What is your idea of a job well done? Is it that golden moment when you can proudly tick off the box on your “To Do” list? Would completion alone be equated to success?
While some may argue that one should just “do whatever it takes to get there”, I believe that the process of reaching that goal is often just as important as breasting the finish line. The path which we take – the way in which things were done, the people whom we worked with, the relationships forged, the kicks that we get along the way – play a far stronger role in influencing its eventual outcome than we imagine.
One of the more intriguing aspects of Canada (like in the US) was how meals at Chinese restaurants often end with a fortune cookie being served to us. These little flour, sugar and vanilla flavoured confectioneries come hidden with a prophetic message like “Eating lots of ice cream makes you fat” or something like that.
This black bear near Whistler Village was a mere 3 metres away from me
One of the things I’ve gone gaga over during my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies was photography. Wielding a new Olympus PEN EPL1 camera, I’ve taken tonnes of amateurish photos and videos of every imaginable living or unliving thing.
Well, Neil Pasricha is the son of two Canadian immigrants of South Asian origin, and a 30 something guy who faced some rather big issues in life. His wife divorced him recently, despite him loving her very much, and his best friend committed suicide.
Singapore’s Most Common Bird – the Javan Mynah (photo by Ong Xin Rui from the Birds of NUS)
That bird above, the Javan Myna (Acridotheres javanicus), is the most common bird species in Singapore. You can see its black feathered wings with dashes of white fluttering everywhere around our island.
The Javan Myna has an amazingly liquid voice that allows it to imitate a range of calls into its repertoire, emanating through its characteristically yellow beak. It nests practically everywhere – on buildings, on trees, in padi fields, in drains, in roofs – and is abundantly successful in almost every habitat.
After a long and tiring day at work, I had my dinner at a coffeeshop in Chinatown and was waiting for my usual buses back home. The bus stop was pretty crowded with weary commuters.
While waiting for my bus, I noticed something unusual.
As we start a fresh new week, I thought its useful to consider for a moment how we can do things differently. It doesn’t have to be a huge paradigm shifting, game changing milestone, but just a smallish innovation that defies conventional wisdom. And nope, these aren’t New Year resolutions or anything as noble as that. However, they can apply equally at work, at home, at school, at church, or anywhere else.
The idea behind this is to gradually improve in baby steps which are less daunting than taking a huge leap into the unknown. They can be as small as replacing an unhealthy breakfast item (say fried bacon) with a healthy one (say a slice of guava), or perhaps slightly larger – like reading at least 15 minutes to half an hour every day. Doing something small and easy allows one to pick the low hanging fruits, boosting one’s morale and equipping one towards larger and bolder pursuits in life.
For me, I’m going to try to blog at least once every other day, no matter how tired, busy or lazy I feel. Writing gets better the more you do it, and the only way to open that tap is to just keep turning it.
If the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, forget about moving the world. Instead, begin by moving that itsy bitsy little obstacle in your life first.
