Success Equation

Success = 5% good ideas + 95% execution

Some Reflection on the New Year

Every day at work, I put on my headphones and turn on my IPod to different radio stations in order to block out the background noise in the office. The most-listened-to songs would replay itself through out the days and in fact the song Wildest Dream by Taylor Swift was played four times this morning and I was expecting more of it later in the day. Today one of the radio anchors commented how she could not believe it is October and that the holiday is coming up and it hit me that the year 2015 is coming to an end in two months. That means the shopping season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year Eve are coming up.

I can still remember when Y2K was the big talk of the town as everyone was talking about it as if the end of the world was imminent and there was talk of Jesus was coming back. Fifteen years later, none of that happens yet.  This got me thinking how we don't know what will happen in the future. We don't know if any tragedy is heading our way or if a big blessing is coming to us.  We don't know if a big earthquake will hit us tomorrow or in a few years. None of the fact will ever be available to us and all we have is today, this very moment.  That said, we have to make the most of the time we have because we do not know if we will ever have another day on this earth.  So we have to do our best and make good use of the time we have, because every second counts and every second is an opportunity to make a difference.

Knocking on the Door

Yesterday was one of the slow days at work so I decided to give my supervisor a visit in her office. Every day I greeted her once in the morning and then once in the afternoon to ask how was her day. Like most employees, I keep my relationship with my supervisor as professional as much as possible and divert away from any personal topics.

However something different happened today. Somehow our conversation ended up on the more personal level and we found ourselves talking about our lives.  My supervisor was married when she was seventeen and she had her first child five months after the wedding.  She has been married for nineteen years as of this December and she has no regret for marrying at such a young age while most of her friends were out partying and going to college, trying to find what kind of life fits their personality.  Unlike most of her cohort, my supervisor had no choice but to continue with the married life and to take care of her family.  I asked if she ever wanted to give up the marriage and leave her family and she said there was one time the thought crossed her mind. Ten years ago, her husband and she were having financial problems and since her husband was the only person working full-time, it was barely enough to support the entire family and pay the bills.  One day they decided to move to from the worn out house that they were living in and move to an apartment. In order to put out a deposit for  the apartment, her husband had to have enough money to do so and since he did not have enough, he told his wife that he was unable to.  My supervisor was furious at how he handled the situation so she told him that if he did not put down the deposit by the due time, she would take the children with her and leave him.  The ultimatum made him take action and he went to the bank and got a loan for the down payment.  Five months after moving in the new apartment, my supervisor got a  called from our current employer notifying her she got the full-time position here.

One of the lessons my supervisor learn through out her nine-teen years of marriage is that hard work pays off. The rule applies to marriage, any job, friendships, and many aspects in life, because in order to succeed in those aspects in life, hard work is always a requirement.  Another lesson my supervisor told me is we have to fix the problems in order to move on to the next one or else the problem will always be there.  For instance, if our marriage runs into trouble, do we run away or do we try our best to fix the situation first and then move on.  If we continue to run away from the problem and not giving any chance to fix it first, then the problem will always come up again.

Like I said before, I keep everything professional at work and steer clear away from any personal topics. However, sometimes we know the rules and we still break them, intentionally at times. Breaking rules can be a good thing sometimes, because it opens us to see the world differently. I broke the professional rule today and the act showed me more than what I ever expected. I learned my supervisor is more than just this woman who gives me work assignments and make sure I come to work and get back from lunch on time. Inside this woman, there is wisdom, strength, and love in her.  She loves her husband and children and would do anything to provide the necessaries for them.  Only did I open the close door did I found so much wisdom in this woman.  She is only thirty-six but she has gone through so much compared to my twenty-eight years on this earth. Sure she has no college degree to prove to the world that she has done something in school, but she does not need to. Her wealth of experiences in her personal and professional life is enough, and maybe even better than the piece of paper that says she completed a college education.  Sometimes when we meet a person, we cannot make an assumption about them because more likely we do not know them enough to make any.  There is always an imaginary door between us and the other person and in order to fully understand someone, we have to knock on it and maybe break it, if we have to.  When we do this, we come out as a wiser person.  We learn to open ourselves to new perspectives and this broadens our mind to what is out there in the world. Learning from other people helps us make better decisions and as a result we grow and mature and this will eventually helps us when we have to face the same situations on the road later on.

