Look

God With Us

One of the toughest struggles for a Christian is that God can seem absent in the darkest of moments. Or we feel His presence but our cries for help go unanswered and our pains don't go away.

Does God care, does God know what I'm going through, we wonder.

Best we remember moments when He impresses a word, a verse or a thought upon us. Because that's what sustains us. That's what gives hope and assurance.

I choose to remain hopeful and to remind myself that He is Immanuel "God with us".

And in spite of what I've gone through in the past one & a half years, I choose to be thankful for things worth thanking God for.

Life is a journey, a friend reminded recently during a conversation. Which direction are we heading? Where do we want to go? And who's going along with us?

Go in the direction of your heart. Find your focus and be established in fruitful living where daily joys keep you going.

I wanna go to Marz

Marz by John Grant

One two three four...

Bittersweet strawberry marshmallow butterscotch
Polarbear cashew dixieland phosphate chocolate
My tutti frutti special raspberry, leave it to me
Three grace scotch lassie cherry smash lemon free

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Mraz
We'll meet the gold dust twins tonight
You'll get your heart's desire, I will meet you under the lights

Golden champagne juicy grapefruit lucky monday
High school footall hot fudge buffalo tulip sundae
Almond caramel frappe pineapple rootbeer
Black and white pennyapple henry ford sweetheart maple tea

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Mraz
We'll meet the gold dust twins tonight
You'll get your heart's desire, I will meet you under the lights

Shape Your Habits, Direct Your Life

Reading Charles Duhigg's The Power Of Habit really enlightened me and encouraged me on how one's personal habits can be changed and even harnessed for greater effectiveness in life.

We all know that everyone struggles with habits in various areas of our lives--that is, bad habits that call out to be managed and good habits that we always struggle to keep. Think new year resolutions.

First the bad news: habits, once formed, can't be gotten rid of because neural pathways are formed in our brains and even when we stop practising the habit, the pathways are still there, waiting to be activated.

The good news is that bad habits can be changed! And once we understand the anatomy of a habit, we can learn to form good habits! And it is through our daily habits that we can begin to build the life we desire.

So what's a habit? A habit is made of a loop which is first triggered by a cue such as mid-afternoon when you start to feel peckish. Once triggered, you begin to feel a craving and desire that begs to be satisfied. That's how we get into a habitual routine which serves to achieve a desired reward (e.g. hunger is satiated, feel good from endorphins etc.). And all this can happen without much forethought because our brains have been programmed through repeated habit cycles. This latter point can work both for us and against us.



Two examples:
- Cue: running shoes left next to the bed. Routine: run first thing in the morning. Reward: endorphine rush and a healthy breakfast.
- Cue: feeling sad. Routine: drink. Reward: forget the troubles.

Grasp this: The key ingredients to building instilling good habits are:

• Belief - Whatever your habit is, if you believe that your habit can be changed, it makes a critical difference whether you can sustain and follow through your habit change. Whether your belief is based upon spirituality or otherwise, Duhigg cites research such as recovering alcoholics that demonstrates how crucial belief is.
• Willpower - Don't give up! As we say in my church, keep on keeping on! Your breakthrough is round the corner! Another advice given to me by someone who recovered from depression by forcing himself to do what seemed really difficult, be ruthless. That said, willpower is like a muscle that can tire, such as after a long day of meetings and important decision making. That's why often we find it hard to kick ourselves to go for a run at the end of a tiring work day.
• Identify keystone habits - A keystone habit is one that causes shifts in other areas of your life and other good habits begin to fall in place. Such as regular exercise which usually leads one to eat more healthily, smoke less and sleep more. Interestingly, this habit might not even seem related to what you're trying to achieve. Duhigg reported about the power of visualization through how Michael Phelps' coach got him to repeatedly watch a video tape of a perfect swim every night and every morning.
• Understand moments of immense stress can trigger old habits - Duhigg mentions about people who do recover from alcoholism or drugs, but when a serious, personal crisis hits, these people lapse back into their destructive habits.

I simplify the practical habit-changing steps offered by Duhigg:

1) Identify the triggering habit cues. Think along five areas: time, location, emotional state, other people & the immediately preceding action.

