nicLIVE
Your actions do indeed define your ultimate meaning of life. It is how you engage in them that ultimately gives your life meaning. How can "living" define the meaning of life? There is a significant difference between living and surviving. One of the most important aspects in availing yourself of the meaning of life is understanding that difference.
Animals engage in survival. They plod through life breathing, eating, sleeping, defecating and avoiding danger. Occasionally they also engage in play. Be sure your human life encompasses far more.
If you are moving through life as an automaton, simply engaging in activities you neither enjoy nor feel... If your main preoccupation in executing your life is avoiding danger in its many forms be it physical threat, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional or financial loss of standing.... if each day passes with monotonous similarity and represents yet another mountain you must climb but would prefer not to..... Than you are surviving and not living.
Stopping to smell the roses is much more than an old adage, it is a prescription for understanding how to live. It is about perceiving, comprehending and feeling what you do and not simply mechanically doing it.
To live life, you must feel passionately about the things you do. Life is much too short not to do what you really enjoy. Nor is life a spectator sport. It is a full contact event requiring your action and participation. You are part of "Team Humanity" and you need to give it your all. Do what you love to do (as long as it does not hurt others) with passion and gusto and you will no doubt do it well.
Learn to balance your life and share your passion and gusto with others, in particular, those you care about most. Sharing your life interests with others will enrich them as well if you believe and feel passionately about what you do. The act of sharing with others will help you balance your own existence as well. It will insure that you don't simply engage in narrow, selfish pursuits to the exclusion of other aspects of your life and the important people in it. The act of sharing means you have to reach out, engage and understand the interests of others in order to involve them in yours as well.
LEARN
Your life must be one long learning experience if you wish to get the most out of it. Learn from your mistakes as well as your successes -- but always be sure you draw lessons from your experiences -- you can only grow if you truly learn from what you already know.
Learning is not simply about acquiring knowledge. It's also about spending your time in useful pursuit discovering the incredible universe of wisdom that is out there for you to avail yourself of.
You will never learn everything there is to know about any single subject, but seek out new knowledge as if it were possible. Keep on learning wherever you find yourself and in whatever way you can.
There are many ways to acquire wisdom -- from the confines of a structured classroom to sitting next to someone on the train and asking them about themselves. Whether you prefer reading books, watching a documentary on TV or learning by example -- just do it. If you are uncomfortable learning new things in new subject areas (you shouldn't be, really), then concentrate on learning as much about what you do enjoy.
Just don't ever make the mistake of thinking you know everything about anything. That is a recipe for stagnation, narrow-mindedness arrogance and hubris. Nobody knows everything. Those that think they do often understand less of what they think they know.
Learning something new is always the catalyst for a revelation that may change your life or the lives of others. If you are stuck in a rut and you find you are surviving rather than living, educating yourself in something new is always a good strategy to open a new path for yourself.
Remember too that knowledge is a valuable commodity to be collected and shared with equal fervor. Wisdom must be shared in order to reveal its true value. When you aren't learning, take the opportunity to offer the wisdom you have accumulated to others.
LOVE
It should be no surprise to anyone that love is at the center of the meaning of life. Why? Because in its purest form it implies a feeling of unselfish goodness towards other human beings. That is true in whatever form love takes whether it is between two lovers, a father and son, grandparents and grandkids or a religious person and his flock.
The simple reality is that to find meaning in your own life you must be able to give of yourself to others. No man is an island. We do not go through life alone. Our birth is the result of being carried and cared for by another. Throughout our life we are molded by teachers, relatives and friends, and we often die in the care of others. A person who can truly sacrifice for another in the name of love has encountered the raw energy of the life force itself.
If you stop to think of it, life is a constant cycle of giving and receiving in emotional, spiritual and material terms. Love is one of the few elements that both provides and returns something of real and overriding benefit. That is true with the other actions we have described as necessary in finding meaning in your life as well.
LAUGH
Laughter is an important element of life. It cannot be overlooked or underestimated. It is what inoculate us against the worst of life and the medicine that ultimately heals us.
To laugh is to understand the humor in a given situation and more importantly, to learn from it. It is the counterbalance to pessimism and hopelessness and the ability to see the silver lining in a dark cloud.
As human beings oftentimes we must separate ourselves from the intimate personal grief, embarrassment, etc... a bad situation causes before we can objectively appreciate and learn from it. Oftentimes, to learn from a bad experience we must first be able to make light of it. Finding humor in a bad situation creates the alternative perspective we need to separate ourselves from it. This provides us the opportunity to inoculate ourselves from further suffering, the insight to learn from bad experiences and the opportunity to ultimately to heal.
