This incident happened when I’m still in primary school. I’m always curious as a kid and love observing the behaviors of insects or animals. Guess this explains why I took up psychology, maybe I was bored of the simplicity of insects and animals, thus decided to observe human instead (how lame rite…). Anyway back to the story…
My previous house used to have a large garden since my mum love gardening. One good thing about having a garden is you’re able to observe insects from near. One fine day, the cute little curious boy in me that was still studying in primary school went to the garden and hoping to catch some spiders or insects as victims pets. When I was near a papaya tree, something attracted my attention. I saw a butterfly attacking a spider (the butterfly was slightly larger in size) and gotten excited by this scene, I continued my observation due to the fact that no logic in this world would explain why a butterfly would want to attack a spider.
The butterfly was trying to ram itself into the spider, as if trying to prevent the spider from climbing further up the tree. The spider somehow retreated slightly, as if it was staring at specific direction and the butterfly moved back to land on a higher part of the tree. Moments later, the spider tried to proceed up the tree and the butterfly began its assault on the spider without hesitation. I start to feel curious due to the fact that the movement of both the spider and butterfly suggested that the spider is trying to reach a certain spot of the tree and the butterfly is trying to prevent that from happening. I did noticed that the spider tried to attack the butterfly but to no avail due to some smart maneuver from the butterfly that uses its wings to repel any potential attack. There was once where the spider took a slight bite on the butterfly but the butterfly managed to fend it off fast. After around 5-10 minutes of fighting, I noticed the butterfly started to get fatigue (I believed the initial bite’s poison start to take its toll on the butterfly’s body).
Being the righteous kid as I always had, I shooed the spider far and away. Stepping backwards as an assurance to the butterfly that everything is fine, I noticed it flew up slightly to the leaf area and landed there. I took a peep and I saw the butterfly and its mate (sorry, can’t differentiate their gender), which appeared rather weak and seemed to be dying pretty soon. This explains why the butterfly had all those courage to crazily attack a spider earlier; it was to protect its mate despite the fact that its mate is clearly dying soon, even though that butterfly faces the danger of getting killed. The butterfly did all those just to buy its mate some extra precious moments of life, and I could not help but to admire the courage and love of that butterfly in taking concern for its mate.
Now I knew why and what it was fighting for. Its courage in attacking a natural predator for its mate’s life had earned itself some extra precious last few moments with its mate. I left the scene soon, still feeling amazed at what I saw.
Since then, I’ve always tried to remember the courage of that butterfly whenever I see huge obstacles facing me. I use that butterfly’s courage as an inspiration and to remind myself that good things are worth fighting for.
End of story---------
Courage is the mental muscle that conquers fear. Like all muscles, the more you use them the stronger they become. Courage is not something you are born with, it must be developed. Individuals that fail to develop courage will always remain confined in their own mental prisons and face each day as mental lightweights.
A little courage leads to more. Observe those poor souls who are without courage. They merely tiptoe through life hoping they make it safely to death. I believed that we were never meant to live that way. Learn to live the way you like by no longer living as you dislike. Forge into the remainder of your day with an abundance of courage. That is what I call, true living.
The below video is a big inspiration that I felt worth watching.
How they saw things.
The vision they had.
And what they were going to do to get there.
Just like you and I.
We all can choose to live beyond the average if we dare.
p/s: This post is dedicated to a good friend that is celebrating her 22nd years old birthday today. It is my hope that she's able to do a breakthrough in her current life and garnered enough courage to seek what she wants. All the best in life and happy 22nd birthday ;)
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The real satisfaction
Dedicating this post to Arnie since i promised her to write something here today hehe.
I've adopted the habit of observing and trying to analyze people (not girl's boob or arse, mind u) in terms of their behavior ever since taking up psychology. Sounds creepy rite? But hey, I lub doing that :P
One important thing I noticed was how people define satisfaction in their life that contributes to their own self-esteem. I've come across people that were rich, or people that were extremely pretty but yet they wasn't satisfied with their life. In fact, these people assumed they had achieved little or nothing in life and thus feeling down and suffered from low self-esteem.
Don't believe it? Lemme ask you this and answer to these questions frankly based on what you know about yourself, or even those people that you know that you might know or come across:
a) You're a pretty girl by public eyes and have lots of admirers. People have been praising your beauty very much, and you do feel happy with those praises. Yet, you've been suffering from low self-esteem and assumed that you didn't really achieve much in life.
b) You're quite a public figure (those in entertainment or political field), where your fans spurns from hundreds to thousands. People acknowledge your achievement, people praises you immensely and you can afford to buy goods or gifts that you like, yet you feel those admiration doesn't reflect or mean anything to you. You just feel you didn't achieve much in life.
c) You're the showstopper and always one of the main attraction in the crowd wherever you go. People glued to you because you made them cheer and laugh their arse out, you create fun and great atmosphere and always able to light up even the most dull occasion. You're well-known because of this and people just love being by your side. Despite these public acceptance, you never quite feel satisfied and feel down whenever you're by yourself. You feel you didn't achieve much in life.
d) You're what I call, the reincarnation of an angel. You're known to be the perfect man or woman when it comes to friendship. You're known amongst your friend as the most gentlemen (or gentlelady), humble, down-to-earth, and the extremely helpful lad that never reject helping people in need, thus winning you a group of small but great friends. Despite having this great bunch of people around you whenever you need them or otherwise, yet you feel you didn't achieve much in life.
