Thoughts

ADDED: MH370 memorial at Sunway Pyramid on 26th March 2014.

Today is a tragic day for fellow Malaysians, family members and relatives of the passengers who were aboard the ill fated MH370 flight bound for Beijing. It’s been more than 20 hours yet there is still no sign of the aircraft. The search is ongoing but the incident is already recorded in the nation’s history as the worst aviation disaster.

I am glad the authorities were transparent with the incident and are doing everything they can to search for the missing aircraft and many more netizens pouring out their prayers, concerns, encouragement and sharing of grief.

Then we also have keyboard warriors who trivialize the disaster. Spreading rumors and conspiracy theories because it’s a “pertandingan siapa lebih cepat post berita”. Blaming MAS (they have a near-flawless record of accidents). Politics, religion and race? Uncalled for.

For the sake of the passengers, I really DO HOPE they are safe even though the chances of survival are less than slim by now.

As a regular traveller, this comes across as SHOCKING. Never before in history of Malaysian aviation that a disaster of this scale occurred. And the scary part? This could have happened to ANYONE.

In as much as it’s a blow to the nation, I think we have learned something today. Life is short, live it to the fullest. For you will never know when your final hour comes.

Until then, let the authorities do their job and the rest of us can only hope for the best.

I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t gamble.

And it goes beyond being a ‘good boy’. It’s personal.

My aunt died from lung cancer in 1999. My uncle is a chain smoker and as I am writing this, his health is deteriorating. Today he has to wash down dozens of supplements daily and watch his diet like a hawk. He hasn’t been able to cut back on his cigarette intake much due to decades of addiction to smoking, since the day he picked up his first stick in his teens.

When my father was still living with us, I would sometimes dreadfully accompany him to places that an underage shouldn’t be hanging out at. My father flirted with women, got drunk, got abusive with my mother by the time he gets home, and still pissed ass drunk.

I’ve also seen my father lose at the table every time he gambles. There were days it would seem he will be going home green, but knowing that’s too good to be true my feelings were always right. I kept telling my dad that the money would have been better spent putting food on the table or pay off our debts back then, but to this day I still don’t understand gamblers. Every time I see a gambler, I see a loser who doesn’t have his priorities right.

While my mother wasn’t a gambling addict, her lack of ability to get a higher paying job coupled with desperation made her resort to the only other means of income she knew: buying Toto. Unlike my father, my mother had better luck and there were actually several times she struck the consolation prizes, enough to get us by at times. But I hated the hopelessness we felt at the dread of having to pray and be at the mercy of luck.

So if you have always wondered why I don’t smoke, don’t drink and don’t gamble… now you know why!

1. My continued effort to train at the gym got stopped by the all-too-familiar nausea feel again. The last two trainings lasted only about half an hour each instead of the usual hour long session, which means I didn’t complete them. It was embarrassing. I wasn’t lifting heavy yet I felt I was going to black out and throw up.

2. Since then, I had went back to Johor to rest at mom’s place and hopefully recuperate. The nausea feeling stayed with me for more than a month. I visited the doctor that mom recommended but I felt it was a rip-off and unnecessary. The doctor suggested I take a blood test – I already did that last year, and the results came back with nothing unusual. I also had a camera slipped through my nose and the doctor found nothing unusual in my throat either. RM400 and 2 days later and I found out nothing about the cause of the nausea, which still remains a mystery to me. It’s not serious – it’s ANNOYING.

3. So I have to be extra careful with the food I take now. It sucks that I have to be this cautious with my health while I am still in my twenties. The nausea feel is also putting a dent on my social life, and that’s why I haven’t met any of my friends for more than a month now. I wouldn’t want to keep excusing myself away when I feel like vomiting.

4. While I’ve started to feel better and less nausea since last weekend, I am still not too sure about it. Will try gymming again later this week and cross my fingers that my body is up for the punishment again.

5. I will be leaving for Indonesia on the 12th through 18th January. Will be in Bandung to meet some underground affiliate marketers, and then in Jakarta to deliver a short presentation at the Calibre Works office owned by my Indonesian friends Dee Ferdinand and Padro Widjaja. I better not start feeling dizzy with nausea on stage!

(A REPOST FROM MY LATEST FB STATUS)

It’s been almost a week since the PRU13. We’ve seen several cases of election frauds exposed. We’ve also read false news being shared without being checked from all sides. And for every one person actively working to fight corruption and for fairness, there are 10 other people playing the role of keyboard warriors and smartphone soldiers.

Question is, what are you going to do to UBAH?

I waited a week to write this because amidst all the angry and sad emotions, one niche of people in Malaysia stood out brightly from the rest to me: I call them entrepreneurs from all walks. And it is in them that I found renewed hope for a better change in our nation. I had been compiling their personal responses (read: actions) to the post-PRU13 and ultimately, I decide what I am doing next:

– – – – – – – – –

1. Intensify the work-from-home revolution. Owning an office is out of option for many starting entrepreneurs and even so, there’s the horrendous jam to overcome every single morning and evening. My vision is to create more online entrepreneurs working from home, and in turn have at least two other staffs who don’t have to leave their own homes either. This way = save MASSIVELY on petrol + save MASSIVELY on toll + save MASSIVELY on time from useless meetings + earn MASSIVELY in any currency of choice. Wealth is not a zero-sum game.

2. Build a local online community for online entrepreneurs. This was an idea I had kept in my back burner for so long that needs to be brought forward now. Up until early this year, I have been selling almost exclusively to the international market and this time I will share my knowledge and know-how so that our local online entrepreneurs can compete and think globally. The membership entry will be FREE and in dual languages (English and Malay).

3. Through speaking engagements, I wish to connect with more local audience now than ever for the above two reasons, when I am not sitting in front of the computer.

4. Continue ‘boycotting’ papers. I’ve not bought a newspaper since 2008 (except occasionally to smack cockroaches cos that’s all they’re good for now, and that one time I appeared in the papers) – it’s nothing new that the newspapers are choke full of shit and highlights that don’t empower your day. Don’t stop at boycotting for a month; stop buying it altogether. Anything that’s newsworthy will find its way to you through social media, and even so it should be controlled… like food intake.

– – – – – – – – –

No one can wait another five years so UBAH has to start now. Follow the true builders of the nation and you’ll realize there’s actually more you can do than just wearing a black shirt.

What will you do?