Yes, finally I am able to write the final part 5 of my positive thinking series. I really don’t expect it this early. The most wonderful aspect that I have learned in the course of writing this series is being more positive towards in life since the last 5 or 6 days. The best achievement of the week happened yesterday. I was able to save my client from losing his best customer by giving the right solutions for a process automation machine to qualify and meet the six sigma acceptance level of his client. This is something that I can proud of and it’s definitely a plus for my new consulting business.
Another pleasant thing happened was; just before I started writing this final part; I visited the Website of Michigan Technological University, USA, the school that I took my Bachelor in Chemical Engineering. I had never gone to the Website since I came back from there in 1983. That was really a long time ago. It was a long shot for me to do that because I don’t really think that I’ll be up there in Upper Michigan again. As I browsed the pages, I could get a page that allowed me to search for my name. Then, waaalla…. there was my name. I am very happy to be able to log in and would start to be in contact with my classmates.
I guess the best explanation on why I browsed the site was, for last one day or two my mind started working on this final part 5 which has to do with the reflection of one’s life. Throughout our life, we have met people from various walks of life whose habits and behaviors in one way or another had made what we are today. From them, we learned, filtered and stored all information about their habits and later used when and as situations demand.
Very often we can observe the similarity in verbal expressions of a father and son and even in the way they walk. These are habits that passed on in the family sometime down to few generations. If the habits were predominantly negative conscious efforts must be made to change or to improve. Schools, colleges and institutions are the places where positive habits can be learned. However, it would depend on the individual students themselves to learn what’s right and have a mindset to believing in the teachers.
To lead a life that is filled with contentment, we have to eliminate entirely the habits that are negative which can post as obstacles against our pursuit towards achieving success in all aspects of our life. We can bring about the change by believing in the people whom we look up to with great respect and admirations and let ourselves be immersed by the memories of these people who we believed has the positive characteristics that we desired.
There are two ways of learning and knowing the characteristics of these people. First, is by reflecting our life and think of the people closed to us who have made significant influence in our way of thinking. Second, is to the read repeatedly the bibliography of people who we admired. I mentioned repeatedly because it is important for us to grasp a very clear and comprehensive picture of their lives in our mind. Believing in them and believing in their deeds for humanity is of paramount importance. Failing to do so, all of our efforts and time will just be wasted away.
The first person whom I believed most was my mother. She was a friend, a teacher, a supervisor, and a mother to me. Until today my mental picture of how she dressed me up in my first school uniform for my first day of school is still very clear. My school uniform was always neat and starched pressed. And she would always slipped in 20cents (0.5 US cent at present forex rate) coin in my pocket. She never failed me, not a single day until I was big enough to manage on my own.
Went I was 16, my chemistry teacher whom through his understanding and patience made me believed in him that I went on studying in science and engineering. I was not his favorite student but I developed the belief that he could lead me by the hand to learning the subject that most students hate. I guess he might have known that we were students from a rural area and had acquired a teaching method that suited to our way of life. I would always ‘played back’ his style of teaching even after I left the high school. From there on I started to focus on what was right and believe in all my teachers and professors. One must give due respect to one’s teachers and have faith in them because through them we will come somebody of the same or higher status later in life. So the habit of believing in the people who were responsible to make us ‘grow’ is very important and this habit still runs deep in the eastern culture. By instilling this belief that my teachers were important to me when I was a student, I discovered that I would always be ready for classes most of the time and would not fail to impress them by submitting my complete assignments.
You see, when we believe in someone we will act as though we are that someone with meticulous details. This act of acquiring the action of an influential person can clearly be observed in a young Japanese manager who would imitate the moves of his boss when attending customer negotiations or important meetings in for his future undertakings to acquire the character of the boss that he believes in.
There are times in our lives we have to rely on the belief in our ability and trust our guts and judgments. When you compete in singles tennis game, for example, you are on your own against your opponent; decisions must be made and executed by you within a fraction of a second that can determine whether you or your opponent will merge as victorious. Your guts play important roles in deciding what shot to be taken. You can see that successful professional players have higher degree of self belief that they acquired through rigorous training, positive mental attitude and making wonderful passing shots.
I did try on two occasions to test my guts and my determinations. The first was to walk up Mount Fuji (3776 meters) in Japan in summer of 1990 with my International friends from Japan, Korea, Thailand and Singapore. We started from Tokyo in the morning and arrived at the 5th Station in the evening from there we paved our way up to reach the summit very early in the morning of the following day; and by the late evening we were back in Tokyo again. So, to complete this journey we had no time to get proper sleep for more than 36 hours. I was so exhausted that I slept for more than 12 hrs upon returning to my place.