The Like-Minded

It is another sunny evening in Southern California and I decided to spend the evening at an old friend's birthday.  I arrived at the party at 6 PM and I was not the first to do so; there were a few guys playing ping-pong in the backyard and as I walked in the house, I encountered new faces that I have never met before and like any strangers in this similar situation, I introduced myself to them.  I met a person who is an aspiring surgeon, a PhD chemistry student, and an ambitious business young woman.  Then we gathered around the kitchen table to sing  happy birthday to my friend and started the feast.  I decided to sit on the futon in the guest room and next to me sat a girl whom I have never met before. She asked me what was the yellow vegetable I was eating on my plate and I told her that it was a bell pepper.  For privacy purposes, let's call her Jennifer.

We introduced ourselves and that started our conversation from there.  She is a 21-year-old college student in a nearby university and her plan is to open a business in the future.  Anyone could have tell she is smart and that she knows what she wants out of life just by seeing how she carries herself and how she communicates.  She said she was the president of two organizations in high school and was very much academically oriented back then and still now. I asked her why she did not plan to go to medical school and she stated confidently that she does not believe in synthetic medication as a way to heal the body. Smart. Check. Knowing how to think for herself. Check. Confident. Check. Well-round. Check.  Ambitious. Check.

Jennifer was the epitome of my college self and I would do anything back then to become just like her.  Though I am older than her, we are very much similar in the way we think.  She and I believe that school does not teach students how to think for themselves and the only way to learn how is to get out in the real world as the teachers already think for the students by giving them assignments and deadlines; basically everything is set up so the students do not have to think for themselves.  In addition, she believes networking is the key to success.  We have so much in common that for the first time in a long time, I finally do not feel like a lone person in this world who has my values.  I understand her and she understands me.  It's like I found my other missing puzzle piece in a sea of humans.

Sometimes, when we least expected, we will run into someone in life who will assure us that we are normal and that our beliefs are rather prevalent and similar to them.  We feel like a normal human being and knowing that someone understands us and we understand them only enrich our lives.  It strengthens our core beliefs to know someone supports what we believe in and it helps us to see our own ideas from a different perspective.  They give identity to our values and our beliefs become more tangible and more clearer to us and as a result we are more likely to achieve whatever goals we have.  These people are the catalysts to our success as they validate our beliefs. So we have to get out in the world and see what is out there because any occurrence can be the one that we need to transform us into a more confident and assured person.

The One Person

Note: This blog was written on October 24th, 2015.

Today is the United Nation's 70th Anniversary and to mark its creation I went to celebration event at Chapman University, hosted by a local UN Association Chapter of Orange County.  The event focused on discussing the purpose of the UN and how it is affecting the world and Orange County on a local level.  The key speakers and panelists came from different local organizations in Orange County and there featured a lawyer in Irvine whose law practice is focused on international law.  I have learned and read about the UN  in high school and college but I never really grasp the importance of the UN.  People say in youth we learn and aging helps us understand; I finally understand the purpose of the UN and this knowledge broadens my mind to see what is out there in the world.

The best part about the event was the people I met at the meeting. As the event is set in a university setting, I expected to meet mostly law or political science major students as Chapman University is known for its liberal art majors but I ended up meeting professionals from a wide array of career paths.  I met health science students, an international law lawyer, an aerospace engineer who explained to me the difference between aerospace and mechanical engineer, an engineer student who lived in Singapore for eight years and now returned to the US to complete her education, and many community leaders.  My most memorable conversation was with an 18-year-old refugee from Iraq and whose family had to fled three countries before he turned eighteen. He lived in Iraq until the age of five, then his entire family moved to Syria due to the political conflicts in Iraq and where he lived for nine years before moving to live in Turkey for another two years.  In Turkey, the law prohibited his family from working so his parents was constantly struggling to find ways to survive and make some money.  Luckily the UN processed and completed his family paperwork and his family and he were able to move to the US. Despite how blessed he was to be able to move to the US, the paperwork was not easy for his family as they had to wait for two years for the process to complete.

The people I met opened my mind to the reality and the suffering out there in the real world, where I will never see myself having to experience it.  They showed me how blessed for me to have the privilege to live in this country called America and how not living in fear is the greatest gift of all. The 18-year-old refugee stated he was constantly living in fear while living in Syria as he was always afraid of getting bombed and killed from the attacks and all around him was in a constant chaos. There are different types of observations. There are observations that we have to do by ourselves, and there is vicarious observation where other people retell their observation to us. I believe we all have to do our own observation but sometimes letting other people do the observation would help us and save us from the hardship that goes with it.