The above 4 scenarios above are just some example of people I've come across that felt themselves as, "just another person that didn't achieve much in life" despite them possessing beauty, and/or material goods, and/or social recognition. The question why is easily answered, and it was due to the fact that they are not able to link their success to their inner soul.
What do i mean by this you might ask. Lemme give an example. When you come across a great song or movie that you've heard or seen, you can really feel this song or movie have some kind of emotional link to your inner soul. You can feel the link is so great till the extent you can feel the emotion that the singer and/or songwriter is trying to portray out to its listener. And yes, these kind of songs can last for centuries and yet the listener will never feel dull listening to it. Reason? Because you had managed to link that song to your inner soul, thus able to appreciate whatever it was being sang to you, and such appreciation DO last for years if not forever.
Another example was, you might be yearning to get the latest model of laptop or handphone. Let's say you finally got it, and for sure you will feel happy for a week or so. Afterward, that laptop or handphone is just another "one of your many items" that you owned, and do you feel proud and happy after buying it? Yes, you do, but only for like a week or so as I've pointed out but definitely not for long. This is why people that gained satisfaction via material goods are never satisfied, and this could be attributed to newer models are always out in the market or most of them never been able to link these material collections to their inner soul. One exception though are those hardcore collectors of a particular item, e.g. Gundam series models.
What I wanted to point out was most people failed to relate their achievement to their inner soul, and thus they never felt their achievement is something to be proud of. Jealousy can be one of the reason, but the main reason could be deep inside you have this betrayer that keep belittle your own achievement. And sad to say, nobody actually betrays yourself more than you because you will never feel sad if you don't allow yourself to do so.
Gaining the real satisfaction is how you balance yourself and get rid of the betrayer in you while trying to link your success to yourself. Such balance is important in order not to get overly carried away by your achievement and to always stay humble in order to gain more success.
Hope this post helps ^_^
I've adopted the habit of observing and trying to analyze people (not girl's boob or arse, mind u) in terms of their behavior ever since taking up psychology. Sounds creepy rite? But hey, I lub doing that :P
One important thing I noticed was how people define satisfaction in their life that contributes to their own self-esteem. I've come across people that were rich, or people that were extremely pretty but yet they wasn't satisfied with their life. In fact, these people assumed they had achieved little or nothing in life and thus feeling down and suffered from low self-esteem.
Don't believe it? Lemme ask you this and answer to these questions frankly based on what you know about yourself, or even those people that you know that you might know or come across:
a) You're a pretty girl by public eyes and have lots of admirers. People have been praising your beauty very much, and you do feel happy with those praises. Yet, you've been suffering from low self-esteem and assumed that you didn't really achieve much in life.
b) You're quite a public figure (those in entertainment or political field), where your fans spurns from hundreds to thousands. People acknowledge your achievement, people praises you immensely and you can afford to buy goods or gifts that you like, yet you feel those admiration doesn't reflect or mean anything to you. You just feel you didn't achieve much in life.
c) You're the showstopper and always one of the main attraction in the crowd wherever you go. People glued to you because you made them cheer and laugh their arse out, you create fun and great atmosphere and always able to light up even the most dull occasion. You're well-known because of this and people just love being by your side. Despite these public acceptance, you never quite feel satisfied and feel down whenever you're by yourself. You feel you didn't achieve much in life.
d) You're what I call, the reincarnation of an angel. You're known to be the perfect man or woman when it comes to friendship. You're known amongst your friend as the most gentlemen (or gentlelady), humble, down-to-earth, and the extremely helpful lad that never reject helping people in need, thus winning you a group of small but great friends. Despite having this great bunch of people around you whenever you need them or otherwise, yet you feel you didn't achieve much in life.
The above 4 scenarios above are just some example of people I've come across that felt themselves as, "just another person that didn't achieve much in life" despite them possessing beauty, and/or material goods, and/or social recognition. The question why is easily answered, and it was due to the fact that they are not able to link their success to their inner soul.
What do i mean by this you might ask. Lemme give an example. When you come across a great song or movie that you've heard or seen, you can really feel this song or movie have some kind of emotional link to your inner soul. You can feel the link is so great till the extent you can feel the emotion that the singer and/or songwriter is trying to portray out to its listener. And yes, these kind of songs can last for centuries and yet the listener will never feel dull listening to it. Reason? Because you had managed to link that song to your inner soul, thus able to appreciate whatever it was being sang to you, and such appreciation DO last for years if not forever.
Another example was, you might be yearning to get the latest model of laptop or handphone. Let's say you finally got it, and for sure you will feel happy for a week or so. Afterward, that laptop or handphone is just another "one of your many items" that you owned, and do you feel proud and happy after buying it? Yes, you do, but only for like a week or so as I've pointed out but definitely not for long. This is why people that gained satisfaction via material goods are never satisfied, and this could be attributed to newer models are always out in the market or most of them never been able to link these material collections to their inner soul. One exception though are those hardcore collectors of a particular item, e.g. Gundam series models.
What I wanted to point out was most people failed to relate their achievement to their inner soul, and thus they never felt their achievement is something to be proud of. Jealousy can be one of the reason, but the main reason could be deep inside you have this betrayer that keep belittle your own achievement. And sad to say, nobody actually betrays yourself more than you because you will never feel sad if you don't allow yourself to do so.
Gaining the real satisfaction is how you balance yourself and get rid of the betrayer in you while trying to link your success to yourself. Such balance is important in order not to get overly carried away by your achievement and to always stay humble in order to gain more success.
Hope this post helps ^_^
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