It was a very slow journey up, trailing in long line and one could not be out of the line formation to make sure that no one stepped on a loose rock that could roll down and caused injuries to the people lining up at the rear. As I reached higher, the air was becoming thinner and to maintain my oxygen level in the body I grabbed two canisters of fresh air and take a breath or two of good air supply every time I felt weak. Some of my friends gave up because were too tired to continue due to lack of sleep. At the rest point (8th station), I had to make a decision to proceed or to give up and shortly after consulting my friends, I made a decision to continue the journey to the top. If I had decided to stop and take a rest, all I would get was just a little sleep in a crowded rest point with no fluffy mattress and pillows. We arrived at the summit at about 4am and were able to see the sun rising from the east. It was a beautiful sight indeed.
I could remember the challenge that I took together with other Hindu devotees to walk a distance to over 200 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur to a small town called Maran, situated in the north east region peninsular Malaysia, in 4days. It was an experience that I will not forget till the end of my life. The first few hours of day one was ok, but as the hours gone by, little by little my guts were being consumed by the heat from the sun, radiated heat from the surface of the tar road and pain in my feet. Mirages of me sitting at home watching TV with a glass of cool lemon tea started flashing in my head like a computer that be ‘consumed’ by Spyware or Malware. For me, I knew that the objective of this ‘game’ was to complete the whole distance in 4days but for the other Hindu participants this event was sacred in which their suffering would be blessed with good fortune later in life. So, it was no surprise that they were willing to endure the ‘punishment’ that they were receiving. After enjoying a healthy vegetarian dinner and good live musical performances on our first night, I decided to move on because I too had my purpose to complete my walk; passing through day two and the other two days; I kept my desire strong to complete the journey. When the walk ended, my feeling of achievement was so good and wonderful that it over came the pain of losing the whole nails from two toes of my left foot and swollen feet that lasted for about a month. From the experience, I could feel the hardship that my father experienced, when he was a teenage, escaping from the Japanese hard labor camp in Singapore walking more than two hundred kilometer back to his home town in northern Johor.
Now you see, going beyond our limit is crucial in developing our guts and determination which it not tested would not be tough to fight the challenges to become positive thinkers. Our guts should be subjected for endurance test after we acquired the self belief that we are capable to over come any unexpected obstacles. Weakness in a one’s determination is reflected when a person has never ending excuses about not getting any results.
Procrastination is the enemy that one has to fight till the end. It is the fruit of negative habits that have rooted in ones mind. These habits were either inherited or acquired later in life from sources of negative elements or both. You can see and understand better if you were to take the habit of smoking to present procrastination. Similarly, smoking habit is either acquired from internal family or from outside sources. The only effective and known weapon against procrastination is making definite decision and immediate actions. The act of taking fast actions in any problematic situations can instantly kills the habit of procrastination – just like spraying water into fire.
So, let’s start the design process of a wealthy life by first believing in others who shared your dreams now. Share the beliefs of friends and trusted associates who have achieved wealth (not necessarily money). Finally, have the faith in your pursuit of achieving the true sense of richness in life.
Another pleasant thing happened was; just before I started writing this final part; I visited the Website of Michigan Technological University, USA, the school that I took my Bachelor in Chemical Engineering. I had never gone to the Website since I came back from there in 1983. That was really a long time ago. It was a long shot for me to do that because I don’t really think that I’ll be up there in Upper Michigan again. As I browsed the pages, I could get a page that allowed me to search for my name. Then, waaalla…. there was my name. I am very happy to be able to log in and would start to be in contact with my classmates.
I guess the best explanation on why I browsed the site was, for last one day or two my mind started working on this final part 5 which has to do with the reflection of one’s life. Throughout our life, we have met people from various walks of life whose habits and behaviors in one way or another had made what we are today. From them, we learned, filtered and stored all information about their habits and later used when and as situations demand.
Very often we can observe the similarity in verbal expressions of a father and son and even in the way they walk. These are habits that passed on in the family sometime down to few generations. If the habits were predominantly negative conscious efforts must be made to change or to improve. Schools, colleges and institutions are the places where positive habits can be learned. However, it would depend on the individual students themselves to learn what’s right and have a mindset to believing in the teachers.
To lead a life that is filled with contentment, we have to eliminate entirely the habits that are negative which can post as obstacles against our pursuit towards achieving success in all aspects of our life. We can bring about the change by believing in the people whom we look up to with great respect and admirations and let ourselves be immersed by the memories of these people who we believed has the positive characteristics that we desired.
There are two ways of learning and knowing the characteristics of these people. First, is by reflecting our life and think of the people closed to us who have made significant influence in our way of thinking. Second, is to the read repeatedly the bibliography of people who we admired. I mentioned repeatedly because it is important for us to grasp a very clear and comprehensive picture of their lives in our mind. Believing in them and believing in their deeds for humanity is of paramount importance. Failing to do so, all of our efforts and time will just be wasted away.
The first person whom I believed most was my mother. She was a friend, a teacher, a supervisor, and a mother to me. Until today my mental picture of how she dressed me up in my first school uniform for my first day of school is still very clear. My school uniform was always neat and starched pressed. And she would always slipped in 20cents (0.5 US cent at present forex rate) coin in my pocket. She never failed me, not a single day until I was big enough to manage on my own.