I did not have to go through all of the discrimination and sufferings that the 18-year-old refugee did but I have had to live in fear.  Though the extent of my fear is not as great and dangerous as his, our conversation shows me how much similar I am to him.  As humans, it is normal to have fear, what we do with that fear is all that matters.  Instead of letting it weaken us, we should use it as the fuel to strengthen us and propel us to be a better person.

And knowing his experiences shows me how insignificant my fear is.  I don't have to constantly fighting to for my life and having a hard time getting the basic life supports such as food and water; even if I don't have the finance to get the necessaries in my American life, I still have help from different sources.  My fear is the future and what is to come and now looking at it, they are insignificant compared to what other people have to go though.  Like the 18-year-old refugee, millions of people in the world are constantly fighting to surve and all they want is enough food to eat and make through the day.  That is the best part about meeting people, we will never know who we will run into and one day one person will walk into our lives and change the way we think and turn us into a completely person. It may take years for that one person to come, but if we search for opportunities he will walk into our lives without us ever expecting.

It's Okay to Make Enemies

During my visit to London, I decided to take a guided tour in the House of Parliament.  The tour guide was a Frenchman who had a perfect British accent and my group consists of mainly Australians, a few British, with the age range between middle school students to college level, and I was the lone American in the pack. The tour guide walked us, in a slow pace, from the House of Lords to the House of Commons to the Common's Library and to every compartments of the House. Each room was brightly painted with royal colors green and red and the metal parts of the furniture were painted with gilded gold-- which an employee confirmed this to me when I asked what the golden color was made up of.  Then in the Member's Lobby we passed by the bronze statue of Winston Churchill.  He was standing with his hands on his waste while flexing the elbow, looking stern like any officials should act like.  Through out my stay in London, I have had passed by a few Winston Churchill statue and in fact I have studied and got tested about him in high school and college, but he never strike me as an interesting person.

However, today changes everything. Mr. Churchill is now very much an intriguing figure. As I scroll through the website Lifehacks, an article shares a few of Mr. Churchill's famous quotations.  He once said, "You have enemies? Good. It means you've stood up for something sometime in your life." When we stand up for what we believe in, it means we are thinking for ourselves and becoming an independent thinker. It might cost us some friends and turn them into our enemies but sometimes that is worth it if what we are doing will produce good results.  When we follow crowds, there is a high chance we will fall into the group thinking trap and as the result we are not doing our own thinking. More importantly, group thinking can be detrimental to society.  For instance, during World War II, many Germans follow the lead of the Nazis when they sent millions of Jews to the concentration camp to be gased and died there.  Many Nazis members did not have a clear idea of why they were doing such act and all they knew was the Jews were the enemies without an factual and accurate reason on why.  As the result, six millions of Jews were killed and they had no one to stand up for them.  Group thinking, then, is not only bad for our personal growth but it can be dangerous at the same time.  Like Mr. Churchill said, it's good to make enemies sometimes, it means we are thinking and processing what is happening around us.  Sometimes, it takes only one person to stand up for what is right and make the difference to the world, and we can always be that one person.

The Working Machine Inside Us

For the past two years, I have been training by brain to think certain ways and it is the hardest thing I have done in my life.  I have put my brain on a passive mode when it comes to do certain tasks and now I have to switch on the active button and my brain gives me hell every time I try to make it think differently.  I am getting better every day but it is constantly a battle each day still as the bad habit has continued for too long. Every time I make my brain think the new way, it hurts; there is always this burning sensation in my temple and it feels like someone just smack me on the head physically at times. The mental torture is almost the same as the physical torture that one has to endure.

Some people say we are born smart but I don't buy that.  We were all born the same and we started in life on the same pace.  Our genes may be different but our brain and other body parts are all the same when we came into this earth.  How we think and act are dependent on our environment. If a child was raised in a family where academic is treasured, then more likely the child will do well in school. And if a child was born in a family where school was not put as a priority, then the child will more likely not to take school seriously. We see these prodigy on television playing the piano well at the age of four, and we think he was blessed with good DNA. No, he was blessed with parents who make him practice the piano every single day at the age of two or even younger.  There is no magic potion to it. Those children had to train themselves (or had someone trained them) and they have to put in some sweat in order to get to that point.

