Dreaming of a Holiday

Times flies! It's been nearly a year since my last getaway when I visited the hometown of my better half, Myanmar.

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Saw many promotions recently on the newspaper to destinations in Malaysia. The above caught my attention and we grabbed the offer to this resort by Shangri-La at Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. We find the 3D2N short trip with air-tickets included at SGD450 quite a good deal.

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I like holidays that are far from crowds and close to nature. We have planned this holiday with another couple who are our good friends. We will be swimming, snorkelling, trekking a bit if we feel like it. Maybe some pampering at the spa for the ladies.

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This is my type of holiday. Relaxation in the company of great friends. So what's your definition of a good holiday?

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Picture taken from here.

Proud Loser

My neighbour is a family of avid cyclists. Competitive cyclists to be exact.

This can be seen from the number of bicycles that he has. He has one that costs a few hundred dollars that he uses to get groceries for his family. He's got one that costs a couple thousand dollars that he cycles back and forth from work every day. And ... his most precious one costs more than eight thousand dollars that he uses for competitive purposes. You can see him polishing and cleaning this precious vehicle near the entrance of his home on most weekends.*

Care to know of his training programme? As if cycling back and forth from work is not enough for him, he wakes up everyday at five to train. (By the way, he is partly the source of inspiration for me to wake up at 5:30am on weekdays to either run or do yoga). On weekends, it's common for him and his brothers to cycle to Kota Tinggi and back in about half a day. That should be about 150km?

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For the last few months, he was training hard for a coming competition held in Singapore. I am no cyclist and do not really know the categories of races available. From what I understood, the challenge that he was up against was to cover as much distance as possible within 20min. For the records, for last year's race, he came in 4th. Quite an achievement huh?

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He had trained hard for the race this year and his whole family was there to support him and his brothers. He was among the top five finishers and was looking good as his family cheered him on. As he was near the finishing line, to the dismay and puzzlement of his family and onlookers, he stopped at the side of the path. My neighbour, you see, puts brotherhood above everything else. They always try to go through the race pushing one another forward to do better. One of the brothers, unfortunately, was not feeling well on race day and that reflected clearly in his performance.

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It was this sick brother that my neighbour had stopped to wait when he was so very near to the finishing point.

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They crossed the finishing line, finally. In positions that he and his family did not even wish to tell me.

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One thing that I observed, however, was that: Although he had clearly lost the race that he had trained so hard, I could see pride and happiness written all over the faces of his wife and two sons as they narrated the entire story of his "failure" to my husband and I.

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He might have lost the race. But he is a Proud Loser. In fact, looking at how he values brotherhood and how the incidence had gelled his whole family together closer, he was, in reality, One Big Winner!

Embracing Everyday

It's Wednesday.

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Wednesday Morning to be more exact.

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The Monday Blue Syndrome is still not officially over. And most still have reason to be cranky.

It's surprising how many people dictate their state of happiness depending on which day of the week they are in. Everyone's uptight, cranky, .. at the beginning of the week. As if the word "Monday" itself is able to induce such negative states of mind. I normally observe people starting to relax and lay back a little, get more approachable a bit by Thursday afternoon. Even better, if it's a Friday. I am guilty of this as well, at times.

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It's like life is worth appreciating only on weekends! It's like Mondays to Fridays are lived looking forward to the weekend!

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But wait a minute! Weekends only constitute 28.57% of our lives! If we are consciously or subconsciously deciding to be happy only on weekends, it's really an upfront choice that for every 100 days, we are going to be miserable for 71.43 days!

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In more simple terms, if we were to live for 100 years, 71.43 years are not weekends. If we only live like a zombie until weekend comes, that equates fo 71.43 years of waiting and frowning. That's quite a lot of time is that not?

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So .. Let's embrace, appreciate, live and be present every single day! Live life 100% be it Monday, Tuesday, ... Saturday or Sunday. We are so fond of branding Monday as Blue Monday that we go auto-pilot in Blue State on Mondays ... in fact, in this economic climate, many are blue so long as they are at work!

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We do not realise that we have the liberty of choice.

To choose not to be blue!

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Live life! Now!

Old Irish proverb:

Work like you don't need the money;

Dance like no one is watching;

Sing like no one is listening;

Love like you've never been hurt;

and Live life every day as if it were
your last.

Passion Still Alive

In case anyone's wondering ... I am still running. Although I don't write or talk much about it these days. It has somewhat become a part of my life.

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I have, however, made some adjustments to include Yoga in my exercise regime. As most runners should be aware, frequent running results in tensed muscles and aches if warming up and cooling down is not sufficient. The many poses of Yoga serve to stretch the muscles and the many holding poses compliment as a form of endurance and strength training. (The picture on the left of a Full Pigeon Pose is the pose that I am hoping to achieve soon)
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On weekday mornings, I am usually up at 530am to either do Yoga or run for an hour. Many friends frown at the notion of sacrificing that precious sleep. To me, it's really a gain.
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I would be welcomed by pleasant rays of morning sun as I cool down after the workout session. To be honest, although the amount of sleep is lesser, I feel more alert and energetic throughout the day. The air is so much fresher in the morning and the quiet environment gives avenue for one to sort out and organise one's thoughts to prepare for the day.

Four Months

That's the amount of time that I have not entered anything into this blog. Newton's second law says that for an object that is moving, it is easier to keep it moving than to start an object moving from stationary state. These four months in a state of MIA (Missing In Action) verified this law easily.

To be honest, I do not know why I stopped writing. Busy at work would be a valid and acceptable reason for anyone that could be reading this to believe and accept (if there's even anyone that would visit this blog!). But my conscience came ahead to confess that this is not the truth.

Maybe it's more of a Blogger's Block that I have been going through. I set up this blog to share my shallow insights from small encounters in my humble life in the hope of bringing Light and Inner Clarity to myself and to others. It's not easy feat, I have found.

For one, it's not always easy to be able to see the brighter side of life. We might not be at ease to express our internal struggles to the world. But nasty people, sad happenings and encounters, low moments are part and parcel of everyone's life. Just that not everyone like to blog about such things.

Having said that, these four months was not any particular low moment for me (and I am thankful for that). Maybe I was just going through a switch-off mode where I went through and experience things accepting whatever I was experiencing. I did not try to see it in any divine or positive manner. I tried to accept whatever that came as it was. Be it black or white. Sweet or Sour.

The rain could upset one's plan for a long run, but one can choose another day to run or switch to weights training that could be done indoors. Let the rain rain.

A difficult customer could have called and made a big fuss even when one has tried his best. One can rise above the common Fight or Flight mode and choose one's response that is unattached to how the customer treats him and yet be firm and polite at the same time. Waste no energy in judging and concluding that the customer is being difficult.

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It's not about passive acceptance. It's about responding with detachment.

It's been four months. But it feels good coming back.