Tag: Inner Journey

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The Baby Comes… Month 4

Not quiet anymore! The baby’s coming!

From TWeaK Me

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but at least now, it’s not so quiet any more!
We’ve announced about a month back, when at the end of the first trimester, we
went for a scan, and the baby is healthy!

Also we’ve completed the Oscar test, OSCAR stands for “One-Stop Clinic for
Assessment of Risk”, and this is a 90% accurate test for evidence of Down Syndrome,
and came out negative too.

As we are fairly young parents, the risk of having a child with Down Syndrome is
pretty low, but it helps to be prepared anyhow.

We have asked ourselves seriously… IF our child really had Down Syndrome, what
would we do?

We both agreed that it would not be right to give up on our child even if he/she had
down syndrome, as it is not a condition where the child has to suffer after birth.
The child would need a little more time to learn, that’s all. The gift of life is still a gift
of life.

In discussing this, and realizing our common stand, it affirms our relationship even
more. I suppose we both have very different ways of explaining why we decide
this way, she would mention about God, and I would mention about the Wheel of Life,
but our respect for life is there, and something we hold in common.

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A Little Sore

I’ve been working non stop for the past week, and now feeling under the weather *.
Had a very clogged nose and bad cough for days. Surprisingly, I’ve got through two full
day weddings with morning trailer trailer editings, and in fact felt slightly better through
it all! I guess the positive energy from weddings and the adrenaline helps.

Actually, I couldn’t have survived as a full time wedding videographer without my dear
Hwei Min, drowning me with “Liang Cha” (Herbal Cooling Tea), and helping me man the
computer while I’m converting tapes, which allows me a half an hour nap. But most of
all, by being my first audience for every single wedding video I complete!

Anyway, I went to find the origins of the phrase “under the weather” and this was what
I found. Google is wonderful! Total time to find answer? 1 minute… 🙂

* Under the weather.
To feel ill. Originally it meant to feel seasick or to be adversely affected by bad weather.
The term is correctly ‘under the weather bow’ which is a gloomy prospect; the weather
bow is the side upon which all the rotten weather is blowing.

– from Salty Dog Talk: The Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions
by Bill Beavis and Richard G. McCloskey (Sheridan House,
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1995. First published in Great Britain, 1983).

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Laws of Attraction : It matters to this one.

Christopher had been asking me to watch the program
for a while now. It was produced
by threesixzero productions for Mediacorp.

He wanted me to take a look at their filming and editing
style. He felt their work attained a high level of
entertainment value, yet strong aesthetic appeal.

I hardly watch local television. So finding the time to sit in front
of the TV is rare. I’ve missed several episodes and as luck would
have it I could only watch one episode and it was the last episode
of the season. I dragged Hwei Min to catch it with me though it
was already midnight on a weekday.

That episode was about two Singaporeans living in Cambodia,
running a school and home for orphans. What really struck a chord
with the both of us was the Singaporean entrepreneur who have
set up the school, introduced only as Robert.

He is probably in his late fifties? His goal? To set up as many of
such homes as he can all around the world.

He shared a story “It matters to this one”. I’ve tried to look for
the original author of the story, but couldn’t find any information.

As I walked along the seashore
This young boy greeted me.
He was tossing stranded starfish
Back to the deep blue sea.

I said “Tell me why you bother,
Why you waste your time this way.
There’s a million stranded starfish
Does it matter, anyway?”

And he said, “It matters to this one.
It deserves a chance to grow.
It matters to this one.
I can’t save them all I know.
But it matters to this one,
I’ll return it to the sea.
It matters to this one,
And it matters to me.”

Why did it strike a chord? As part of our retreat, Hwei Min and I
practise visualizing our future. We go through an exercise of
imagining our future self talking to us now. The idea is to make our
dreams bigger than our fears.

30 years later, if we will be successful, who will we have to be?
What will we say to ourselves now?

We have set our goal to set up schools and homes just like the
one on the show. (OK, to be more accurate, we only thought of
setting up one.) We want to figure out how to set up a community
of children who are not given the opportunity to learn, give them
a loving environment, help them to grow, and most of all, make all
of them successful. Then to make the community grow bigger by
inspiring them to give back.

Watching Robert was like watching our future selves speaking to us.
This is how to do it. This is “Why”. And the “Why” is because it
matters to this one, and it matters to me.

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Why Keen? The Meaning of Life as we see it

Have you noticed the change in the title of the blog?

I’ve recently realised my true calling. I feel that Hwei Min and I have
been truly blessed to be who we are today, and everything that happened,
everyone that we’ve met had brought us to where we are today.

We have sort of taken things for granted, but speaking to colleagues
and friends made us realised that not all have been as fortunate as us.

There are still a lot of unfulfilled people out there, unsuccessful marriages,
and unhappy lives.

What does it take to be happy? To have a successful relationship?

There isn’t a single answer, and change does take time. But I hope in
sharing what we’ve learnt about OURSELVES, we can help YOU learn
about yourself.

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Positivity – The Meaning Of Events Part 2

So how was it? What were your thoughts on my question?

The difference, in my opinion, is what the event represent.

For example, it’s an evening at the shopping mall with your date.
A cleaner barks at you for dirtying the floors with the mud that
you brought in from the outside.

Purely looking at this situation, how will you react?

That depends on what this situation means to you. It could be

—Interpretation 1—

“She’s so rude! She’s obvously easily annoyed and likes to take
it out on customers. I don’t have to take this kind of nonsense.
I can’t let this disservice carry on either. I will either
i. Walk away in anger, purposely make the place even dirtier,
ii. Scold her for being rude,
iii. Complain to her manager or
iv. All of the above”

—

You might not do any of the above, but you would probably be at
least a little annoyed, right?

What if I explained what happened to the lady just prior to those
actions you saw before?

—Interpretation 2—

“Before you met Mdm Shelia, she had received a call from the
hospital about her daughter. Her daughter had met with a traffic
accident and was in critical condition. Mdm Shelia had informed her
boss, but was told she had to complete her tasks before she could
leave.

Since it was raining heavily outside, the muddy floors were one of
her final tasks. However, as luck would have it, a bunch of teenagers
were making things difficult for her. The hooligans from a nearby
school had been scolded by Mdm Shelia for dirtying the floors, so
they had taunted her by doing it repeatedly, on purpose.

You happen to come along at the wrong time.”

—

That was a very tall story, right? Talk cock? Not likely, right?

But what’s the difference between Interpretation 1 and 2, really?

Are not both perceptions a false reality? How can we know if either
reality is real? The only thing that is REAL is what we saw.
She scolded you. We imagined the rest about Mdm Sheila.

Angel or devil, YOU DECIDE.

But once you do… I want to say that you have made it real!

It is real because your heart beats faster due to your feeling angry.
It is real because you write in to complain. It is real because you talk
about it to your friends.

It is real because you feel compassionate. It is real because you ask
yourself how you can make her feel better.

Which version is better? You decide.