Damnation and Blessing

It's been one month. I have been asking myself the same question. Again and again. For Thirty days.

Habit? Or something else?

Every encounter either make me feel happy for one whole day, or down for one whole day. It is my failure in controlling my emotion, or maybe I am trying to control something which is impossible to contain anyway? Like wild fire spreading and burning, just this one has unlimited fuel which constantly get refreshed again and again.

Am I hoping that the fire will go out eventually like the forest fire in Australia last time? Uncontrollable at that time, yes, but still go out after some time?

No, it does not seemed that way. Not even after one month, anyway.

I wait. I watch. I be patient.
I frust. I miss. I stress.

It's one big dose of damnation and blessing at the same time. It shows me how I am a guy who make others my center of life. It shows me how stubborn I could be in such matter. And yet with all that obstacles and seemingly impossible path, I choose to suffer, I rather suffer. Because I know there's a chance.

If I fail, it will still worth it. Because it's even more not worth it if I missed a chance to pursue something I want. And I know how badly I yearn for that one.

Zooming in

When I was small, when I was in secondary school there's always some elders you will meet in your life who wants to teach you about what life is. They told me how I should be spending my life. They give me an analysis of which career is most suitable. They even told me what my ideal wife should look like and act like.The way they say it, you will feel that these things define your future, that the whole life of yours actually depends on your choices.

But when I grow older, I read more and I think more, I can't really agree to all this anymore. I don't think that our life's meaning depends on these general things. I feel that even if one has a good career, good wife and what people call supposedly "perfect life" you can still live like a zombie without any feeling.

While it's true that what you choose and what you do do define you as a person in whole, I think that we should zoom in further. For all we know, two person can have the same objective and the same way of doing it, maybe even equal ability. But do they gain the same results? I doubt that any two person will be completely equal in anything. Then what's wrong? What creates the difference?

It's the small things that people normally take them as unimportant that makes the difference. It's the small difference in the way you think that cause you to succeed or lose. No matter how you look at the big picture, you will eventually find that it's the small, detailed parts of the picture which make it so wonderful and so fascinating. No matter how good you are, you still need to assemble the basic elements to get the complete set of the thing you want.

It's like during the process of chasing a girl, people normally pay attention to the part where the boy confesses and the girl accepts or maybe the part where the boy flirts with the girl. But every boy flirts with the girl they are chasing, so what's so interesting with it? The part which defines the thing lies in the smallest movement, the simplest dialogue or maybe the basic feeling the boy is giving out to the people around him. Have you ever compare two pairs of couples flirting? Then maybe you will get to notice such small differences. How the tiniest, non-obvious and maybe even without the doer's realization himself or herself make every case unique.

When we continue to grow and learn more, we will eventually leave the level where we are looking at the big picture and learning the steps. We will slowly start to notice the tiniest things in our action. It's just like chess. When you become really good, it's one small difference that change everything in a game. The ones who fail to zoom in will always live in the world which the big picture is everything, and without really going deeper into anything, fail to find the true meaning of their actions. How can a basketball game become really meaningful for a player if he only play the game based on principles of the game? Of course he's going deeper and deeper both in emotional aspect and technical aspect, which will be unique compared to other players although everyone plays the same game.

For me myself, I am currently training hard to improve myself in debating skills. But the more I learn, the more tiny elements begin to pop out. I realize that achieving the basics is one thing, but if I were to evolve to become better and a true debater, I need to really zoom in and deal with those tiny elements. After all, what defines professionalism and uniqueness come from them.

The longer I wait and be patient for something that my heart yearns so much, the better I understand about myself also. I just hope by zooming in, I will be become better and redefine myself in a new light.

Because to really create a change, I need to zoom in. Because that's how I will know what I need to change, what I need to improve and what move I need to take in order to reach my target in the end.

A Stranger's Sincerity

We may have heard this saying many times: It's pity not to have friends. It may be correct, but sometimes in life you may find that strangers you meet actually may bring you help you do not expect and in some case, far more valuable than things your friends can give you.

The most distinctive difference between strangers and friends are how much you know about them. You may know someone for ten years, but if you don't know anything about that person and he don't know about you either, then you can consider him as a stranger. In contrary, even if you just met someone for one day but you and that person manage to know each other very well, then he or she can be considered as your friend. 

For each and everyone of us, we can have one zillion friends but our closest friends will most probably be like only a handful. When you have trouble, real trouble not simple everyday problem, the people who can help you and who most probably will help you are these closest friends. But the thing is, even closest friends become not so close after being separated for a while. You may trust one person very much, but after three years you guys don't meet and he suddenly turn up with a serious request, will you still trust him like before? I doubt that. Another thing is closest friends have their own life to live too, which means they will be there for you all the time. Even if they are willing to fly back from a zillion miles away to rescue you, I doubt whether you will be thick-faced enough to ask them to do that.

For strangers, they don't you and you don't know them, so of course you can't expect them to do some stunts to save you or help you. But if one stranger were to help you when you are in trouble, it means he or she is helping you with a pure heart. Of course this does not include people who help you to gain your money or things. The thing is, when a friend helps you, does he helps because he wants to help you, or because you are his friend? Will he still help you if you were stranger to him? Does he feel that helping a friend is his responsibility or a good deed he would have done to anyone? Try to think about that.

Maybe we can agree that some people are like that. But we must also know that between friends exist several bonds which does not form between strangers, mostly anyway. When you treat a friend bad, or when you refuse to help him on an occasion, what would happen the next time you are in trouble? Of course he's not going to help you, except he's a extremely kind people which is rare. Even if you argue that you help your friend truthfully, you cannot deny your mind will think and compare about how you and your friend treat each other. In there somewhere is the idea of gaining something, which although may only present in a tiny amount but will reduce the true sincerity of our heart.

But when we help someone we do not know, or when a stranger helps us, it's different. Why? Because you do not expect to gain something from a stranger who you meet because of coincidence. You may meet that someone today and never again in the future. Your life will hardly be affected by that stranger again. But yet you help them, or you get help from them. In such cases, the sincerity is even more purer than helping between your friends and you.

One of my friends said that she can confess about her thoughts to a stranger better than a friend. Because a stranger just appear for a brief moment and they go away, so she does not face problem facing them in the future. And when a stranger listen to you, he or she is not listening because they are afraid to offend you. They don't care anyway because you won't be one big piece in their life, you are just one people they meet and leave. When they listen is because they want to and they care.

In short, in life we will always have to face our friends, so it will be a long term relationship with them, at least many times longer compared to the ones we have with strangers. To maintain a relationship includes too many complex things which will clash with our sincerity, like balancing gaining and giving between friends. For strangers whom we may only meet for once in our life, there's no complex element in the short term relationship. We treat them as we wish to, and they treat us like they wish to, filled with sincerity. That's why when they help or they care, the heart behind this action may be much much purer than a friend's.

That's why don't be shocked that at some point in life, you may get deeply touched by a stranger's sincerity. =)