“don’t complain, don’t explain.” — henry ford

i awoke this morning, to find whatsapp text from ken sent last night, the friend who left me alone on saturday. he is more or less recovered. i called him on monday as i wasn’t satisfied at all — i know he’s a good guy and was wondering of what had happened to him. or there must be something wrong somewhere. he failed to response me. he text me instead saying that he was hospitalized on saturday morning for severe gastric attack. ok. at least i was relieved then. in his text earlier, he also mentioned he was just tired of those bland food and glucose he had to take. anyhow he’s still a bit weak but at least can move a bit better.

besides happy and glad to know he is getting better now, i asked him not to complaint if not how is he going to recover. right people? he agreed with my point though.

this always made me thinking why people like to complaint so much.

when i was younger i used to just sit around and mope about the bad things that happened and say poor me why did this happen to me but then i decided that there will be no one who will change this so i need to pick myself up and try again until i succeed. there are always reasons to find for "poor me" and they may be good reasons but they should not be excuses for not moving forward!

if you don't like something, change it. if you can't change it, change your attitude. don't complain. ~maya angelou

if we spend too long in limbo (read: work, relationship, lifestyle, location, addiction) complaining about the problem we eventually congeal with the problem. there’s a blurred line between comfortable, complacent and defeated.

cynicism, anxiety, the grey area, analysis paralysis and limbo all play poker together on a tuesday night, chomping cigars. choose your circle of influence with caution, cynicism attacks the effect of the problem and is a monster that feeds on itself; it’s the easy way out.

are you in limbo? attack the problem, not the effect. analyse – decide – climb – jump.

people talking about other people

“conniving” and “talking without permission”... these are the words i can recall that our upperclassmen usually tell us when we were caught talking at each other. it’s a grave offense for plebes and we’re actually punished by doing so. it’s actually part of our training, just like telling you that there are a lot of things to do and talking to each other means you’re not busy doing your duty as a cadet. if i may say, an etiquette, that you don’t talk secretly and if you have something productive to say, then tell it to the group so everybody can hear it. if otherwise, then keep your mouth shut. and you know what; it still applies even outside the walls of the academy...

apparently i saw two ladies right in front of me when i was boarding the monorail to work this morning. they were chit-chatting or maybe gossiping about some other people or something. then it made me wondered of why do people talk bad about others?

i thought i couldn't figure out why. but i have found an answer that has given me some peace, and helped me to prevent talking bad about others.

here's what i found: there are three general motives behind people talking bad about another person.

1. they are talking with someone to solve a problem they are having with the individual, but lack the skill to do it in a kind way.


2. they want to discredit the other person, or cause harm to the other person. their motive is to hurt, or they feel they must defend themselves from hurt, so they hurt first.


3. they want to be accepted, so they find common humor, evil, etc. to talk about to make themselves feel better.

the first group: they talk about the problem, may go into detail, may exaggerate a little, but their motive is mainly to get an idea of how to solve the problem, and not to hurt the other person. they may talk inappropriately, or in a way that may leave a negative light on the person they are talking about, but its not hateful.

the second group: people who talk bad about another person to cause harm: they seem to feel like you have some major impact in their life, and they are scared of you. for example, a friend who feels like her life is determined by how much boys like her will often bad mouth another girl who the boys like more than her ― or that she thinks they like more than her. she does this because she feels like she must manipulate the people around her to stay safe. if she took responsibility for her own actions, and her own ability to change, to act, she wouldn't feel so threatened by other people. so usually, people who talk maliciously are really very terrified people. they feel they must manipulate the people around them to be safe. they don't start by changing their own actions and choosing how they feel, they let life around them tell them who they are. its a very threatened place to live.

third group: the people are a combination of the two categories above. they talk about others because they have nothing better to do. they just talk without considering the people or friendships that will be damaged, its just entertainment.