Went I was 16, my chemistry teacher whom through his understanding and patience made me believed in him that I went on studying in science and engineering. I was not his favorite student but I developed the belief that he could lead me by the hand to learning the subject that most students hate. I guess he might have known that we were students from a rural area and had acquired a teaching method that suited to our way of life. I would always ‘played back’ his style of teaching even after I left the high school. From there on I started to focus on what was right and believe in all my teachers and professors. One must give due respect to one’s teachers and have faith in them because through them we will come somebody of the same or higher status later in life. So the habit of believing in the people who were responsible to make us ‘grow’ is very important and this habit still runs deep in the eastern culture. By instilling this belief that my teachers were important to me when I was a student, I discovered that I would always be ready for classes most of the time and would not fail to impress them by submitting my complete assignments.
You see, when we believe in someone we will act as though we are that someone with meticulous details. This act of acquiring the action of an influential person can clearly be observed in a young Japanese manager who would imitate the moves of his boss when attending customer negotiations or important meetings in for his future undertakings to acquire the character of the boss that he believes in.
There are times in our lives we have to rely on the belief in our ability and trust our guts and judgments. When you compete in singles tennis game, for example, you are on your own against your opponent; decisions must be made and executed by you within a fraction of a second that can determine whether you or your opponent will merge as victorious. Your guts play important roles in deciding what shot to be taken. You can see that successful professional players have higher degree of self belief that they acquired through rigorous training, positive mental attitude and making wonderful passing shots.
I did try on two occasions to test my guts and my determinations. The first was to walk up Mount Fuji (3776 meters) in Japan in summer of 1990 with my International friends from Japan, Korea, Thailand and Singapore. We started from Tokyo in the morning and arrived at the 5th Station in the evening from there we paved our way up to reach the summit very early in the morning of the following day; and by the late evening we were back in Tokyo again. So, to complete this journey we had no time to get proper sleep for more than 36 hours. I was so exhausted that I slept for more than 12 hrs upon returning to my place.
It was a very slow journey up, trailing in long line and one could not be out of the line formation to make sure that no one stepped on a loose rock that could roll down and caused injuries to the people lining up at the rear. As I reached higher, the air was becoming thinner and to maintain my oxygen level in the body I grabbed two canisters of fresh air and take a breath or two of good air supply every time I felt weak. Some of my friends gave up because were too tired to continue due to lack of sleep. At the rest point (8th station), I had to make a decision to proceed or to give up and shortly after consulting my friends, I made a decision to continue the journey to the top. If I had decided to stop and take a rest, all I would get was just a little sleep in a crowded rest point with no fluffy mattress and pillows. We arrived at the summit at about 4am and were able to see the sun rising from the east. It was a beautiful sight indeed.
I could remember the challenge that I took together with other Hindu devotees to walk a distance to over 200 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur to a small town called Maran, situated in the north east region peninsular Malaysia, in 4days. It was an experience that I will not forget till the end of my life. The first few hours of day one was ok, but as the hours gone by, little by little my guts were being consumed by the heat from the sun, radiated heat from the surface of the tar road and pain in my feet. Mirages of me sitting at home watching TV with a glass of cool lemon tea started flashing in my head like a computer that be ‘consumed’ by Spyware or Malware. For me, I knew that the objective of this ‘game’ was to complete the whole distance in 4days but for the other Hindu participants this event was sacred in which their suffering would be blessed with good fortune later in life. So, it was no surprise that they were willing to endure the ‘punishment’ that they were receiving. After enjoying a healthy vegetarian dinner and good live musical performances on our first night, I decided to move on because I too had my purpose to complete my walk; passing through day two and the other two days; I kept my desire strong to complete the journey. When the walk ended, my feeling of achievement was so good and wonderful that it over came the pain of losing the whole nails from two toes of my left foot and swollen feet that lasted for about a month. From the experience, I could feel the hardship that my father experienced, when he was a teenage, escaping from the Japanese hard labor camp in Singapore walking more than two hundred kilometer back to his home town in northern Johor.
Now you see, going beyond our limit is crucial in developing our guts and determination which it not tested would not be tough to fight the challenges to become positive thinkers. Our guts should be subjected for endurance test after we acquired the self belief that we are capable to over come any unexpected obstacles. Weakness in a one’s determination is reflected when a person has never ending excuses about not getting any results.
Procrastination is the enemy that one has to fight till the end. It is the fruit of negative habits that have rooted in ones mind. These habits were either inherited or acquired later in life from sources of negative elements or both. You can see and understand better if you were to take the habit of smoking to present procrastination. Similarly, smoking habit is either acquired from internal family or from outside sources. The only effective and known weapon against procrastination is making definite decision and immediate actions. The act of taking fast actions in any problematic situations can instantly kills the habit of procrastination – just like spraying water into fire.
So, let’s start the design process of a wealthy life by first believing in others who shared your dreams now. Share the beliefs of friends and trusted associates who have achieved wealth (not necessarily money). Finally, have the faith in your pursuit of achieving the true sense of richness in life.