If we want to be smart, we have to adopt a new mindset. We have to know that we can get there and that there are techniques that can prune and shape our brain.  Our brain is like a muscle. In order for it to work efficiently we have to train it and be active in doing so.  We have to be motivated enough to go through the tension that the training might inflicted on our brain. At this very moment, it contains billions of neurons and they make connection every single day in order for us to form long lasting memories and to help us think quicker at every step of the way in our life.  When we know that we can get smarter and that we can train our brain to think quicker, we can handle the process of change, even if it gives us hell.

The Pages

A month ago, I was at a Parisian man's house for my first Courchsurfing experience. After I had everything settled down and my belongings all put in order in my room, I decided to take a tour of the apartment. He had two balcony that looked over the city of Paris and his apartment looked just like any apartment in America. It was clean and well-kept and the best part of the apartment was the books. He had bookcases after bookcases of books that many Americans do not own. The only people I know who own that many books are the library, bookstores, or someone who works in the academia. We are living in the digital age where many people read books on flat screens rather than having an actually book in hand and it always comes as a surprise when someone has that many books.  After the man left for work one morning, my curious self decided to look through his stacks of books and I rediscover my love of reading again.

Unlike many trends, books will never go out of style. People will continue to read them years after years, whether they are in a digital form or an actual book.  Books create and record history and even is a part of history.  Currently I am re-reading the book The Diary of Anne Frank and though I have read it in the past as a kid, it still holds its uniqueness and there is always something new to be discovered at every turn of a page.  Anne's voice speaks and can be felt at every page and her thoughts and emotions live as the diary continues to be read by people. Books are like that, we cannot just read once and know everything about them. Every time we reopen a page we discover something new and something different; it is a living thing that breathe and it is wholly self-sufficient in its own way and the best part is it always bring comfort to readers.  It takes us to another place in time and takes us out of our comfort zone to the unknown.  So books are not just pages we read, they are friends who will always have new ideas and they converge them to our own thoughts, turning us into a new and a better person. 

The Art of Thinking

It is 11AM and I am at work going through the list of caseloads that my supervisor gave me and luckily, I have one hour to spare before lunch begins since I completed going through the work list.  The thought of furthering my career lurked out and then I found myself debating the pros and cons of pursuing a professional degree once again.  This thought has been on my mind since my undergraduate years in college but I have never taken it seriously due to the fact I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.  I thought about maybe pursuing a Physician Assistant or PharmD degree but the problem that arises is I do not want to own thousands of dollars for the loans without making any money while I am in the training process. If I were a 21-year-old, I would have given them a second thought, but as I am older now and I have more experiences under my belt to know those paths won’t give me the time to take care of other priorities.  So here I found myself  “thinking.”  

What is thinking? Thinking is a mental activity that comes before a physical action.  It requires focus and experiences; and the focus part is simple but the experiences are hard to attain as the only way to get them is to get out in the real world. And let’s say many college students and even some adults lack them in order to make good and informed decisions.  Here I was thinking of the pros and cons of pursuing a professional degree before I take any action. 

In order to think clearly and logically, there are many ways for us to cultivate the skill.  For one thing, traveling can help us learn how to think. While we are in an area we don’t know, we have no choice but to think what is the best way to do certain tasks.  For instance, we have to find the fastest and the most cost effective ways to get from one location to another and we have to think on our feet as well. Yes, there are help from the natives and other tourists but generally speaking, we have to do the planning and the thinking on our own. Secondly, talking to other fellow human beings helps form the thinking mind.  We cannot talk to just anyone, it is always better to talk to someone who has more experiences and is smarter than us. When we interact with other people, we are sharing ideas and open our brains to different perspectives that might not have crossed our minds. MeetUp meetings and church events, for instance, can provide us with copious number of people to teach us how to think. Lastly, the best method to learn how to think is through experiences. Good decision comes from experiences and experiences come from bad decisions. It holds true in our professional and personal life, whether we are dating or are looking for the career that suits our personalities.  And the only way to gain experiences is to go out and be a part of the world.  

To sum up, thinking comes from experiences and it is a learned skill. It is the fundamental skill that we all must master in order to survive in the real world and to do well in many parts of our lives. No school or books can teach us how to think for ourselves. In fact, school might be a hindrance to our thinking skill as we have to follow instructions and rules and no one can learn how to think for themselves when they are always being told of what to do by a teacher. We have to go out there and get our hands dirty and learn what it takes to think on our own. Sure we will make mistakes here and there but what matters is we learn from them.  When we finally grasp what it takes to think on our own, we are free and even more joyful and best of all more self-sufficient in the real world.