bottom line, i found that the more someone is trying to harm and manipulate, usually the more sensitive and insecure that person is on the inside, so much so that they feel the need to control everyone around them to keep their lives stable.

as observed, these people doesn't have anything to do or don’t have any work. most of them are unhappy jobless people who find an outlet to others just like them. if they are however employed, then they are not that busy at all since they can still manage to have a couple of hours just to talk nonsense about someone.

i hope that these people will soon realize what they are doing isn't right. for being like this all the time, makes it a habit and eventually becomes the person that they are...

when i find myself talking about someone, i ask myself ― if this person were listening to me talk, would i feel honest and respectful of that person, even if what i am saying is negative? that's my check.

good luck.

get in line with time!

so its the first day of work for the new year for moi today. and already await for us in the office this morning were some courier boxes of diary and calendars from client's hq. i was like: oh, yeah! as you could see these are normally the things i always look forward to when we reached the new year~

you may be a really switched on human being with an incredible memory, but no matter how clever and good your memory is you will still need to use a diary/organiser.

why do you need to use a diary?

let’s consider the limitations on our short memory for a moment.

psychological research tells us that we can only hold on average only 7 (plus or minus 2) pieces of information in our short term memory at a time. your brain cannot handle too much information all at once.

in order for you to cope with your work effectively it’s going to make a difference if you can reduce the demands on your memory/mind. you need to reduce your mental load.

by far the easiest way to reduce your mental load is by using your diary/organiser. you will be able to work more effectively if you take things out of your head (e.g. “crs due on thursday” and “bct on friday”) and dump them into your organizer. it is important to plan your work and work your plan.

i have set out below some key points for getting into the habit of writing a list and managing the list:

before writing a list as part of your time management skills, you should always check your diary for that day, as if you use effective diary control to make appointments with yourself for the tasks you need to carry out, there will always be daily entries in the diary. this is a starting point for a regimen of organization that eliminates clutter from the mind.

remember the 80/20 principle; 80% of things on your time management list will produce 20% of the results and 20% of the list will produce 80% of the results. a key element of time management training is to always remember this rule and work on the key areas that produce the important results.

so, first thing to do is:

make your list — get yourself in to the habit of writing a time management list every day, try to write the list at the same time daily so as it forms a habit. some will do the time management list first thing in the morning while others use time management skills to prepare the list the night before, just before you leave work—leaving it on your desk for as soon as you arrive the following morning.

the important thing is to get into the habit of writing a list each day on one piece of paper (not a thousand yellow stickies all over your pc). the reasoning behind this is once again organization, if your desk is soaking up your attention with several “to-do’s” but no flow to any, it renders the time management moot.

REMEMBER: 1 sheet of paper, 1 list, not a bunch of sticky notes

the list should take no more than 10 minutes maximum to compile. time management is not about having loads of things on your list, it is about having the most important things on your list.

REMEMBER: it is the important items that get listed

you must allow time for emergency changes in your daily schedule. no matter how effective you are at training yourself in the skills of time management, there will always be the possibility of unscheduled important tasks popping up or interruptions etc.

REMEMBER: the lists get screwed up a lot

be realistic with your time management lists and try your best to allocate each task a start time and finish time. group similar tasks together for momentum and remember to carry forward items from one day to the other (only if they are important and must be action-ed). another key element to this concept is to never set a goal or deadline that is impossible to reach. there is no feat a person cannot accomplish, but if only given a few hours, the stress builds. that’s not to say pressure to work isn’t healthy, but reasonable is key.

