INSIGHT CRIZ

I have written earlier about “HOW WOULD YOU FACE DEATH?” regarding how I admired Professor Randy Pausch for his courage to face death with a positive attitude. His positive attitude had inspired me to look at life at a different prospect and spent more time with the people closest to me. Life is so unpredictable but death is certain.

Unfortunately, he passed away yesterday at his home in Chesapeake, Va at the age of 47. Although he knew that he was given 3-6 months’ to live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 15th, 2007, he managed to extend his life further to spent his remaining days with his family. What a brave and committed husband and father. I am touched by his will power to push his life so far.

He once said, “I don’t know how to not have fun,” “I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to play it.” He indeed had fun for almost a year since he received the shocking news about his cancer. On Feb. 15, exactly six months after he was told he had three to six months of healthy living left, Pausch posted a photo of himself to show he was “still alive & healthy.” In May, Pausch spoke at Carnegie Mellon’s commencement ceremonies, telling graduates that what mattered was he could look back and say, “pretty much any time I got a chance to do something cool, I tried to grab for it, and that’s where my solace comes from.” “We don’t beat the reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well and living fully,” he said.

My deepest condolences to Randy’s wife, Jai, his three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe; his mother, Virginia Pausch of Columbia, Md.; and his sister, Tamara Mason of Lynchburg, Va. Randy had touched not only my heart but the hearts of many from all over the world. May his soul rest in peace.

You can get more information on Randy Pausch in the news here.

I have known many friends in the USA having financial problems in keeping their property during the recent economy crisis. With the steep hike in the gas prices, more and more people would be affected. Thus, it won’t be long before they are going to be homeless. Isn’t it a huge headache to decide whether to use the limited money available to buy gases or to get food for the family?

I have experienced the pinch in my pocket too recently. With the amount of money I had earned through my sleepless fight against time and opportunity to get more income, I ended up spending more on my medical bills which is no longer cheap. The worst thing that ever happened here is that with the increase in gasoline price, the prices of groceries also shot up rocket high. What I bought few months back had gone up almost double. Can you imagine what will happen next if I were to spend without thinking of the actual needs for the items I had always wanted?

Luckily I am more fortunate than most of my friends out there. At least I have a roof over my head and a place to sleep comfortably in now. The best thing that I had done was to pay off my house when I was capable of doing so. Even if I were to be hard hit by the slowdown in my businesses, I can still rely on applying for mortgage loans.

I have heard from my friends that even the financial institutions are forcing many people out of their property in the US at the present moment just to cut loses during this economy crisis. So, who else can they rely on? Well, there are many reputable mortgage lenders in the market who are compassionate enough to assist you in your financial woes. Who knows by considering one of them may just help you save your property for many generations to come.

When was the last time you ever contacted your Dad? Have you even notice that he has aged a lot. Did you give him a hug recently? Do you realize that this coming Sunday, 15 June 2008 is Fathers’ Day? If you have not done so, please go over to pay him a visit not only this Sunday but many days after that. All fathers, whether they are your biological one, adopted one or even someone you respect as a father figure, would love to get at least some acknowledgments.

Some of you may choose to spend this special day with your father by buying him gifts, cook something special for him or even take him out for a nice meal. When it comes to deciding what sort of gift for him, many of us will be stressed out as shopping for some fathers could be rather hard. Gifts for fathers should reflect the personality of the father. It could also be something that can bring back memories of the bond between you and your father. As for me, I would prefer to give my father a red packet as in the Chinese custom. It symbolizes longevity, health and prosperity. At least he can spend the amount on whatever he wants. Some will give him some shopping vouchers, vacation tickets or even engraved pens if he is still in the corporate world.

Not all fathers are so materialistic as to demand for something of monetary value. There are many things that he cannot do physically now and a simple gesture of helping in household chores would be of value to him. They do not expect much from their children since most of them have grown up and have their own lives. A simple gesture of a long loving hug and some quality time spent together will be much appreciated.

Fathers are also human beings with feelings. He will feel unappreciated for the sacrifices he has made throughout your growing up years. Do not make your father feel so inferior in his life for feeling the rejection from you. Show him what you can do by showering him with your endless love. Let him know that he is always being remembered by you. Prove to him that you are still a filial child not only on Fathers’ Day but also for many years to come.

