Tuesday, July 31, 2007

A 1,000 or More Pieces Of Life

I cleaned up my room a little yesterday and sorted my credit card bills and I saw my Canada Declaration Card. I went to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in March on a Cisco offsite meeting. I wrote a note on the card which said, “Blog Life 1,000 Pieces Jig Saw Puzzle . . . Piece Them Together” during my wait in Canada Customs.

Our lives are a jig saw puzzle. The successful people think and act to piece their jig saw puzzle life together. We are going to make mistakes. We are going to experience slumps. We are going to experience down months or down years. We are going to experience conflicts. On the other hand, we are going to accomplish goals. We are going to pursue new opportunities. We are going to meet new people. We are going to move stand up everytime we fall down.

Everyday, another jig saw piece is put together to create our lives; for example, a job promotion, travel to a new place, meet new people, try a new hobby, learn something new, take a night class, and a moment you felt sad or depressed. Instances, moments, and situations are pieces of our jig saw puzzle. The more one becomes a better person in good times and bad times, the more one innovates his or her life, more jig saw puzzles are successfully completed and more jig saw puzzles await to put together.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

When The Worst Comes, I Prepare For The Next Best

What’s next for the economy in its continued uncertainty? Continue growth slowly, inflation, recession, or the worst stagflation? Is the real estate market going to crash? Only time tell what happens.

Whatever worse happens and I lose my job, instead of being angry at Cisco and being depressed I failed to meet Cisco’s expectations, I prepare for the next best. How about I learn Chinese? In my department, there are people who are fluent in two languages. I’m Chinese and I can’t speak and read Chinese. I’m both sad and ashamed. Nobody in my department makes a big deal.

Furthermore, I have lots of free time jobless. I learn Chinese rather than play video games all day long, LOL. I can learn Chinese now. Unfortunately, my short-term career goals are learning my job at Cisco and learning Crystal Reports. Maybe I learn Chinese later. The thought learning Chinese remains in the back of my head.

My suggestion to anyone who lost their job and are having a difficult time finding a new job, learn a new skill. For me, learning Chinese help me more than finding a new job, it’s a second language and a skill used anytime.

Friday, July 27, 2007

I Made The Fewest Mistakes And Succeeded

A perfect score is scoring 100%, an A+ in school. No errors. All correct answers. A few students earn the straight A, 4.0+ grade point average award in a graduating high school class. Congrats. Only in school a student can achieve a perfect score. In reality, nobody is perfect. Anyone who graduates high school or college who always score 100% in everything, wake up and face realty. Academic life and real life are different.

The Allies won World War II because they made the fewest mistakes. For example, the U.S. attacked non-existent artillery bases, paratrooper drops were off their targets, and U.S. bombing raids attacked friendly targets. Bad intelligence and strategic and tactical errors cost thousands of Allies lives. Regardless, the Allies pressed forward to victory over the Axis. You see some of the mistakes the U.S. committed watching the movie “Saving Private Ryan.”

In baseball, a great baseball hitter needs to hit 3 out of ever 10 at bats, a 30% success percentage or .300. These baseball players fly out, ground out, foul out, and strike out the remaining 7 out of 10 times. The last player to bat over 40% or .400 in a season was Ted Williams in 1940 with a .406 average.

How can one be successful? Commit the fewest mistakes. The baseball team that won the World Series the team committed the fewest mistakes. The side with the fewest mistakes was victories in wars. The winning company committed the fewest mistakes to win the client’s business in a presentation.