 

After a While, You Learn

Some thoughts of the day:

After a while 

After a while you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul.

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning,
and company doesn’t always mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses are not contracts,
and present's aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead...

With the grace of a woman,
not the grief of a child.

And you learn
To build all your roads on today,

Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much…

So, you plant your own garden,
and decorate your own soul...
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…
you really are strong,
you really do have worth.

And you learn, and you learn…
with every goodbye,

You Learn…

The Different Doors

I was at my sister's apartment two days ago to get all my belongings and as usual my attention always draw me to the stack of books and magazines she has under her coffee table; my sister does not read tabloids or fashion magazines only, she subscribed to academic magazines such as The New Yorker, The National, home magazines, and other science magazines and now and then I would sneak through her goods and read them.

My sister is passionate about business and many of her books and magazines are business-oriented. For instance, she has the book GirlBoss written by the CEO of the company Nasty Gal and the book The Glitter Plan written by the two founders of the company Juicy Couture and I followed her lead to have a taste of those two books and many other great books.  One of the common themes in the CEO's experiences in business is they have had experienced what it is like to fail. Of course they get discouraged but the action that lead them to success was they kept looking for other opportunities.  Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Thomas Edison, and Walt Disney had failed in business or were criticized by someone before they went on being successful and make millions of dollars.  One common action is they kept going and looked pass their failures.  Mark Cuban once said, "I've learned that it doesn't matter how many times you failed.  You only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all." It's true, we only need to get it right once, that's it. Because that one time will lead to other success in life. If we have not found that one right path, we have to keep looking for opportunities. Opportunities are like doors, if one door closes, open another door.  And remember each door is different and you never know what you will find in each one.

This is a picture of doors in Venice, Italy.

The Glitter Plan Summary

The Right Partnership from the book The Glitter Plan by Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor

"As an entrepreneur, finding the right partner gives you the opportunity to experience crazy things, and you've got someone to hug and cry and scream and laugh and love.  It's the same thing as any great relationship.  You have a partner in crime through everything--good, bad, or ugly, here we are.  Everything is better with two, whether you are moving in unison or one is pulling the other along.

Before you go into business with somebody, you have to be an archeologist.  Dig in there and investigate if it's the right person or not.  For us, it was intuition.  We knew we were birds of a feather.  So many partnerships fall apart because you get started and then realize you don't see eye to eye.  You have to find a like-minded person, somebody who you like to play in the sandbox with.  You spend more time with a business partner than almost anyone.  You don't need to have the same creative vision all the time, but you do need the same values and ethics.  It's like a marriage.  It's through sickness and health.  When things go well and you're happy, of course you love each other.  But when things don't turn out how you expect, can you weather the storm together?"

Chapter Summary

Tips on How to start a business:
2. Do what moves you and find your partner in crime

3. Learn from a starter experience (learn from your past experiences)
-Anything you need to know in a bigger pond we learned in a smaller pond
-Not every business is going to be a success, but that doesn't mean you don't learn from it.  Pick up and move onto the next one with even more focus on what you want.
-You have to be you own customer.  If you won't buy it, who will?

4.  The KFC Theory is NOt Just for chicken: Do One Thing and Do it Well

5. Competition Can Be healthy.  
-Bring it on! It means you're on to something. And it drives you to be better.  But it also means it's time to sound the rebel yell and up your game.

Build Your staff like a family
-Build a team based on your gut feeling about people.

6.  Taking it to the next level
-Brainstorm other categories that you could go into while still staying true to your brand DNA

7. Coping with growth, the problem you want to have.
- When something hits, up your game to meet the volume, or someone bigger and stronger will come in and steal your thunder.
-As you get bigger, don't forget where you started.  You are still the customer, and your product should still have your personal touch.

8.  Growing pains: what to expect
- If you are successful, you will hit a wall where you can no longer just trust your gut.  That's when corporate management comes in.
-How to Prepare your Business to Sell



8

Thankful

Wise words of the day:

"I am thankful to all those who said no to me. It's because of them I did it myself."