I love you Dad…Happy Fathers’ Day

That is the question I have been asking many people who have given up hope for a better life. The reason is that those people refused to adapt to the changes in their life although they had been given the opportunity to do so. All it takes is to change their mind sets, fill it up with a little self discipline, self motivation and self development to survive comfortably in the ever challenging world of ours. If others can be successful in life, why can’t we? There is something definitely not on the right track in their life journeys.

Just look at the case of Faith, a dog who was condemned to the furnace. If a dog has not given up hope, will power, determination and faith in surviving, why should we as a human think that we are useless? Sometimes, I wonder whether those pessimists had taken the time to analyze what had gone wrong in their life. Time is what they have and time is what they have been using carelessly away by not finding any solutions. If a person is unemployed and having financial woes, sitting at home and not doing his part in finding a job is pointless. Money would surely not drop from the heaven or grow on trees unless a person earns it through legal means.

Coming back to the case of Faith the bipedal dog, five years of having to live by having two feet to support its body is something to be amazed with. She is a Labrador-Chow Chow mix breed female dog and was born in December 2002 with only 3 legs. Its left front leg was amputated at 7-months old when it was found to be deformed and useless. With some compassions from the Stringfellow family and constant hardship of training by a canine trainer, she survived the oddity of life by proving that even a handicapped dog can make his own life better. Why not us?

Faith had visited many schools and taught the children on empathy and raising funds for stray animals. At least she has a mission in life. Do we?

A book has been published about Faith entitled “With a Little Faith”. If you check through YouTube, you can see Faith and her owner, Jude Stringfellow, featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Montel Williams Show as well as Ripley’s Believe it or Not. You can learn more about Faith at faiththedog.net

I have known many people who are still holding on to love when the relationship between what was a good one ended abruptly. How sad it is to love someone you really cared for and yet you could not maintain the relationship? The saddest thing about life is that when you met someone and fell in love only to find out in the end that it was never meant to be. You have wasted years and years of your life waiting and hoping to gain back what was lost but is it worth it? Is it going to become a reality? Is it worth it to hold on and wait for another five years, ten years or even more?

What is stopping you from moving on? Is the love that strong until you would put on hold your future for the sake of waiting and hoping that the day would come when you can salvage back what was taken away from you? Love is like a clear lake which was stained by the blood from a broken heart. If scooping and throwing away a glass of the lake water is equivalent to an hour, how long do you think you can make the water clear again? How confident are you that you have the power and energy to do that? How sure are you that the water would be cleared of the blood pollution? No matter how hard you tried, you will never clear the hurt and bad memories of what had happened. This is the nature of the heart to feel but forever fear and the mind to remember but never forget.

You can depict love like a butterfly. The more you chase after it, the more it will fly away from you. If you just let it has its freedom to fly and to choose, it may come to you one day when you least expect it. Theoretically this is true but what are the chances of someone having the full freedom coming back to the tiger’s den? It is almost as good as none. As the sayings go, “once bitten, twice shy”. How can you mend a heart that has been broken before? How can you mend a relationship that has become stale? If the love is strong enough, no matter how far apart two persons are; it will never end in any way. What is yours is yours as love cannot be forced.

Love is like on a performance stage. You will never know whether it is true or false unless you experience it yourself. It can make you happy but often it hurts. So take your time and choose the best. It may soar or fall apart but do not be disheartened. Cherish the moment well with that someone who is really worth it. After all, to love in a relationship is to grow in life. Remember this well: “Do not be too dependent or possessive in love. Pure love does not cause you pain.”

When love sparks, two people will eventually come together and marriage will be one of the most fundamental and enduring social institutions that will ever happen. Man and woman will think of the partnership and facing sacrifices for the sake of both parties and in an attempt to seek security and contentment from their mutual understanding. Then comes in the thought of expanding that relationship into a family, where children will come into their lives. This is the general idea of a married life.

As years of the intimate emotional relationship goes by, it is inevitable that some misunderstanding and friction due to anger, suspicion or jealousy will occur from time to time. This is where a person will have to put his/her level of understanding, tolerance and love to test. Marriage is actually based on compatibility and not just by finding someone you deemed fit to your liking. Even if it is so, it is always the mutual respect, love and concern that will make the marriage a success. You do not go through marriage blindly without sharing the happiness and pain as a whole. It will not work as it will result in bad communication and understanding in time to come.