Also, learn from the mistakes. Be brave to make mistakes and fail because mistakes and failure are one of the best ways to learn while doing whatever you doing . . . create action and do something. Please don’t make too many and careless mistakes because those can be avoided ;-)

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Burned Out Summer

Since Anime Expo 2007, my daily life has been boring, tiring, no jazz, no spice of life. My routine life has been routine without the “life is good” feeling. I have done lots of little activities to bring variety including cooking different foods (the menu at home is limited), shopping (it was a long time ago since I went shopping), barbecuing on Saturday July 21, uploading more music on my mp3 player, and leaving work early because of my dentist and orthodontist appointments and work at home afterwards. No change in my attitude and feelings. *sigh*

My current personal projects are uploading Anime Expo cosplay pics and reading The Eye Of The Storm by Robert Slater. I hope to finish the book to complete one of my 2006-2007 goals reading three books. I know when I finish the upload and the book, I feel better and I begin to upload other areas on my webpage and . . . gee, something . . . else. My mind is a blank ~__~

I was pissed earlier today I woke up early and read more pages of The Eye Of The Storm I realized my bookmarker was on the wrong page. I wasted last night re-reading a chapter I already read. I wondered why when I read the same chapter I already knew the content. And yesterday and today, I knocked out and went to bed much too early. I was really tired. Another indication my current life is boredom? When life is good, sleep is secondary in the person’s life.

Unfortunately, my 2007 Summer Sabbatical is below expectations. I want to feel better about myself, be full of energy to begin September. I feel burned out in July. I have August remaining and I make it the best summer month.

Perhaps, I’m making a too big deal about my current bored life. All I need is new activities and, bam, boredom feeling disappears. Man, my mind is burned out. Everyone in the world, slow down, please.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Lonely And Cheerful

The last hour of work yesterday I felt lonely. I experience the lonely feeling occasionally. Fortunately, I have family and friends. No worries being lonely literally >3< After two days, the lonely feeling disappears and I feel better. How does the lonely feeling disappear? Something else happens requiring my attention such as working on an assignment, reading a book, cooking, hanging out with friends, and paying the bills $-(

When I feel lonely, I want to be alone. It's worth being alone. Take a break from work, take a break from hanging out with family and friends, and take a break from your daily routine. Turn yourself off from the outside, take a breath, and think about your present. Re-evaluate your current lifestyle. For example, think of a new goal to pursue. Is there a recent event you wished you could have done better? If yes, prepare now for the next time to do better. And think about how you're living today. Want to make it better? No regrets XD Never stop innovating.

There is a benefit to the lonely feeling. The lonely feeling assures the world revolves around nobody. The world is part of us and we are part of the world. Nobody is the whole entire world. If a person feels happy, sad, angry, depressed, or lonely, the world goes on. The sun rises and sets everyday. If anything good or anything bad happens, the world goes on.

Tomorrow is another day and I'm cheerful ^__^

Thursday, July 12, 2007

A Moment Being Selfish

On Sunday May 20, 2007, my family and I visited my brother's family. My brother lives in a residential development area continuing to build homes. The residential development held a special open house offering food and drinks in eight residential housing areas. Turnout was good IMO.

While I waited for my family to finish eating, I toured the model homes. During my tour, I thought to myself, "One day I'm going to own a home." One day. Currently, I don't know when, don't know how, and don't know where. One day I am going to own a home.

I thought about my life in my own home. I can cook whatever meal, have little junk (really little junk ;D), park my car in my garage, a game room, and invite friends and family over to hang out. I like to have a house not too big because it takes a long time to clean and not too small because I want enough space for people to visit. I want a low maintenance front yard and back yard. And my house must have air conditioning, insulated garage, and storage space to store useful junk ;-)

Being selfish is not me. It's just when I thought about owning a home, I think about the millions of people who can't afford a home. It's sad, yet life is unfair :XX

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Fourth Of July Double Fireworks Blast: Schools Get An F For Excluding The Letter E

There is a lesson in life school and college failed to teach me. My schools and college earned an F for failing to teach me the word "earn." Life doesn't give you your life on a silver platter. You must earn whatever you want, your desires, and your goals. If you want to be a friend, you must earn their friendship and their respect. If you want your special person in your life to be with your for the rest of your life, you must earn their love.

Successes must be earned. Everyone must work and earn. Work and earn. Get up from the couch. Get up from the computer. Go out and earn your life. Want a new job? Earn it. Want to meet new people and find new friends? Earn them. Want to buy your dream car? Go earn it. Want to get promoted? Earn it. Want your children to respect you and trust you? Earn them. Want to be a starter in football? Earn it. Want to influence others and be a leader? Earn them. Want to be part of an elite group? You must earn the group's respect and their acceptance. Anything you do, any goals, any desires, any achievements, any wants, you must earn it.