2) Experiment with rewards to identify what is the gratification you're really after. It might not actually be the food you take during a tea break, but it could be company and a reprieve from work.

3) Think of a plan to change your routine according to the identified cue and reward. This step is essentially because otherwise you will feel compelled to lapse into your old habit. Separately, I've heard Dr. Robi Sonderegger explain that a temptation lasts about 7 minutes and that your planned distraction or new habit has to engage you emotionally if it is to be adopted effectively.

Read how Duhigg explains these steps.



And I'm absolutely inspired! I hope to apply this newfound wisdom not only to physical habits, but also to financial habits and mental habits. I also recognize that this is a journey and positive change won't take place place overnight. But bit by bit, if we keep at it, doing the right things and picking our bruised selves up when we do stumble, we can direct and transform our lives towards where we want to go.

Final note: Duhigg actually studies not just the habits of individuals but also in organizations and he goes into the realm of marketing strategies, corporate culture and practices. So you'll definitely find this book enlightening in many ways.

Stop Everything You're Doing & Be Grateful

The Why Question

Who hasn't wondered if God is real, and if He is, then why does He allow distress, troubles and even calamities and crises in our lives?

God has never really answered my "why" questions. It's left me wondering, searching and even bereft at one time.

At some point, I believe my purpose--His purpose for my life--will be understood.

For now, it takes trust. That is, trusting that God will move and act in His time to bring about the best outcome and path for me.

How will things turn out in future, we wonder? For good, I believe. I'm learning that one's past does not determine one's future.

Can you believe that positive change and progress will come in your life?

Move from Why to Yes. Your life depends on it.

Understanding Introverts

Marius Ziska (Live on KEXP)

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

Pointers gleaned from John C Maxwell's book - How Successful People Think.

1. Cultivate Big Picture Thinking
- What are the needs? And their causes?
- Who are the stakeholders? What are they thinking or doing with respect to the needs?

2. Engage in Focused Thinking
- What goals can be identified?
- How to achieve them?

3. Harness Creative Thinking
- How can we see/do things better?
- Who can we learn from?

4. Employ Realistic Thinking
- Face the facts
- Identify the pros, cons, worst case & resources needed

5. Utilize Strategic Thinking
- What's your plan?
- Who are you teaming with?

6. Explore Possibility Thinking
- Dream bigger & more fantastically
- Learn from achievers

7. Learn from Reflective Thinking
- Spend time reflecting
- Reflect in terms of what matters to you
- Make real changes

8. Question Popular Thinking
- Think for yourself
- Do things differently
- Do new things

9. Benefit from Shared Thinking
- Value others & enjoy interaction
- Plan for meetings: What's your agenda? Invite those who can contribute.

10. Practice Unselfish Thinking
- Give to benefit others
- Give anonymously if possible
- Check your motives

11. Rely on Bottom-Line Thinking
- What are your purpose and goal?
- How's your daily progress?

Changing The World

Two books have been on my desk: How To Change The World: Social Entrepreneurs And The Power Of New Ideas and Half The Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide.

They report numerous accounts of individuals (from the past and more recent) who aren't famous but yet are worthy of remembering because of how they worked against immense opposition and deep-rooted resistance to, well, change their world. They've effected changes that remove or reduce discrimination against groups of people like women and disabled people, that provide them the means to survive, that bring a sense of near-normalcy and deliverance to places of oppression and helplessness.

Change starts with...not so much the idea, but with men and women who dare to envision a different, better circumstance. Social change, business change, culture change...whatever it is, they see it and actually live it.

What gives courage to pursue change and to keep pursuing it through one's life? The deep burden to see the lives of loved ones, fellow ones removed from suffering? Anger at the ineffectual institutions that don't seem to care enough to bother? The will to believe that things can get and will get better?

It doesn't have to require a noble, grand cause and a huge effort to get started. Just meet one need at a time, around you and me. Little needs, not-so-little needs... And don't do it for recognition or affirmation, but do it simply knowing that you tried to make a difference.

Hanoi Trip (Oct 2012)

The Sound Of Two Songs (by Mark Power)

The Sound Of Two Songs is a photo-project by Mark Power spanning 2004 to 2009. He documents and presents his take on Poland, its landscape and people.

