Breaking My Habit, Day+14: Test of Character

Ok, my whole habit has been officially destroyed with that trip to Lombok.. Let's pick up where we left off, shall we?

Abraham Lincoln, the great president of United States who abolish slavery (and vampires, apparently).

Reading this quote, it would be easy picturing man of powers (our leaders) who more often than not failed to meet our expectations of how a leaders should behave. The notion of leaders that fail to deliver are so abundant in our daily conversations, these kind of news become such a great reliever.

But pointing fingers are always easy, isn't it? Just as it is so easy for us to give advices to our friends but not to ourselves, it is also very easy to judge others but forget about ourselves. In this realization, let's ask our own, how did I fare when I'm in the position of power?

I'm pretty sure most of you will replied, 'I haven't got that much power, so how should I know?' Indeed, I also thought the same way, at first. So far, I've never been in position where I have great power, at least not large enough to affect my character.

It's ok, bottom dwellers

Eventually, I came to this realization. No matter what is our position in our company / family / organization, each and everyone of us have the ultimate say in terms of one thing: how we manage our time.

Time, just like money, is power. It's one of the few things in life where everybody got a fair share: every person, be it a king or peasant, has the same 24 hours each day, no more and no less.  
The question left is, how good have we been in using this power? 

I failed miserably in this test. No blog posts for weeks, low productivity at the office.. Well I'll stop before further embarrassing myself. 

As for you guys, please judge yourself, and let me know how it goes. I'll close with this quote from my Mom, just to make sure all of you can share my guilt ;)

Those who waste their time will in turn get wasted by their time - Norma Liesje Tanoko

Breaking My Habit, Day+11: Best Ages to be Alive!

Several days ago, my friend and I were discussing about our lives. One of the things that we agreed on was that 20s is definitely the best ages to be alive! I'll explain the reason why, but before that, let's take a look at this picture below.

The picture differentiates people into three types: young, adult, and old. Most of the time, the descriptions are correct: young people usually don't have a steady supply of income, they can only rely on their parents for money. Adult ones, probably just finished their study, are occupied with their first jobs, and are running out of time. Old people, having retired from their jobs, are (supposedly) having a lot of time and money, but not the energy.

Of course the description are not always true. For instance, not every adult can get a decent job that pays well; some are stuck in a job that drains all of their energy but doesn't pay that much. Also, not everybody can retire with loads of money; some haven't acquired enough during their younger days and are still 'forced' to work even when they're supposed to retire. Yes, shit does happen. 

So, what does this have to do with my notion that 20s are the best ages to be alive?

It has to do with the fact that the balance of these three components are the key to your overall happiness. Problems start to arise when one of them are not sufficient enough: not enough money, time, or energy.

The biggest benefit for us 20s is the combinations of traits. Our energy is still overflowing just like the younger ones, but unlike them, we already had a steady supply of money. We are not too burdened with responsibilities like kids or family, and we can still experiment with our career (which is hard to do if you're already in your 30s or 40s). We have some experience with life, but not too much that it made us cynical (like some old people would become).

The biggest challenge (not the only, mind you) we will be facing in our 20s is the time management! If only you could manage your time well, balancing between your work and other stuffs, you can do whatever it is that you wanted to do in your spare time. Combined with your limited-but-still-enough supply of money, that's really a sweet spot to hit on!

Breaking My Habit, Day+4: Worry

Worrying does not solve anything.

Few years ago, my college friend taught me that worrying over anything was basically stupid. 

Consider this scenario. You're stuck inside your car in a traffic jam. You're going to watch a show that starts at 7 o'clock, while now it's already 6. You're still 5 km away from your destination, but the traffic moves slower than your walking speed. 

In the car, several thoughts are coming to your mind. You are now worried that you're not gonna arrive on time. You will miss the show, and your money, and your time spent on the traffic for nothing. 

If only you bring your bike

At this point, actually there are two possibilities. Either you arrive on time, or you don't. 

If you ended up arrive on time, that means all your worrying before was for nothing. You arrived on time because the traffic was getting cleared, not because of the worry. Being worried just ruins your night a little bit.

And if you ended up not arriving on time, was being worried helped you in any way? Did it reimburse your show / money / time? Still no! You missed the show, lost your money, and wasted your time. All that the worry did was adding an extra burden to your mind, ruining your mood, and probably adding one or two strands of silver hair to your head. 

So no, worrying does not help, at all. If you ever feel worried about anything, do something about it. If you can't do anything about it, then don't sweat it. Trying to control things that you cannot control, that's what makes your life miserable! 

That's all for today, see you tomorrow!

Breaking My Habit, Day 36: Paralysis by Analysis

I spent a lot of time thinking what to write for today's post. A bit too much, in fact. I've already made 3 different drafts, while this is the fourth. One was too serious, another too random, and the other one was too 'meh'.