When we lose a loved one for instance, continued, persistent grieving about our personal loss will neither bring the person back nor mend our broken heart. On the other hand, remembering all the good, humorous memories keeps a lost loved one alive in our hearts forever and ultimately allows us to heal as well. The same is true for any bad experience. If you can ultimately laugh about a personal embarrassment rather than continuing to wallow in self-pity, you will learn important lessons from even your most unpleasant life experiences.
Laughter is about optimism. You have the ability to effect people and events around you through your own attitude. How you react to people events affects how they react to you. We are not promoting giddy stupidity or the dark humor of cynicism, but rather the positive outlook on life that being able to find humor in situations brings to you and those around you.
thanks nic.
i really need the laugh element now.. but i guess afterall, it's really not tt bad too ba..
life is never fair in this world.
this is a fact that we cant change and never will we be able to change.
but sometimes when you dun like something, i really duno how to accept it.. especially when you are pushing them away at the same time. i guess it's really time to reorganize my thots.
take care bro, keep on learning~ keep on striving~ and continue to SHINE~ (=
wow...then if i'm back at work, my colleagues asked me "so you know how to do this and that now?", I must say I don't know even if I know how to do liao? haha!
i agree with the laugther part...class or work is boring without the laugther from friends around...I'm very passive de, people laugh I also laugh. people "cool" i also "cool"...haha! cos if people don't appreciate my "lameness", I guess I will have a hard time bring laughter to people. So I'll just smile =)!
but hor - If you can ultimately laugh about a personal embarrassment rather than continuing to wallow in self-pity, you will learn important lessons from even your most unpleasant life experiences.
even though I agree to it too, its difficult lor. I will find myself crying after that. oh well, shall try to work on it...haha
no need sorry la, u jia you alright? thanks for sharing too.
And as mentioned before, thanks that your post come at the right time - if not I'll fall asleep in her class =X...
woohoo. i enjoyed reading this post. (:
living, learning, love, laughing.
"laughing is about optimisim. you have the ability to affect people and events around you through your own attitude. how you react to people and events affects how they react to you."
totally agree! :D
live life with a smile. heh.
Gd morning. Wa, just one day din come and 2 new postings oradi.
Nic, so philosophical. U pondering over lotsa thingy lately OR all the while u r litat?
LIFE - whether we live our Life or we survive our Life - we are both human and animal inside. How mani of us live a Life? We are in a world of tearing ea other down and the survival of the fittest. How mani stop to smell the rose? We don even stop to find out wat e happening with the ppl closest to us - father? mother? sister? best friends? Arn't we all guilty?
LEARINING is a nvr ending process. Intentionally or unintentionally we are learning and every min. & every hr. However wat craps and rubbish r accumulated in tis process largely depend on the individual. Knowledge is like a knife, sharp at both sides and only which one we use it to benefit ourselves or others.
LOVE ..wat mentioned here is of universal, unselfish LOVE. Not the narrow boy/girl LOVE, or a lust type of LOVE. To be able to give one to others is high aspiration but not unachievable.See yourself as a candle and burnt for others. Something aft my heart n struggling to live up to it.
LAUGHTER .. ha.a.a. tis is my fav. Mus learn hw to laugh at myself. How come got ppl say Singaporean don kwn how to laugh? Laughter shld be wholeheartedly.
LOST ..along da way, we lost thingy.Our baby stinking pillow, to our lost love etc. Lost is da way to grow, understand, accept and move on.
Good to see so mani positive highlights here - encouraging, inspiring but don't u think a bit too 'chim' for the 'young'.
I enjoyed yr long postings Nic. U hv not shown up here long time till lately. We brushed shoulder mani times in da army & I knw u but u not kwn me.
Sori don't misunderstand me here that I am posting against wat da Nic posted, it is jus my share of da issues.
....declared I am not Nic!
Once again thanks for sharing. It is meaningful and true. Hehe. Xin ku ni le. Ppl out there we must laugh and be optimistic. Haha.
Which guitar is good? Acoustic or electric?
About superband 2 audition. Quite a lot of ppl join in the first day at toa payoh HDB hub. But on 2nd day not so much ppl join in. Also got saw familiar face. I think got a lot of ppl saw xiao long ba. Haha. He join superband before, but i have forgot what is their band name. Yup this year the contestants are quite good.
Jia you! :D
Only dreamer live life…
Is human life just a dream, from which we never really awake, as some great thinkers claim? Are we submerged by our feelings, by our loves and hates, by our ideas of good, bad, beautiful, awful? Are we incapable of knowing beyond those ideas and feelings?
By 2 great poets:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep...