...instigated by Magnum Photos to document countries joining the European Union that year. Despite having no familial ties to the country, he soon became fascinated by Poland. Over the next five years he made a further twenty visits, often accompanied by Polish photographer Konrad Pustola who generously shared his knowledge of his native land. Over time Power’s focus shifted from an investigation into the effects of EU membership into a more subjective, poetic and autobiographical response to a country he grew to love...

Power’s images exemplify his belief that ‘ugliness can be profoundly beautiful’. They present Poland as a land ‘bursting with visual contradictions… like listening to several melodies at once to the point where it’s difficult to hear anything clearly’, a notion which inspired the title of the exhibition. It is a place seen by a foreigner, an outsider; a position Power has resolutely maintained throughout. A highly personal body of work, The Sound of Two Songs nonetheless remains an important historical document of this fascinating period in Poland’s history.

Thai Photography Of The Past

74-year-old Pornsak Sakdaenprai talks about his photography work half a century ago in a small Isan town. Video courtesy of Bangkok Post. In Thai with English subtitles.

Thinking About Consumption

Caught DIVE! a documentary by Jeremy Seifert on America's food waste problem. Proving that dumpster food can be safe for consumption, he along with others rifle through dumpsters regularly--not compelled by poverty but by a reluctance to see valuable food go to waste.

Seifert reports that America dumps 96 billion pounds of consumable food every year, which takes up 20% of landfills. Key fact to remember: there is a cost, i.e. resources, that's expended to produce food, although it's not visible to the consumer. So throwing away a single pound of food means we actually waste all the resources that went into putting it on our dinner table.

It's not just a film that aims to change consumer behaviour, but more than that, to highlight how food companies have a crucial role to play in deciding how to manage excess/expended food.

Something to seriously think about as we bite into our foods, not just our favourite but also those that we don't fancy and would feel nothing about letting it go to waste.

Which leads me to...



In Must-Have: The Hidden Instincts Behind Everything We Buy, Geoffrey Miller breaks down how consumers' display of their lifestyles, through the cars, music, clothes, books, foods, life partners, opinions etc. are all driven by innate evolutionary desires to appear more attractive and therefore better able to mate and find success.

Miller offers many ideas and explanations for our consumer behaviour--he can be tongue-in-cheek at times--including "Central Six" attributes and not demographics that can fairly accurately predict behaviour. He concludes with suggestions to change social norms such as imposing extra retail taxes on brand new products to curb consumption, raising the prices of products with intangible costs (e.g. social costs such as ammo for guns).

The main takeaway: Consider and weigh our own motivations for lifestyle choices.

Food for thought: What motivates people to give or get involved in charity? If it's sympathy-inducing situations coupled with latent desire to do good without being too inconvenienced...why do most of us brush aside people who beg on the streets? Do givers/carers need to have positive giving experiences in order to encourage them to continue giving/caring?



e² design by PBS features inspiring projects and architects/designer who have consciously implemented designs that are--here comes the E word--environmentally conscious.

Key points: Good design requires forethought and consideration of context and culture. Implementation of bold ideas requires willingness and flexibility to try. See the larger picture in order to appreciate various factors at work.

It's not about tree-hugging sentiments, but actually about practical concerns such as how to save costs in the long run, how to reduce energy usage, how to create a conducive, comfortable and culturally-relevant social space etc. If only we can just stop and ask ourselves them questions.

Rethinking & Reusing

A house that took just 3 days to lay its two-ton concrete slabs and structural steel beams that were disposed from Boston's Big Dig.





Reusing something that's trashed--disposed highway parts in this case--to build your own house, is seldom the first thought that comes to mind to most of us. How do you incorporate such materials with a design that fits its neighbourhood and surroundings?

This project was featured in e2, PBS' documentary series on green architecture design. You can read more about its development here.

Rediscovery & Remaking

I just finished reading India Calling by Anand Giridharadas, an Indian native who as a youth moves to America with his parents and later decides to relocate back to his homeland, I suppose, to rediscover his roots. He writes about India's transformation in its social castes & the relationships in-between and its values towards success in life, towards family & marriage. It depicts each new definition through various characters he recalls through his family lineage such as his parents and their parents as well as those he encounters who each represent the old and the new India and the tensions therein.