It reminds me of something called "paralysis by analysis". I first heard this phrase when I was contemplating between taking a job or finding scholarship after my internship period finished (ironically, at the time I didn't get both). I forgot the exact quote, but one my colleague told me "not to over think and get paralysis by analysis."

So what is it exactly?

Analysis of paralysis is a condition where you have too many options and thus unable to make a choice. It sometimes manifests when you and your friends are hanging out at the mall, and suddenly one of you ask,"Where shall we eat?"

...

As stupid as it might sound, it does happen from time to time. Even more often for me, because I'm already too accustomed to following other people's decision. Getting into the habit of making my own decision and get on with it still needs some time.

So far, the only solution I can find for this problem is by being bold and just choose one of the options. It couldn't be that bad, and you can still revise the decision later on. Well, at least it works for small problems. For bigger problems, hmm, wait.. let me think about it first..

Breaking My Habit, Day 35: Minesweeper

Today I'm going to talk about minesweeper. I'm pretty sure most of you are already familiar with this little game. It's one of the oldest game in Windows operating system, featured as part of Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows in 1990 and had been incorporated in every Windows release ever since (thanks Wikipedia). 

Number 1 game for office slackers  since 1990

The rules of minesweeper are quite simple.  Again, from Wikipedia:

"..The goal of the game is to uncover all the squares that do not contain mines (with the left mouse button) without being "blown up" by clicking on a square with a mine underneath. The location of the mines is discovered by a process of logic. Clicking on the game board will reveal what is hidden underneath the chosen square or squares (a large number of blank squares may be revealed in one go if they are adjacent to each other). Some squares are blank but some contain numbers (1 to 8), each number being the number of mines adjacent to the uncovered square. To help avoid hitting a mine, the location of a suspected mine can be marked by flagging it with the right mouse button. The game is won once all blank squares have been uncovered without hitting a mine, any remaining mines not identified by flags being automatically flagged by the computer.."

Initially, all of the player's squares are still empty. Players are expected to click randomly for the first few turns, as they have no clues of where the mines are. After several clicks, normally you can start calculating the location of the mines. Do this consistently, and you'll win the game.

In my opinion, the game resembles much of our thought process in real life. When we first encounter a problem, we are not always equipped with enough data / facts to help us solve it. Heck, even we might not understand what's problem at all. We'll do what anybody would do: poke the problem little by little, hoping that we'll get more data by doing that.

Once we get more data, we can approach the problem more intelligently. There are certain logical ways in solving our problems. Do this, get that, it's pretty straightforward to do. This is how we mark most of our mines, by simple calculation.

But then, you couldn't expect to win your games with only this approach. Eventually, after performing all of your logical moves, you'll run out of it. What's left is the moves that requires you to take a leap of faith, because honestly, you just don't know.

Which pretty much analogues to our real life situation. After you work all of your small problems out, sometimes you will still be left with one big, final problem. And often, there's no clear logical moves to it. You cannot choose the "easy" path anymore. You either had to play it safe and do nothing (not solving the problem), or to do something riskier that you aren't 100% sure about.

Will you stay in a job, even after all the bad things you've received from it? Swap 'job' with relationships, projects, habits, mindsets, or whatever thing that bothers you. And remember, just like in the minesweeper games, the clock's always ticking. Sometimes it will just boil down to one question: Are you willing to take the risk?
   

Breaking My Habit, Day 32: LIFE

Welcome to the greatest Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game ever created! Welcome to LIFE!

LIFE!

Over 7 billions of active players are currently playing the game. Our only server, EarthRealm, had been around for about 4.54 billion years. It will continue to remain so until the next cataclysmic event, the Red Sun, be implemented.

Not in a billion years, at least

Several notable features of this game:

• Visually stunning gameplay! Enjoy Ultra High Definition graphic with no less than 10 millions different colors. 

• Choose from hundreds of readily available jobs! Even better, create your own customized one.

• Non limited Player versus Player (PvP) area. You can brawl everywhere, from the dark corners of the bar to the hallowed halls of parliament building!

• Compete with other players on all kinds of competitions. Fishing, singing, running, or even this!

• Create your own Guilds, Brotherhood, or even Nations!

• Believe system! Choose from dozens of available religions! 

• Random player distribution! From the sizzling Sahara to the chilling North Pole, you'll never know where you'd start!

• Non-linear storyline! Each of your action will contribute to the endings you can unlock at the end of the game. 

• Discover your own ultimate goal! Be it world domination or world peace, it is all up to you!

Sign up today to receive the full benefits of being millennials!

We puke rainbows!

P.S:

The list is going to be expanded as I see fit. Drop your suggestions on the comment section below :)

Breaking My Habit, Day 31: Flaws

Perfectionism is a double-edged sword: it can drive you to the limit of your abilities, but it can also damages you severely if the target is not achieved.

