re doing many things at once. Problem is, every time we switch, there is a “ramping cost” in your brain, it takes anywhere from a few second to 15 minutes for your brain to fully re-engage. This makes you feel insanely busy, but simultaneously craters productivity, creativity and increases feelings of anxiety and stress.
Multitasking also requires you to hold a lot of information in your working memory, which is controlled by a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC). But the PFC is also responsible for will-power, and for keeping fear and anxiety in check. Multitasking increases the “cognitive load” on the PFC, overwhelming it and effectively killing it’s ability to keep fear, anxiety and the taunt of distraction at bay.
Simple solution–just say no. Do one thing at a time in intense, short bursts.
