笑看風雨

I had not been to office for quite sometimes, but last month, I received an anonymous email giving details of a personnel conducting moon lighting business in the office, I verified the information, and found the allegation to be true. Surprisingly, I was not angry at all. I had been bothered by the high overheads in the office and was trying to find a humane way to cut down head counts, the incident gave me the needed ammunition to persuade the involved personnel to resign voluntarily. Before the personnel resign, he informed me that he is not alone, but was assisted by another staff to siphon business away from the company. I am indeed amazed by human characters, in good times, they called themselves brothers, but when cornered, they are wiling to sacrifice each other. And, that gave me another legitimate inspirations to further reduce the head count in the office. But don't get me wrong, I did not fire the second personnel ! All I did is, go to the office, ask the staff this question. “You know, actually I am very sad that when I am away on medical leave, there is a personnel taking opportunity to sabotage the company. Suppose you were me, what will you do when a staff are abusing company facilities and times to siphon business away from the company ?” He took the clue, and resign the following week. Sometimes, the Almighty does work in a miraculous way ! Well, I got rid of two dishonest personnel easily and at the same times achieve my objective of trimming down the costs of operations.

Honestly, I had lost all interests in the business since I was diagnosed with my present illness. I had been involved in this business for more than 15 years, and now, I had lost the enthusiasms of running and maintaining it. In the process of maintaining the business, a big part of my youth has gone. Looking back, there are always some happy moments, and there are also challenging moments. I can still vividly remember some of this wonderful moments, but, there are also some not so happy moments I choose to forget. I count my blessing that, the business allow me the opportunities to acquire some basic luxuries of life, putting my children through the college, and the acquisition of some real assets for raining days. Of course, the business also accord me the wisdom of understanding the various extremities of human natures. I honestly believed I overstayed my welcome in the industry, and would be glad to hand over ownership of the company to anybody who is willing to take over the responsibility from me. Whatever it is, as much as I want to dissociate myself from this responsibilities, I will never force my will unnecessarily onto others, I will take it easy and let nature take it course.

I had different perspective in life now. In the past, I worked hard to defend my livelihoods and desired to earn unlimited incomes for more secured and future financial comforts. But since I was diagnosed with this chronic illness, I questioned my priority in life, and realized my purpose in life is not about satisfying my material desires and securing future financial security. My purpose is to live life meaningfully and cherish every moment of it. I take inspiration from the Lord's prayer which states that “Give us this day or daily bread...” and “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sins against us...” The Almighty will provide sufficient daily provisions to us. That is the Almighty's promise, and his words will not be returned to him void ! Why then are we still so preoccupied in wanting to make tomorrow's incomes today, and in the process made our lives miserables and corrupted ? I had also learned to eliminate negative emotional burden by letting go of hatreds and the unproductive desires of seeking revenge against those who betrayed me. I will be a hypocrite if I refused to forgive those who sin against me but expecting the Almighty to forgive my sin. The change in expectation and perspective of life has actually made me a man contented with his surrounding. I just want to live my remaining days of life in peace and joy. I believed, the Almighty will be graceful enough to grant me this desires.

I do wish I have the wisdom to inspire others to live an ethical life and the courage to live through life's difficult patches. But as an insignificant soul, it is not up to me to alter the course of my destiny. I believed, the Almighty shall lead and reveal to me my purpose incrementally as I walk this passage of life. Looking back, this passage of life has been a colorful journey of passions, colors, and spices of life, would you be able to keep all those spices of life in a special corner of your heart, and cherish the memories forever ? I looked at life this way, even in a state of motionless, life in itself is a journey in perpetual motion of time and space. Looking back, this journey leaves behind behind a trail of good times and bad times, As we move forward, those good times and bad times became memories, remained a thing of the past, and slowly fading away into insignificant.

Life in itself is a many splendor things. Let us live for the day and not unduly burdened with the uncertainty of tomorrow. Whatever that is going to happen, it will happen for a purpose. Don't waste your time repeatedly asking “Why me ?” or “Why US ?” Let us accept whatever that has been unfolded with a sense of serenity as part and parcel of our life's passage, so that, in tomorrow, we can look back to today as memories. While our mental capacity is still capable, let us count our blessing that we are still able to cherish those memories from the past.

Like it or not, I am almost half a century old, how long can I go on in this illusory world of materialisms ? I need a new perspective and a renewed spiritual commitment in search of a new paradise in my deluded mind....... Oh mighty Lord, will you help me to find me ? Let me not dream that impossible dream. I look at life differently now, I am the best at being worst, and let me be.

Well, I can go on with all these incoherent rantings........ but I need to take my medication NOW !!! Sayonara....

About level playing fields...

As 2007 approached its end, I feared for the uncertainty of 2008. Now that 2008 is already here, and is already a couple of weeks old. Strangely, I am already beginning to develop a strange sense of optimism for the months that are going to unfold. I am, more or less, beginning to believe 2008 will be another great year.

For a start, my past little investment is unit trusts which I gave up hope in the previous years are recording better than expected returns. My investment in some selected KLSE stocks are also beginning to display healthy price appreciations. The properties I invested also show better than expected appreciation in values. Even my blog traffics show significant increased in visitor traffics to a tune of 1800 visitor hits the previous 24 hours. My son is also expected to graduate from private college in 2008, that will slash my personal expenses by a few thousand ringgits a month. On my business front, for the first time in so many years, the business expenses and overheads are substantially reduced to manageable level.