-Albert Einstein

We Build When We Break

We build when we break. It's true we do build when we break.  Everyday, our body is constantly degrading due to environmental and other factors and we cannot blame one factor, because the whole world system is involved in the act. But at the same time, our body is building itself. Our body is constantly healing itself and mending itself in any area that is damage. And our brain is constantly making neuron connection to help us thinking quicker. All this happens in us while other body parts are falling apart as we age.  So breaking and building are in our DNA and we cannot deny their existence.

I find recently that I find myself when I am at the lowest point in life. Whether that relationship did not work out, or that friendship comes to an end all of the sudden, or that one career did not work out, they are all experiences that we need to make us grow. We all have been there at some point and I find those lowest point are the time where we truly understand who we are and we can thrive in those situations if we take appropriate actions.

We build when we break. So falling apart is not a bad thing, it can be a way for us to see reality for what it is and to work toward being a better person. The important thing is to keep going, keep moving.

Hurting Someone

Recently I learned there will be times in our life where we hurt someone without having any intention to. It especially hurts the most to know we hurt someone who we care a lot about.  Sometimes it is hard to mend the friendship but if we try hard enough there are ways to work it out.  There is a chance we just have to let the friendship goes into oblivion for now and then come back later; that's what they teach in school right? If you are stuck with a problem on a test, move to the next one and eventually your brain will find the answer and we can apply the same rule to our daily problems.  More importantly, we cannot change people's mind about us, whether that is negative or positive. The important thing is we have to keep going and keep working on our goals because in the end that is all that matters.

Feelings come and go and we have to remember people change base on how they feel. One day they might be angry at you and the next day they might decide to forgive you. If we hurt someone, apologize and if the person accepts it then continue the friendship but if the person refuses the apology, maybe we should move on especially if we try everything we would to save the relationship and it still does not work out.

Whatever happens, we have to learn to take control of our lives and work on ourselves. Even if we have to jump from one failed relationship and friendship to another, we have to keep going, keep speeding to the goals. Because you never know, something great might land in front of our door one day without us ever expecting it.

Being Misunderstood

A guy friend once told me that it is easy for people to misunderstand me especially when they have no clue who I am.  Over the years, I learn to accept the fact. I learn to accept when people give me attitude or end his/her friendship with me because they do not see any point of being around me or that they see me as this unfriendly person. I don't know why people see me as disrespectful or rude but that is a general consensus from the people I meet and especially when I have no intention to. I used to cry over the fact because as humans we all want to belong and to fit in and to connect with other people and when someone rejects us, it is like all hell breaks loose and we find ourselves clueless on how to handle the situation.  I used to be upset with the fact that people view me that way and lately I  have tried to work on being softer and more people-conscious.

I don't want to blame anyone or myself for how I am today as blaming will not do me any good. The only solution is to constantly throw myself out there in social settings and to continually be more conscious of people and their needs.

One good thing about growing older is that we learn to accept ourselves. We learn to accept our flaws, our setbacks, our failures, and we are willing to work on being a better person.  It might take me months and even years to work on my interpersonal skills but I am willing to take that chance, even if I might fail at some point.  In the song "Happiness" by the Fray, it says, "Happiness is like the old man told me. Look for it, and you'll never find it all.  But let it go, live your life and leave it then one day, you'll wake up and she'll be home."  If I am good with people, then I will be happy. The problem is what if I never reach to that happy point? What if I stay the same and never get along with anyone? Like the song say, when we look for the happiness we will never find it and the only way for us to find is to live and one day we will find her. This means if I want to reach the goal of get along with people, I should not think and hope too much of it but rather I should live and work on myself and that happiness will come one day. People say patience pays off in the end and I am going to be patient with myself for now, because eventually happiness will come.

The Uncertainty

One of the hardest truth I always fail to acknowledge is there is uncertainty in everything in life.  There is no guarantee in success in a chosen career, a relationship, a friendship, etc.  We have to know there is a chance everything will work out the way we want and there is a chance it will not.  It is a 50/50 card deal that we are playing with.  We have to be open to opportunities and what is out there if our endeavors do not work out as planned and we have to constantly remind ourselves if one thing does not work out, then try another one. Take chances and make mistakes but always remember the world is big and has opportunities that we could never imagine, but this only happens if we move on after a setback and open ourselves up to them.

Happiness

I have been listening to the song "Happiness" by the Fray lately and every word in the lyrics whisper so much truth.