Most cases of marital problems arose due to the unwillingness of a partner to compromise with another. As the sayings, “It takes two hands to make a clap”. When a minor misunderstanding occurs, it is best that one side maintain the coolness until whatever thunderstorm, hurricane or tornado subsided. This is easily said than done as most of the time, as a human with heavy emotion, it is hard for many to control the inbuilt time bomb that will explode by a mere flick of the fingers. The golden rule in any marriage is that problems can be resolved without violence and anger. Try to enrich your life by nurturing the patience, tolerance and understanding within yourself.

It was the heydays when man used to dominate the working world as the sole bread earner for his family. In the modern society of today, both sexes play an important part in the success of bringing up a family. Household chores are no longer limited to the women as they are now shared duties for both working couple. There should no longer be the term “man of the house” or “woman of the house” and replaced with the term “guardians of the family”.

There was this joke about having an ideal relationship being married. “A good marriage would be between a deaf husband and a blind wife.” I had a good laugh when I read about the reasoning behind the saying few years back. It seems that as a married man, he tends to get a lot of grumbling and nagging from the wife, whereas as a married woman, she tends to look for perfection in her husband. In the end, what would be more ideal than to have a husband who will not “hear” the nagging of the wife and a wife who would not “see” the faults and weaknesses of her husband?

There are countless of pleasures and pressures in a marriage life and to cover all would be like reading the trilogy of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and so on. There is only one rule in a good marriage that I am going to mention here. Have a good thought about it.

Marriage is like a pair of scissors that have both blades stuck together. They are inseparable. Although both moves opposite directions most of the time, together they will still cut through the hardship and toughness of what lies ahead.

“I am in a bad mood. Do not disturb me. Just leave me alone!” Does this phrase sound familiar to you? We have been living in a life filled with complexity, a world where we have complicated personalities, complicated social and cultural environment and being simple is no longer in our vocabulary. We have lost all the simplicity even when we were a kid, chasing dreams, getting good education and gaining the experiences that we need in our lives. By knowing more and being literate, we tend to explore more into the unknown and thus complicate and confuse ourselves even more. We ended up being a questioner, a doubter or a skeptic.

The outcome would be that you will not believe and trust things or a person easily, unless you see them in your own eyes or experience them yourself. Even a relationship will turn sour because of the lack of trust to believe the other person. In a relationship trust and believe are the two main requirements. A person will always need a good relationship for his own psychological development. This is where we learn and grow. This is where we understand each other better with openness, sincerity, care, love, respect and patience.

Sometimes relationships become entangled when there is a lack of communication or miscommunication. Just remember this. No one is perfect. There is always a flaw in every single one of us. This flaw should not be used as a mean to spoil a relationship. Whatever dispute that may arise, it should end with love, understanding, respect and appreciation. Otherwise, it will not be called a relationship.

Relationship is when love exists to enable two people to stay together, understanding and appreciate each other unconditionally. Judging ideas and ideals on another will cause great conflict. “You have to”, “You must, “You should” are some of the expectations in a relationship that will hinder free communication between two people. In the end, you cannot change him and he cannot change you and the relationship will turn sour eventually. Changes will not happen overnight. The more you forced that onto a person, the more tension he will have to be even near you. The further apart will the relationship be. If you intend to commit yourself into a relationship, accept who the other are and not what you want him to become. If he is truly in love with you, he will change for the better without even being told.

On the other hand, some relationships can be quite strange. Strange? Indeed people are strange. When you love someone and you sacrificed all that you have and yet you felt so empty. You felt as if the relationship is so insecure because you have no feedback or reaction from the other party. It is not that the other party is not aware of your sacrifices, but deep inside him, he is aware of your existence. It is in the human nature that nobody would want to be indebted to anybody. If you have sacrificed for someone you love, just forget about the repayment. Take it as if it is a community service. If they remember, then you are in luck. If they do not and you reminded them of what you did, they will hate you forever.

Don’t you think that is strange? Don’t you think that the human mind is rather complex? When you think you know what the other would want but in the end you get confused over what is in the mind of the other? You will end up asking yourself whether you are with the right person. Whatever happened to a person is how it is. It is a matter of knowing it and not by judging what you see. As soon as you add to it in any way, it becomes more personal, emotional and complicated. This is not how life should be. Living life should be as simple as possible.