Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom

This afternoon while waiting for my son attending his Buddhist class, I went into Yakun Kaya Toast buying my favorite Kopi-Peng and sat down at one corner. I took Tuesdays with Morrie out from my bag, borrowed from my friend and continued reading.

The above quote was taken from there. In one of the chapters, when Morrie was no longer able to walk and wipe his own ass, he said, "There is nothing innately embarrassing or shaming about them. " He continued, "It's same for woman not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it."

Morrie was right. He said, "We live in the environment that believe that owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. People were so hungry for love that they were accepting subtitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't subtitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for sense of comradeship."

"There is a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need. And the truth is you don't get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give. I don't mean money. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling."

The culture. It can be everything. It's not necessary for us to follow always what other do or follow. If the culture doesn't suit us, create our own.

It's same with what we face here in our day-to-day life. People become more materialistic. They want to own more money, which they believe that more money can bring them happiness.

I didn't realize when and how, I have created my own culture too... hehehe.... One day, I wrote letter to my friend and it's written like this:

"In my life, I try to own less thing. The less I have, the better it is. Haha... 'Cos I was born with nothing and will die bring nothing too. But all the experiences in life that happen to me is so much worthed for me. All the people I have met, all the place and memory I've been, that was all priceless.

For me, work is just part of life, a mean to earn living and to pay for my travel expense. That's why I'm not ambitious enough when it came to work cos I know, once I went up to high career ladder, less time I'll have to enjoy and more responsibility I have to take. So even my salary not high, I just try to spend less and save more. Hehe... That is me!"

And I've learn from my friend too, on what culture he has created and built himself that only he thinks what he does and believes are true. Because normally we just follow what others are doing.

So now, I've spent more time reading and writing instead of shopping. I bought what I need and not what I want. I invested my money more in buying fruits and veggies rather than medicines for flu and cough. I travel more than I planned as it is my passion in my life, what I love most and enjoy doing. I spend more quality time with my dear loved family and friends. Woke up at 5 am so that I could go cycling and having time to think about anything.

You too... You can also learn to create your own culture, just as what Morrie had taught us from his life experience. Wish you find what you want from your life and stick to it!! Cheers and good luck!!! :)

Dragon Boat Festival - Rice Dumplings

Every year on 5th month and 5th day  of lunar calendar we celebrate Duan Wu (端午节) or Dragon Boat Festival.

If you have Chinese friends on your Facebook, you would see them posting status or comment related to it yesterday, yes, it fell on yesterday :)

There was an origin of the festival which you can find in here.

This year I didn't have the opportunity to eat the rice dumpling filled with meat, mushroom, chestnut, (also called 'Bacang') as my hubby's grandma, who used to make and supply it to us, was hospitalized.  She fell down about a week ago and was operated and still required her to stay there for recovery.

And usually if you were about to buy it outside yesterday, the price would usually be marked up or very expensive. So I could only hear the conversation of my siblings and Mom on how they enjoyed the rice and hid my saliva inside my mouth... hehe...

My 2nd sis who stays in Hong Kong, went to watch the dragon boat competition with her hubby and sis-in-law. The photos of the dragon boats were taken by her. Usually the atmosphere could be felt strongly over there.

This morning my Chinese colleague came and brought their handmade Chinese style rice dumplings into our office.  The fillings are quite different. They made it filled with red bean and red dates (sweet ones). Most of us (Singaporean and Malaysian) are not used to with the taste, just like they are not used to the rice dumpling filled with meat, mushroom, and chestnut.

However, we really appreciate their effort to share the rice dumplings with us. Thank you guys!!! :) (See photo to see how their hand made dumplings looked like)

It is wonderful to have friends like you

After finished my yoga session today, I headed to Chinatown to meet up my two school friends. We arranged it only this afternoon and decided to meet up today as we have already planned for other things for the rest of the week.

I reached late as the yoga ended slightly late too. Both of them had already been sitting there when I arrived. I immediately ordered the food while S ordered her own food. After some time we finally sat down and had our dinner together.

The Secret - The Law of Attraction

I've heard about this book in year 2009 from my ex-colleague.  He was asking me if I had read it before and he said this book is very good. Many people have read it and found the significant impacts in by applying The Secret into their lives.