You can listen to the song on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgKslXz30U0

"Happiness" by the Fray

Happiness was just outside my window
I thought it'd crash blowing 80 miles an hour
But happiness—a little more like knocking
On your door, and you just let it in

Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can’t make it come or go
But you are gone—not for good but for now
And gone for now feels a lot like gone for good

Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard
Happiness was never meant to hold
Be careful child, light the fuse and get away
‘Cause happiness throws a shower of sparks

Happiness damn near destroys you
Breaks your faith to pieces on the floor
So you tell yourself, "That’s enough for now."
Happiness has a violent roar

Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, and you’ll never find it all
But let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, you'll wake up and she’ll be home
Home, she'll be
She'll be home
She will be home

The Greeness of It All

During my Europe trip, the location that I most desired to see were Paris and Venice but I discovered a new place in the world that is comparable to that two cities: I am speaking of the Swiss Alps. The Swiss Alps is located in Alpine region of Switzerland and it spreads across France, Italy, Austria, and Liechtenstein.  I was in a treat and I did not even aware of it until I got there.  As we drove to our camp destination, we passed by gorgeous blue-green lakes that I have never seen in California. The water was so clear that I would never have thought it ever existed; the tour guide stated the glacier creates the blue-green color and at some point on our drive, I saw two men sitting in a dinghy in the middle of the vast blue-green body of water; it looked like something one only sees in pictures but it was real and it was right in front of me.


My group and I stayed in a small town called Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland which consists of small businesses and a train station nearby.  We spent the night in a campsite where a stream of water flows across the site and the current is so fast and strong that one would definitely not survive if he decides to give it a swim.  All around me were mountains of green grass and plants and on the hilly area, there were houses and even small cottages that we don't see in America; my tour friends say people do live in those cottages but I had to question the fact, it looked like there was no possible electricity line that connected to it and the cottages looked so worn out and fragile that I don't know if anyone would ever want to live there. 

On the second day, my tour group and I took the train up to the Jungfraujoch mountain; I have never heard of this mountain before and I had low expectation of it, I mean I have seen so many mountain in California that I had little hope for it, mountains are just mountains right?  The train took two hours to get up to the summit and though I hate long commute in any form, I enjoyed the sceneries and the fellowship with my tour friends as we journeyed our way up there.  We stopped by a few view points during the train ride, and that was when it hit me that this Jungfraujoch was definitely no ordinary mountain. At each view point and as we got higher, I could see clouds and white mountains at all side. When we got to the top, that's when I realized that this Jungfraujoch is beyond my imagination. We were 11,000 ft above sea level and everywhere I looked mountains of white snow were transparent and white clouds covered on all side that we looked on.

Doing what most tourists are known to do, we took pictures and then headed to the play area where visitors could snowboard and get involved in other snow activities.  I decided to sit back and soaked in the beautiful white mountains surrounding me and visited the Ice Museum.  There, I walked in an alley that covers with ice, yes real ice. It was cold up in the mountain but the temperature dropped at about 10 degree Farenheit as I entered the museum and as I walked farther in, my breathe became visible in a form of midst.  There were sculptures that were made and shaped out of ice; in one sculpture, there was a group of bears and pinguins walking.  I have never seen anything in my life so rather than taking pictures like I generally do, I decided to absorb my surrounding in.  I could not believe this was human's creation and imagination; it seems like a place where people talk about in novels but it does exist and it was right in front of me.  

When it was time to leave to our next destination, a part of me wanted to stay back.  The peacefulness was surreal and unbelievable. We spent one and a half day there and it was enough to give me a sense of how the town was like and to soak in the greeness of the mountains. I wanted to remain there forever and not have to come back home. I had to remind myself it is not possible and that I am on vacation and that this trip acts as a pause to my life and it will not make my life any different afterward.  As we drove out of the Swiss Alps and then enter France, I realize the memory of the green mountains acts as a new perspective; it shows me what is out there in the world and how insignificant I am compared to what is out there.  Sometimes life can surprise us and leaves us in awe at the same time.  We are amazed at the sights and the surprising experiences that the world gives us. Traveling, then, is an experience where one might be lost and then get found at the same time, it puts things in perspective and teaches us to see the world in a different lens than before.