So, in a simplistic sense, 2008 should be a good year for me for sure. Hmmmm.... should I thank the government ? Or was it a case of my ability to adapt to extreme conditions and came out stronger to survive ? Maybe, I am simply just plain lucky. Whatever it is, I will take times off to ponder on who should take credits for creating all this positive wealth and enthusiastic energies surrounding me.

Taking into consideration of my efforts, I sincerely would like to believe that, luck got nothing to do with my current state of being. Yes, maybe I should thank the business environment for making me adaptable to all those difficult business and economic conditions. Like they said, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going ! I hope I am going on the right direction..... One thing for sure, I survived thus far on my own without any handouts and preferential treatments from my surrounding political and social habitats.

Sad to note that, there are so many mental retards out there still persist to have the shameless mentality that, if other people work hard with determination to better their living conditions, these hard working people are being perceived as denying these mental retards the opportunities to better themselves, No insensitivity intended, but I would really appreciate these mental retards fart their grievances elsewhere. When are these people going to realize the world doesn't owed them a living. In the first place, what economic opportunities have they sacrificed or are being denied ? What we have here is, a bunch of lazy people everyday kowpek kowboo demanding to be spoon fed. The economy will fare much better without these bunch of crying babies constantly seeking entitlement of special benefits and advantages without contributive efforts, simply because they felt that, or are being lead to believe, that they are "under-priviledged".

If some of us can work very hard to make the best out of the worst, why can't the rest also do the same ?

If we want something, common sense tells us that we have to work for it. Money and wealth don't just drop from the sky no matter how hard we pray to our God or how pathetic we cried out for help. On the other hand, if we threaten others with despicable threats, we may get what we want temporary. But, does that made us any different from those thieves, robbers, and rapists ? Aren't we are all human with dignity, pride, righteousness, and religious values. Are we ? If I am their God, I will be very annoyed listening to all these morons' insincere and inconsistent prayers, and I may even condemn these morons to hell.

Sure, we may apologitically claim that some people are under-priviledged because the playing fields we operated on are non level. I accept the reality that, to compete fairly, there must be level playing fields. But do we know what level playing field means ? Level playing field simply means the promotion of an environment in which everybody in a given market follow the same rules, given equal ability, and no advantage are given to anyone to compete.

The question I need to ask is, am I, like the rest of many hard working and silent Malaysians, being given the privileges to operate on level level playing fields ? Was I given a loan or scholarship to further mine and my children education ? NO. I used my hard earned money to ensure other tax payers are not unnecessarily burdened. Was I given any grant or soft loan to operate my business ? NO. I used my saving and borrowed money with full interest rates to finance my business. activities Was I given special contracts and concessions to grow my business ? NO. I used my money to slog it out on the streets to gain customer based on competitiveness and acquired expertise. So, how levelled should the playing fields be levelled. Why are there still so many people out there, while enjoying all the obscene benefits, still insist that the fields they operate on are not levelled ?

On my part, and with my own limited resources and sacrifices, I develop my ability by levelling my own side of the playing field. Believe me, it is a lot of hard works, sweats, and tears to make my field levelled. Rightly, if anyone demands a level playing fields, he or she should at the very least make extra efforts and sacrifices to level their side of the playing field first. It is disgusting and ungodly for those idiots constantly harping on their god damned rights to intentionally digging and making pot holes on other people's plot of playing fields with the hope of making them unleveled, riddled with hindrances, and uncompetitive. Some of us already worked twice as hard to get half as far. I just can't imagined why there still some inconsiderate pariahs shamelessly demanding their rights to make tings more difficult for other hard working people. If good and hard working people like me failed, it would be a great loss to the economy. At the end of the day, all of us may end up having all our playing fields riddled with pot holes, thus making it difficult for anybody to even walk on it.

Politicians being what they are will never failed to prostituting the world second oldest profession to glorify their pariahism,. Some will forever harp on racial and religious issues to gain political mileages to sustain their stay. Continued provision of support to these politicians arising from our own narrow minded selfish interests and greeds will eventually cause great harms to our economy in the future. The sooner we reject these racial pariahs and communal parasites, the better Malaysia and Malaysians will be in the future.

If we persists on decadent demands on the economy without meritorious and economically productive efforts, I will not be surprised to see our economy slowly disintegrating and degrading into a miserable mess where eventually everyone of us live in hardships. Perhaps, in the not so distant future, our mothers, wives, sisters may end-up having have to work as domestic maids in Indonesia, China, Singapore, or Thailand. And, our fathers, husbands, and brothers may end-up working as cheap migrant workers in other India , Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Wake up Malaysia. Wake up Malaysians. Wake up communal pariahs and rent seeking politicians, don't you know by persistently harping on racial and religious rights, you are sowing the seeds for a degraded life for everybody in Malaysia in the future ?

Ahhhh.... as usual, I have digressed.

Whatever it is, if there is a God, I do sincerely hope God bless all of us with prosperity and good health. I also sincerely hope the same God can enlightened everyone of us with the ability to see humanity with fair eyes. In the mean times, I do sincerely hope everyone can have the basic moral decency and religiosity to respect the rights of others and learn to earn a legitimate income through productive economic activities.

Peace be with you. Om Namo Amithaba Buddha......