That was 4 years ago. I was still ignorance about the importance of reading. And since months ago, I always saw it inside the book store  but the price had stopped me from buying hehehe... Somemore I didn't know yet what was the content of the book. Most book store would display the book sealed inside the transparent plastic bag so we couldn't browse the book around.

I borrowed 'The Magic' from the library around a month ago and the content was mostly all about gratitude. Those who have read the book before and practiced it into their daily lives could be easily recognised. My hubby's Uncle was one of them. I saw him expressing his gratitutes by posting it on his Facebook almost everyday until my hubby thought he had changed his religion hahaha....

And some people who read books written by the same author might read related topic of gratitude as well, so when they showed their gratitude, they would say 'Thank you' repeatedly for 3 times. So, are you one of them??? :P

So today, before heading to my facial appointment, I had few minutes and I headed to the library to return the books that I borrowed and at the same time I checked the availability of other books that I had in mind. I typed 'The Tibetan book of the living and dying'. They have only limited books and mostly were on loan. Then I thought of Rhonda Byrne book, ' The Secret'. I typed it in and I expected less, thought that the book must be unavailable just like the other book that I typed in previously.

They have only few books too.... and some books have even been reserved by many people. Wow... I thought 'no chance liao....' but I kept trying though... Sekali there was one in library that I went, and it was available!!!

Wow!!! I immediately ran to the rack and found the books... It was displayed calmly as if it had been waiting for my arrival since moment ago and next to it was 'The Power'. Without thinking much I grabbed both books and borrowed it right away :)

When I was on the way back home, I read it few pages and I was amazed with the content though. I quote here what John Assaraf said in the book 'Our job as humans is to hold on to the thoughts of what we want, make it absolutely clear in our minds what we want, and from that we start to invoke one of the greatest laws in the Universe, and that's the law of attraction. You become what you think about most, but you also attract what you think about most.'

So, the secret was the law of attraction. Hehe... It said "Like attracts like, and so as you think a thought, you are also attracting like thoughts to you." Hehe.. Actually I was just imagining that since I would like to borrow the book so much (attracted to it), the books were unexpectedly attracting me back and let me read it. This is what I usually call 'fate'.

I had other few examples that I had in my mind regarding the law of attraction that really has turned my thought into reality.  It began as merely a wish. Then slowly thing came one by one, and one thing led to another. engulfed me discovering into my new life. It works just like a magic. Things worked smoothly and it is now awaiting for the time to come.

Anyway, I will spend my weekend reading it. Hope the book can teach me many more important values in life that can benefit me and other beings :)

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Why men want sex and women need love by Allan and Barbara Pease

Some time ago when I browsed around the book shop, I encountered this book on the shelf. I saw it, not once, but few times and only after some time, I daringly took it out and flip it around. Actually I was quite shy to take it out seeing the title like that, and that's why it required some time for me to finally have a look on what was inside. Hahahaha.... :D

My first thought that appeared when reading at the title, "That was what I had been curious about and wanted to find out 'why??'."

I read lots of posts written in people's facebook. Most women claimed that they need love despite they had been experiencing hurt and betrayal. But some people I know had given up love and lose their trust on men after few same betrayal happened to them again and again.

In the past, I had conversation with some of my guy friends, and I found similarity on what they usually look for in women. First and foremost, most of them told me that they would love to see and to have beautiful women with them. Their answers made me curious to hell. Why? Why they loved to have beautiful woman and not a woman with beautiful heart?

I was wondering you know... What if that beautiful woman had a cruel heart and they were only going after your money, status, and power, for example, if you are rich enough, and then they left you once all you had has gone? Would you still choose that beautiful woman? I didn't really ask them that question, but I bet, their answer would still be 'yes'. Hehe.... *my assumption though :P

But I asked them back by telling them that 'beauty is impermanence'. Eventually people will grow old. The beauty that you see now, it will change over time. Then, what would you do when the beautiful girl has turned ugly due to old age? They answered simply, 'Find another beautiful one...' ^^"

I didn't buy the book because I didn't know if it's good. So I decided to find it in library since who knows I might find one. And last weekend, I really found it on the book shelf inside library. Lucky me!!! Finally I read it and still reading it (halfway).