I believe everyone has, to some degree, a perfectionistic side in him (or her). I'll take myself as an example. While most of the time I'm a very practical / pragmatic person, there are occasions where I am a perfectionist:

- I stopped writing in my blog (the one before this) because I'm not sure what to write in it (I wanted to have it all figured out since the beginning)

- I stopped my resolution of doing pushups everyday because I missed 1 day of it (I wanted to do it 100%)

- I stopped playing FF VIII because I feel disappointed when I failed to get 1 character card (I wanted to have ALL the cards)

Damn you, Seifer!

Yeah, those are silly examples, but that's just how my perfectionistic side works. Whenever I see flaws in my project, I tend to abandon it, just because it's not perfect anymore. 

Truth be told, I actually break my own rules during these 40 days project. Three kinds of incidents, to be exact:

1. I ate a bread in between meals: my friend persuaded me by saying it's not an "unhealthy snack" but a "healthy, home-made bread" :)

2. I play 'Dragon Flight' for several days: not a flash game, but still the kind of games that I tried to stay away from, the one that rewards you with daily gifts and involves a lot of mindless grinding

3. I wrote nothing yesterday: normally I wrote something but late to finish it, yesterday I wrote none

As usual, my perfectionistic side kicks in and tell me to abandon this project. But no, I've seen this pattern occurring too many times.  This time, I stick to my project and keep moving on.

I now realize that the problem lies in my mindset. I set the bar at 100%, not allowing even 1 single mistake. When I eventually did make a mistake, the whole project become a failed one. Why pursue it further when it's already failed? There is no sense in doing something so hard when you already considered it a failure.

It's a dangerous mindset to have. I dismiss the bigger, successful portion of my project and instead focus only on the smaller flaws. Not only stupid, it's also chock-full of ego. Who am I to think that everything I do must be 100% right? Even nature makes mistakes!

Blue eyes are the products of mutated gene

I believe there is a virtue in acknowledging your flaws and try to live with them. This is also why I left this page blank. I initially intended to write something on it today, but I changed my mind. It will be a testament to any flaws that I have (or will have) done during this project.

Breaking My Habit, Day 28: A Bug's Life

When I arrived home today, I was worried that I will meet yesterday's ominous black moth in my room. To my surprise, I actually see it there, but in a state I didn't expect it to be..

Hint: it's not avatar-state

It's dead.

Huh, didn't see that coming.

Perhaps it's a sign of something. It made me realize the transformation that the moth had undergone before it could fly.

Maybe there's something more to this..

You know what? Scratch that. I intended to write about moth transformation and its relation to human transformation, but it just felt too pretentious. I don't really feel that way when I saw the moth dead. I just felt relieved :|

Not every things in life have to be about something big or grand. Sometimes, small things are just small things. It will always depend on our very subjective point of views. And this time, I don't feel that special about this particular moth. 

#Fin

Breaking My Habit, Day 16: Mr. Bean

My brother broadcasted this message in my Blackberry Messenger:

"Imagine you are asleep when suddenly your old friend came knocking on your door. He wanted to have breakfast with you. You have butter, chocolate, and strawberry jam. What do you open first?

If you answer wrongly, please change your profile picture with this Mr. Bean picture on my profile picture. "

This was his profile picture

Me, being confident in myself, quickly replied to his message. "Door," I wrote. "No, you open your eyes first. Change your profile picture." Crap, I fell for my brother's trap :/

After I changed my profile picture, I broadcast the same question to all of my friends. Hey, misery loves company. And hell yeah, around 50% of my friends who contacted me after that gave me wrong answers, hahaha.. In no time, a lot of people in my contact list changed their pictures to Mr. Bean.

The question reminds me of one of the fallacy that I know, the red herring. To put it simply, red herring is the kind of clue that was deliberately put by the author / writer to mislead the reader. The jams in the story fits to this criteria. Some people was too focused on the jams, they miss the correct answer.

But wait, even if you recognize the jams as red herring, it still doesn't guarantee that you'll get the correct answer. 

I quickly dismiss the jams as viable answer, but then I got reckless and automatically assume the door as the only possible answer. I was lazy and did not re-read the whole question carefully. Door was a second layer of the trap, because it captures those who were sharp enough to escape from the red herring, but not keen enough to realize the word 'asleep' in the first sentence. 

Why do I discuss this small joke so seriously? It's just a joke, after 
all, right?

I don't know, but I think life works in the same way as the joke. There are so many things you can get in this world. Money, fame, fortune, power, food, glory, anything.

I consider all of those as red herrings. We work our asses off to get money, then we spend the money to buy the things that we like, 
cars, houses, etc. After that, we are hungry for more money. After money has not become a problem anymore, we began looking for power, for fame. Our hunger is limitless. The more that we get, the more we feel hungry.

At that point, perhaps we are already loosing the big picture. Perhaps we should ask this to ourselves:

What is it that I'm really looking for?