REMEMBER: allocate the time to a task

even think of rewarding yourself after each task has been done and crossed off the time management list. remember the key saying in effective time management skills training is:

what i am doing now helping me to achieve my objective?

practice, practice, practice so that the time management skills become automated!

kick off 2012 with project 365

second day of the brand new year, also the last day of me got to enjoy my long leaves. i was in dilemma at first whether to stay at home and get ready for my work day tomorrow. or bring my asus notebook to any cool starbucks outlet to hang-out and chillax while updating my blog and such. then on another thought i was like: hey, its better i just be at home, nothing to rush, and at the same time out of a sudden i was inspired to create my project 365. its still not too late for that now though. if some of you still remember i did it before. unfortunately it stopped half-way huhuu... insya-allah this time its for real!

i stumbled somewhere some time ago some people mistaken this project 365 as something that must be posted daily duh! now i remember its kenwooi! read his comment here. its basically a project to take one picture a day for a whole year. it’s not required to start on the 1st of january, but it’s an easy beginning date for some. there also isn’t a set way to do it, but many take up the challenge and focus on self-portraits. it’s not as easy as it sounds and some really good photographers even fail at finishing *glurp*

photography web site photojojo suggests documenting your life by taking a photo every day for a year. the author gives a few reasons why you might want to do this, most compelling to me being:

your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. time moves surprisingly fast.

you take a picture of anything (the photojojo post suggests varying your themes) and post it somewhere (like flickr) where you can keep all 365 of your photos. i found a better way to upload mine here. one thingy for sure don't confuse with the user id at the site, as i intend to share it with my closed family and friends too. so i guess its fair enough to do it that way... ツ

as photo uploading gets easier and cameraphones get better, the commitment required to do something like this isn't that bad. alternatively, if you have a webcam or something along those lines on your computer (like an iSight), going the picture of yourself every day route seems even easier. so if either of these ideas trip your trigger, it's time to get documenting.

if you have ever taken on similar photo-documenting projects, share them with your fellow bloggers in the comment box.

good & bad start...........

first of all, happy new year 2012 everyone... may all lives in peace and harmony, and have more success in the future. its norm this wish have been posted everywhere ― text, social media sites, etc. and i am glad to be one of them who are still able to do it, all thanks to Him.

so how's your new year celebration people. i end-up being all alone in this part of the world. i just dunno why on earth he did that to me. i know being a single mother is uneasy, especially to go out for a date. he was the first one to ask me about the long weekend. alright, fine. i did ask him again early this week to reconfirm. if not i could have just make other plans. right? since he said its confirmed, i still blocked it for him. well he called me up mid-day on the new year eve. we talked about some plans meeting other friends. and since i am not comfortable with them, he asked my consent for him to reject their invitation and wanted to call me again later of the day. too bad i didn't hear nothing from him again. hey! i know you are a nice guy but why did you do this to me. be a gentleman will you, and act something like make-up with me or something duh!

at this time puteri and megat were with my sisters and cousins respectively. i spent first part of my long holidays (yes, i was on long holidays from the day i went to jb and will start work on this coming tuesday), with them and thought would be good to have some time for myself too! i know i know i owe lots of blog post, from how i started my life in kl, my kids' and many more. this will be in my to-do list for 2012 new year's resolutions.

anyhow let bygones be bygones i wanna create all new for this time around:

• a surprised note from a senior's bbm really surprised me this morning. was that a good start for moi or what. guess i shall leave it till everything confirm and i ensure to blog about it then. at least there's more blog post here hehee...


• i wanna reactive blogging for sure. i assume given almost a year being in kl should be good enough for me to cope with my surroundings *winks*


• got to make sure to save again on our (kids and mine) asb monthly no matter what! 2011 has been a tough year on my financial really. so i have to give it a go for the betterment of our future for now..............


• besides line dancing i wish to get back in to my sport shoes for my morning walk. i did it for the first time since i am in kl last friday, at the klcc park! it was awesome i tell you. it was really a good start for myself.


• as i wrote here i love the old school ways of getting and receiving greeting cards via snail mail. do you know the blog post has been published in the lifestyle pullout of sunday star. so if you are with me, do email me your name and snail mail address. i would love to do it with you no matter what seasons i.e. cny, eid mubarak, deepavali, christmas etc. or wherever you are in the globe!


• not forgetting, to be more success in my life, work and everything insya-Allah.