~ William Shakespeare (in The Tempest)
A man that is born falls into a dream is like a man who falls into the sea.
~ Joseph Conrad (in Lord Jim)
And it’s by dreaming, we are...
...challenge to know beyond ideas and feelings through learning. We learn through the processes and journeys we embarked. Exploring and challenging our gusto to tap on the unknown and to embrace the uncertainty. Learning can be mistakenly painful but it’s a great reward...
...to face the brutal facts and beginning to unfolding the camouflage we painted on ourselves; also to let down the barriers we put up that limit our horizons to living out our emotions...
...and we could see love and cruelty on our lives. Love gives meaning to our lives – as do friendship, or art or faith. These are factors of true happiness, of inner peace, of feelings of harmony, allowing meaning to our existence.
But there is the other side. There is the cruelty of life, the pain, the evil, not to talk of death. They are the hidden tigers, ambushed and ready to attack the imprudent. But as we are love and beloved, it gives us strength to brace up in all adversities...
*I used to be an ardent supporter who rushed to the front of the stage to scream my lungs out. Now I would rather be a discerning audience who sits back and appraising the artiste’s piece of art (be it own compos or another rendition). The reward is remarkably as I could find myself participating in the whole journey.*
Hey, I found an article which is a great read... Truth vs Facts in Songwriting: http://www.lyricist.com/Schock/LASS23.HTM
whoa... when i came here, i was like..is this the right blog? glad to see my bro posting man. ;)
A little update..woke up at 2.30pm today! wow.. amazing rite?haha..cos previous nite i only slept 2 hrs.. haha jialat la my time management..mugged too much for one paper and died for the other.. 2 papers in a day yesterday..but no choice. Will read up on these posts after the submissions ya? meanwhile, hope all the mlbians get inspired! Take care peeps..
Omg slept for 2 hrs so less. Sure cannot tahan de. I hope your brother never tell u to read the article he blogged ba. Haha. Better not cos u are busy with your school stuff. Jia you.
U got saw cx & jx at ntu mah? Haha. They also having exam now. Do check chengxi blog if u want to noe more abt him ba. Today he just update his blog. Ya hoh also must wait until u free then u can visit his blog. Haha. Dinner time. Hope u all enjoy dinner. :)
;)
Good to rest and reflect. Sometimes so many things whirl around in mind, so many things to cope with.
There are times when arts are so subjective, so many opinions, so many competitions and external pressures, hectic hours, and the breathless days, some doubts we may harbour till we question ourselves if my craft is on the right track or not. Have I lose my way in other ppl's opinions? If my art is avant garde to the majority, will I continue to follow my rules of thumb?
I believe good self explorations really help to balance up spiritually, emotionally and mentally. If you are in these aspects stable, you have no problem in bringing your art to a higher level because you have no doubts.
Applies to every aspects of life, self exploration is a good experience; knowing yourself makes you know other people better. My hectic days are soon to be over - Holidays!
Cheers!
By the way nic, do you use logic pro or protools for music scoring? Logic pro seems real fun man. That's my recent playtool during freetime. Guess I'll have to get familiar with those funny bars and terms, but changing frequencies and gains, reducing echos and blah blah is really addictive. Still exploring it. ;)
By the way,
I like this phrase:
Stopping to smell the roses is much more than an old adage, it is a prescription for understanding how to live. It is about perceiving, comprehending and feeling what you do and not simply mechanically doing it.
Cause frankly speaking, for me to know someone with minimal conversations or something, I like to use my 5 senses. Using 5 senses, you can understand and admire people in a very sensual way. Sensual, not sexual.. haha.. And my favourite sense is smell. Using smell to define someone is very sensual. There was a bisexual teacher whom I'm curious about. I wonder how he smell like, and I took his jacket which he left beside me by coincidence. And from his smell, tells me alot on his personality. I was secretly so happy to do that. And the smell that lingers is neither man's cologne nor female's perfume. It is something not so feminine not so male.. Anyway, I'm just trying to connect myself more to the person whom I see so often and I can't justify by not doing so cause knowing him makes his lessons more interesting..
And the other time, my course mate left his Mp3 around. I identified it as his due to his smell on the Mp3. Yes.. using 5 senses to perceive is really dynamic. To listen is to visualise and vice versa, to touch and smell is to perceive. To see is to confirm and know.. That's how you apply knowing ppl without dialogues and perceiving a non-living matter. ;)
haha! yup.. human are amazing.. we tend to have different comprehensive ways.
Most people "connect" with touch - skin contact that stimulates the emotions. Skin contact with normal friends such as passing something to each other and your skin brushes against theirs, these "connects" ppl emotional in the subconscious mind.