You can read a review as well as an excerpt of this book here by NPR--it also includes an interview with the author as he talks about changes he witnessed.

And now I'm thinking about my own place in my country: a dwelling place where social ties and fond memories reside, a marketplace of making a living and pursuing aspirations, and a place of belonging where my loyalty is demanded.

One can lament some things, yet one can also be grateful--for those same things and also for others. Perhaps the crux of our identity lies in how we choose to make a place: Do you choose to belong and to contribute to shaping it? And if you do nothing, you either shape the status quo or you allow others to shape it along with you in it.

Questions that are being asked today: Where do we want to head and at what cost? Who should bear responsibility for each aspect of the systems we're building? Should we allow age-old institutions to adapt to modern lifestyles?

As a friend recently responded to my suggestion for him to join the national conversation even while he's abroad, how can I who am currently out of the system voice out for a matter which the local actors have the say and probably already had theirs?

In short: First, choose to be a stakeholder. Then, choose how you want to remake your place.

Awareness

Half The Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is an immensely sobering and absorbing read because it puts the spotlight on the gritty issue of the sex trafficking of women. I'm a quarter through it...

Heavy and stirring it is. Its real life accounts of women coerced and trapped in prostitution illuminates the complexities involved in efforts to liberate these poor women. It also inspires how women, whether victims themselves and/or community heroes, are trying to help others.

Awareness is the first step. I'm not sure what's next...because I'm just learning about a whole lot of world issues demanding our attention.

Stay tuned and continue this journey.

Selecting

When deciding on a major decision and direction to pursue, you have to weigh what matters to you. Not pragmatically or directed by other's expectations, but being true to yourself.

Perhaps look at the examples of those around you. Are they doing what you wish you were? Can you see yourselves in their shoes?

Sometimes you hit a bump and you gotta make a change to find that breakthrough you been dreaming about. And sometimes no one can really help you; they might give you advice but you're the only one who can try it for yourself.

Keep looking forward, pressing on. Only you can forge the future you want.

Making Room

Been clearing my room progressively. All useless things of no sentimental value must go.

Photos & journal entries hark back to days long past. Of earlier thoughts, events and seasons.

Oh how we move on...

We all have memories we want to discard. We thought we already did, but they bubble up, sometimes unexpectedly, from the recesses within. Perhaps memories are as powerful as you ascribe them to be.

Whatever's happened in the past, don't be beholden to it. It doesn't determine your future. Today's choices do--unless you choose to do nothing.

How do you know you've room for new things in your life? It's certainly not just about diving headlong into them and expecting instant adaptation. It's not about juggling more and more things together, because some will quickly fall from the lack of focus. So what is it?

Accomodating through space and behavior seems to be it.

Without the new, the mundane & routine dominate.

Make a choice.

Mentalist

Homeland - Putting your finger on suspicions

Though a drama, yet the terror radicalist situation it depicts feels real and quite believable. Because the issues are close to its nation's heart: of war veterans and their psychological wounds and of a war that is ongoing as shown by recent events.

What captivates must be its 2 central characters: an CIA agent battling externally through rogue means and also battling internally as well to keep herself together and functioning; and a soldier recovering from terrors of war whose malintent is played out gradually and whose tortured mind is revealed through flitting memories and demons.

What gives us tenacity to cling on to a mission of eradicating an elusive enemy through all possible means? Is it loyalty to a cause and to one's country? Is it to vindicate one's hunches and actions?

Stay tuned as more is revealed next.

Breaking Bad - What your gut is capable of

Pressed by circumstances in life, it seems everyone and anyone can turn to the latent dark side. Life can be tough and cruel. It's all about how we choose to respond, isn't it?

Unmet needs feed our addictions which some try to hide and deny when confronted. The need to be accepted, affirmed and loved. The need to do something purposeful in life employing your abilities. The need to fight on when your survival is threatened.

The line on morality is drawn into question: How far would you go to save yourself and to give up what you've tried to hold on to?