My favorite word is Innovate. Cashflow is my second favorite word I learned in 2003. My third favorite word is Earn.

The letter grades are A for Superior, B for Above Average, C for Average, D for Below Average, and F for Failed. What happened to the letter E? E is for Earned. E is after A, B, C, and D. If you received an A, B, C or, D. you're above E—you earned the A, the B, the C, or the D. If you received an F, you're below E—you didn't earn a passing grade.

Fourth Of July Double Fireworks Blast: Who's Getting 7-9 Hours Of Sleep?

On Tuesday July 3, I ate lunch at the Cisco cafeteria. On my table, there was a sign promoting July's health tip. The health tip was if you're getting less than 7-9 hours of sleep, you may be sleep deprived. How ironic. Cisco promoted getting more hours of sleep. I find the health tip hard to believe for a company working everyone's ass off.

Here is one typical, ordinary, stereotypical worker. Married, have two children, works eight hours and eats lunch one hour a day, and drives to and from work with traffic. At Cisco, fat chance. Cisco works everyone hard. (I don't work hard, I work smart.) How about the days where the worker needs to work more than eight hours and/or work at home such as a presentation or editing a marketing report? Less time for the family. How about time to exercise, time to relax and do other activities such as reading, fixing cars, watching sports, and basket weaving? And how about time for the spouse and take care of the children? A devoted parent never neglects their children.

I ask a question I don’t know the answer. How can a person work nine hours, drive to and from work say one hour, and sleep for eight hours to have six hours remaining for everything else? I tell you some people use the six hours for work :\ Six hours is little time for everything else outside work. I have never drink coffee and energy drinks and I never take any drugs. And if a person works in a position requiring at least 12 hours of work a day, then there is two hours remaining for everything else assuming the person is still awake and focused.

My typical day is I work nine hours including one hour of lunch and commute time is 40 minutes round trip assuming traffic is favorable. Out of 24 hours, I have 14.33 hours remaining. Let's assume I get seven hours of sleep. I have 7.33 hours remaining. I cook, wash dishes, and eat dinner when I come home from work which is about 1.33 hours. I now have five hours. Don't forget bare necessities and taking care of myself including taking a shower and brushing my teeth which is about 30 minutes. I now have 4.5 hours. 4.5 hours of free time to myself. 4.5 hours is little time to read, update my webpage, write Blogs, watch anime, and anything else including emergencies and helping others. I'm lucky I'm single.

And what if I'm CEO of a company? Sleep 8 hours? Forget it. I spend 8 hours on email and talking on the phone >.>

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

A Favor To Slow Down Everyone

Today is Independence Day or 4th of July in the United States. 4th of July is a checkpoint for me in a calendar year. Is 2007 going by fast? For me, the year is the fastest ever in my life. It seemed Anime Expo 2006 was held yesterday, LOL. I see people rushing, being busy . . . everyone in supercharge mode. People who drink the energy drinks need to stop. The drinks are addicting =)

I have a favor to ask. Please slow down and take a break. Just stop, pause, halt, think, take a breath . . . whatever. Just stop. Close your eyes and relax or take a nap. The world is going too fast. We are rushing. Life is not getting to the finish line quickly. It's being patient and getting to the finish line successfully. Money must not be the motivating factor to work too hard and too long. (I don't work hard, I work smart, by the way, LOL.) If you earn lots of money and work too long, how are you going to find time to spend money $-( I don't want to die with a million dollars in my saving account, and money in your savings account is the worst investment. If I have a million dollars at age 80, I'm taking a trip to Toronto or Great Britain ;-)

O.K. I'm going off subject :-/ Please take Summer 2007 to slow down and take a break. Patience is my Blog subject. Slow down, please, please and enjoy your summer.

Side Note: Anime Expo 2007 Blog is coming soon. The con went so-so so the Blog is a condensed version :]