That is why ppl do feel emotionally warm in each others presence. Ppl whom you seldom "touch" like teachers, principals, even how much crap you talk to each other, you tend to have the distance between the relationship.
Unless you can "connect" to ppl other than your sense of "touch".
huh? don't tell me we can "connect" with people with our sense of "taste" too??? hahaha! that will be er xin liao, but thanks for sharing yo~
eiyer can anyone tell me what should I do? my friend (at work de) hor, having some relationship problems with his girlfriend la...cos her girlfriend duno whether to choose between him or one other guy. then yada yada...he sad sad le lor...asking stupid questions like "have I forgotten how to smile?"...zen me ban?? haha...
off to work now, have a nice weekend milubing and MLBians~ jia you jia you!!!
eh.. hahaha.. sense of taste ar..also can leh.. you can try the beverage the other party is drinking. Then think why this person like this kind of drink. why is it so bitter, sweet or something special. There is always a reason for preferences.
e.g. I don't drink coffee at all. But if I ever do, it's only 1 type of coffee mixed with milo and I drink it in the remembrance of my gd friend who concocted it for me.
I tasted my rabbit's food in order to know why he likes it so much.. then, I concluded that he likes food with salty smell though the food is really horrible to me.. that explains why some animals bite fingers - due to the salty smell from sweaty palms. ;)
HEYS.. such inspiring posts you've got there!=)
Haizzz... my parents kept telling me im so arrogant in learning new things(or kinda, knowledge) frm my sis... at first i thought it was not true.. haha but now i think im really kind of biased.. only want to learn frm teachers.. haha aiyo, i can say i was so dumb then.. =p
I should say thanks for that 'medicine' i need =)
JIAYOU everyone!!! (for any tests/exams/overcoming obstacles in life)
oh-oh.. i do not want to think bout any of my tests.. oops haha =D
wow...
nic.. really thanks for sharing those wonderful stuff u had share. and yes really needed this stuff right nw. (: u really did a good job by sharing with us ! thanks nic! :) learn so much in this entry! xD
weiqi
jiayou jiayou for ur studies. haha! dun overstress yo! (: study hard and rest well.. heh!
oh no, feel so guilty to read abt the live part. hmm...been tinking wat's wrong. i tink i sorta love wat i do, not passionate abt it, not smthg i hate, but imptly it's smthg i can do reasonably well. maybe dun like the environmt i m in? to chg fr surviving to living, takes a lot of courage esp in these realistic times. 1st, gotta find smthg i m passionate & good at! haha... unfortunately not everyone finds their calling in life.
LEarn, always enjoy learning new stuff outside of work! haha, aiyo i this kind of employee can throw away liao. sometimes wn a person has been doing smthg for a long time, the person tends to get big headed. sometimes quite hard to stay humble in dat aspect.
Love, agree can exist in so many diff forms, if only we, ourselves can understd it too. gotta learn how to give it more often n not be stingy w it esp w family. it's funny how much more we connect w frens than our own family members sometimes.
Laugh, ok this is wat i do best! laugh at myself n other people. hey at last, something i can score better than the other 3 Ls :p Yeah! now go n read ure links. nite!
hey mlbians..going to die again...i jus emailed my teacher requesting(more like begging) him to extend the submission deadlines for our final assignments for the semester..if he doesn't then this sem i super CUI... sigh.. anyways,someone asked recently bout the 'big' concert on june 1st rite?haha..that blog inaccurate..cos i not in s'pore leh..i got church camp..need to refresh my soul man..so dead inside sometimes..physically alive but rotting inside..so i need a break..long awaited. sam mite be going to the same camp,i not sure,he never mention. Nic will probably still perform @ the concert! YAY! steady la bro...haha..he help to hold the fort this time..should be interesting rite? muz help take care of Nic when I not around hor haha..kiddin..OK...forcing myself to slp now.. ;) tmr will worry for itself..hope for good news from my tutor.. :p kids dun learn from wq ge ge hor.. heh heh...
mrchanweiqi, begging sounds so erm... -_-" but this kind of thing, just try to dig up as many reasons as possible la.. haha.. guess you aren't the only one who can't finish the assignment? get all your friends to email your teacher together, got higher chance of getting extended leh.. ok ignore my stupid idea, haha..
wa you all bully nic leh.. usually u and sam will help talk during interview and stuff then now he's on his own.. aiyo.. haha. anyway the thing said that you guys are on the invite list, didn't say you guys are confirmed going.. and you sound like nic's bodyguard?! what take care of him when you not around.. haha.. sound like you so important to him, you not around people will bully him.. tsk tsk..