When We Are Ready

One evening, my then seven-year-old nephew was putting together some Lego pieces and despite how tall I am, he seemed to have no clue that I was standing at the door.  He wrinkled his forehead and squinted to focus better on the lego pieces which were in variety of colors. I interrupted the occasion and asked what he was doing, and he answered he was making a Startrek car; as a kid, I was never into Startrek like many of my male cohorts, rather I spent most of my time either out door picking at flowers or watching a new episode of Pokémon.  My nephew was having a difficult time putting a green square lego piece together with the wheel piece that was provided in the Lego box.  I walked near where he was standing and gave my hands to show I could help him but he shrugged and turned his back to me, refusing the help that he definitely needed.  Ten minutes later he walked out the play room with a wide grin on his small frame face and started to laugh hysterically.  When I looked at what he had in his hands, there existed a full model Startrek car. My nephew did it: he was able to connect the two Lego pieces that he was having such a difficult time with ten minutes earlier without the help of anyone.

There will come a time in our lives where certain situations do not make any sense and the more we dive into it and try to see the answer, the more confused we are.  One day however, everything seems to make sense and we are able to uncover the mystery that has been torturing us for the past days or even months.  Like my little nephew, we are all of the sudden fill with joy and excitement knowing that we uncover something and the best feeling comes when we did not need the help from anyone. The feeling is unlike anything that we know and it is one of the best thought ever, to know we made it, and that we accomplish something.  Sometimes, a problem might take years for us to uncover and for us to see the answer to it but all we need to do is focus on getting to where our goal is, because it will come. When we get it, when we understand it, the world seems to be full of opportunities that we could ever imagine. It will take time but patience always pay off and leads us to a better place than where we once were. 

The Little Self

I recently moved to a new home and after cleaning my old garage, I rediscovered my old journals in a big square plastic box. The oldest one dated back in 2003. I was fifteen then and despite how much I tried to act like a grown-up, I was never cut for it and people could smell my immaturity miles away.  I did not know a clue who I was, I did not know what I should focus on in life, I did not know how to make friends and how to keep a friendship. Let's say, that 15-year-old me was definitely nothing like me today. As I flipped through the pages, there mentioned about the upcoming exams, projects, speeches, and even a paragraph written extensively about my decision on what I should do during one weekend.

My 15-year-old self was too wrapped up on the petty and unimportant details in life that she forgot what was truly out there in the world.  Life is not about a chemistry test, it's not about that first boy we kissed or had the biggest crush on in ninth grade, it's not about the horrible trip on a Mexico cruise, it's much more than that.  Instead of worrying, I would tell my 15-year-old self to relax and take things one day at a time.  It's okay to get a 70% on a test now and then, it's okay to get caught when you cheated on a test in your Spanish class and get detention after school, and it's more than okay to date that bad boy even if he breaks your heart.  And the best part is it would not be the end of the world if any of this happened.

When we look back, our problems become small and insignificant and in reality they really are. If a boy breaks up with you, it's more than okay to cry and then move on.  If that job and career did not work out, move on, and remember there will be better one for us.  Time does do a lot of good in us; it helps us see the reality of situations and shine the light on what truly matters. No matter what hardships we have to go through in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond, we have to remember that the problems will be nothing but a speckle part of our lives and they will never determine who we are.  They are tests that help us to see who we are and help us grow as a person.  Maturity, then, is not an accumulation of years we live on earth, it is based solely on our understanding of what happens to us and our willing to march on in our walk in life.  So we have to trust that everything happens for a good reason and enjoy every moment of the way, because that very moment might be the very thing that we need to shape us who we are today. 

The Hardest Lesson

Have you had to deal with a person who would never change his or her mind about you no matter how true of what you have to say? And no matter how much changes you put in yourself and there is no positive response from the person? Was it like speaking to a wall?

The hardest lesson I discover in life so far is sometimes we can't change the way people think of us, there will always be people in our lives who will hold onto our past and use that as the lens to see us for who we are today. Whether that past still holds true or not, they still continue to come back to them and refuse to see the new and better person we are today.  We have to remember people's opinions are theirs and we cannot let their thoughts be your reality. When we refuse to let other people define us, we spend more time focusing on what is important in our lives, and thus we continue to thrive and grow, no matter how slow the process is.  It’s not a matter of effort, it’s a matter of mindset where we choose to not relive the past and live the present where we have more control over our lives and where our lives are solely dependent on us to make our own reality. There are two actions we can take in this situation, we can choose to either to continue the relationship with the person and live an unsatisfied life or we can choose to let that person go. The latter would be the right decision, and besides, they already made up our mind when they choose to ignore us. 

Quote of the Day:

"If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." ― Martin Luther King Jr.