First chapter of the book explained how men and women rate the opposite sex attractiveness differently and how the hormones and brains react differently to both sexes. It really answered my curiosity.

- What is the difference between men and women?
"A woman wants one man to satisfy her every little need.
A man wants every woman to satisfy his one little need." -

In biology of love, the book mentioned, "that 'Love is about chemical reactions in the brain'. It's none other than dopamine and norepinephrine (which created effect of love at first sight), oxytocin (also known as 'cuddle hormone', hormone that made people falling in love, gives us the warm, fuzzy feeling we have for the person of our desire), testoterone and oestrogen (sex hormones that cause an urgent push for physical gratification or sex drives, creating lust and sexual attraction to occur)."

"Having higher levels of oxytocin than men is a major reason why women fall more deeply in love at the start of a new relationship than men. The more oxytocin they produce, the more nurturing they will be and the deeper they will bond with someone. Just hearing their lover's name, an odour associated with them, fantasizing about them or hearing a song associated with them raises oxytocin levels. If she feels loved and adored, her hormones push blood into her cheeks, making her 'glow', and she will radiate warmth. If she feels unloved and ignored, however, that's easy to see, too." Lol!! :P

And the study by David Buss below is very interesting to know: "When couples are in the falling-in-love phase, men's testosterone levels decrease, while their oxytocin level rise to make the bonding process quicker. This makes men softer, gentler and more easy-going. At the same time, women's testosterone levels rise with the new excitement and confidence they feel at the start of a new relationship. This increased testosterone makes women hornier, giving the couple the illusion that male and female sex drives must be the same. When this 'shagathon' period ends, about three to nine months into a new relationship, their sex drives return to the 'default position', leaving a man with the idea that she's gone off sex and giving her the impression that he's a sex maniac. Many relationships end at this point."

Interesting, isn't it? Have you experienced the above yourself before? I just didn't understand why man would behave and think like that. And it explained clearly and logically the cause of it and now, I really wanna say it loud, 'Blame it to the hormones!!!' (And not the weatherman :P) hahaha...

So, what do you think how men's brains rate attractiveness in women? Research said when men were shown images of attractive women, they found men showed higher activity in two regions in the brain: the visual stimuli (explain clearly why men loves to see beautiful women), and the other, penile erection (gee, who would have guessed!) They did that as the look at woman to size up their ability to produce healthy baby to keep the species going - also explain why men are more likely than women to fall in love at first sight. Wow! Logical ah?

How about women then? Studies said in women, the brain areas associated with memory recall became active when evaluating men for attractiveness. Means, it's an adaptive strategy to remember all the details of a man's behavior, which she construct a mental composite based on the men she knows --> Woman will evaluate man's behavior and see if he's honest and trustworthy, if he shares his resources with her, and so on.

And now you know why women never forget and man are always being caught ogling women. Lolx!!

Chapter two told us why being loved and being in love are so important and there is a relationship between being in loved and good health or longer life. It also mentioned seven basic types of love that human always encounter, which are: romantic love, pragmatic love, altruistic love, obsessive love, brotherly love, common love, and familial love.

There are total of 11 chapters in this book. It really added my knowledge in this matter and it has answered lots of my curiosity. As the author, Allan and Barbara Pease has put up their findings based on research, it made the content of the books more logical and can be trusted.

The second impression that I had when I saw this book, I thought the book was too westernized as perhaps Asian people didn't think much about it when it came to love. They will usually just follow their gut, intuition, and feeling to find out if this is the right person for them and as long as they are happy when they are being together with their loved one. Because too much theories might as well create confusion, and most importantly, in love, we need to experience, live, and feel it. Bad experience gave us lesson and good one gave us happiness.

Personally, I never thought the importance of knowing about it much before, although I've been married for quite some time as my mind was so simple when finding the person to grow old with me. Perhaps, most criteria chosen based on what my father has shown to my mom and us, as until now, he and my Mom has been married for more than 44 years.

Anyhow, the book is very interesting to read. I recommend you to read it, just to add your knowledge and maybe it will 'WOW' you, as what it has happened to me hehe... :) Hope you all have a great day!