when you finishing your papers? holiday soon liao la.. go go go!
no actually i should say you sound like nic's big bro. haha.. make youself sound older than him.. nic, you damn fortunate to have a bro that takes care of you so much.. going camp also scared nobody take care of you.. haha.. but this is also one bro who will 放冷箭 and shoot you behind your back.. HAHA. :p jk hor, weiqi. haha..
hello weiqi~ haha hope your cher allowed lo~ haha hope your teacher is reasonable de, not like my FYP faci - don't do her work, will tio scold until very CHOU de lor~ haha!
how is nic going to perform alone by the way? haha~ but it will be interesting though. hehe
jia you jia you~ take care, have a good rest~
oh panda, that concert is the only free concert Channel U organize - to gather all the PSS, CSS, Superbands and etc to perform de...haha! i think i may not be able to go though...haha
i go do a bit of FYP report then go slp le. ciao~
Weiqi u and sam so bad left nic alone. Haha. Hope sam can attend the concert on june 1st. How nic going to perform alone? Haha.
Ya loh u sound like nic's bro leh. Haha. Hmm i think shld be interesting. Haha. Maybe try to make him dance & sing more song for us on june 1st. Haha. Dun worry we will help u take care of nic de.
On june 1st sure very high n happy cos got pss,css,superband n etc going to perform for us. Yeah! U are the one ppl will be there on tat day mah?? Jia you,take care & rest well.
We must protect the earth in every country... Reuse,recycle n .... Haha. Example dun use wooden pencil, use mechanical pencil and u can refill the lead. When using paper use both side of the paper and etc... Haha.
SAM i miss you too! Ni zai na li? U have been mia for long time. When u are free must come here n tag or blog. Haha. If u not free then nvm. Haha. Jia you!
Hello MLB. Happy Earth Day, a reminder to make good use of things wearable, edible, recycleable to save the earth. I remembered my mum told me a stroy when I was a kid. She said a rich man house use to throw away left over food. The old neighbour thought that it was a waste so she filter all the items thrown out by the rich household. She wash away everything and kept only the rice. She made them into round cake form and sun it. As time goes by, she accumulated a whole barn of dried rich cake. It happened that the town was stiked with famine and she gave this to all the hungry. When the richman knew abt this, he was very shy and from that day on, he made the household cook enough to eat, old cloths made into blankets and sewn into little clothes for babies and kids. Thus the town was known for its good habits and no one is every hungry or have nothing to wear.
Recently I saw some very beautiful items made from unwanted banners. The tagline said 'Trash is beautiful'. It is creative but it is not cheap.
K, little tales for the day.
Hey MLB/ MLBians, steal time to come in and peep before the day gets busy. Nice posting from Nic. Hello WQi, take care and don't fall sick with all you studies and activities. It is good to give yourself a break and recharge, good for the body, mind and soul. I am sure Nic will not be alone as MLBians will cheer him de.
Hello Sam, missing. Reservice huh? or when for recharging? Hope things are well with you too. Miss you guys and I hope we will meet again soon. Jiayou and keep up. Will we see you all in SB II?
Have a nice week ahead.
:)
Hi, no more further posting from Nic? K, let me share my story and moral for today.
【神父与屠夫】
从前有一个神父跟一个屠夫是好朋友。神父天天早上要起来念经，而屠夫天天要起来杀猪。 为了不耽误他们早上的工作，是他们约定早上互相叫对方起床。
多年以后，神父与屠夫相继去世了。屠夫去上天堂了，而神父却下地狱了。
Why?
因为屠夫天天作善事，叫神父起来念经，相反地，神父天天叫屠夫起来杀生……
小哲理：
你做的东西是不是都是你认为对的，却不一定是对的。
wat say you????
....declared I am not Nic
MiLuBing,
Jia you ... Hope U all r having great days , everyday ... Hope tat everything is fine for the 3 of u ... Jia you ...
Nic,
U power lah ... Can be so committed into music ... Commitment doesn't come easy ... And ur commitment is like ... U r putting ur whole life in it ... I'm so impressed...
Sam,
Hope you are enjoying ur life ... Hope everything is fine at ur side ... Jia you ...:)
Wei Qi,
Jia you in ur studies ... Can do things tat u enjoy doing is a good thing ya ?? Haha... I don't think HW, projects are enjoyable... So jia you lah ...hehe...
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sorry abit deep this few days.
been trying to live up to the best i can be.
need to revive my "soul".. if not i'ld be lost to the world ard me.
welcome to my world.
:)
be true to yourself and ppl ard.. dun let those who didnt give up on ya once upon a time be disappointed. love ya dad n mum!