Category: Random Thoughts

  • Well, I've always wondered in which age gap you fall? Your knowledge is rich and you express yourself in a lucid way, it's something which I've admired from day one and I can't help asking from which sources your gather all this information? Are you a reader, and if so then which sort of books do you prefer? And if I may say so I think you will make a good life coach, you certainly possess all the qualities which one should have to pursue that field.

    I guess I can’t avoid this question forever. 🙂 So at the risk of losing 90% of my followers, I’m just over 40. 

    Thanks for the kind words. I’m actually not an avid reader at all. If I do read, it’s usually non-fiction. I started reading Muhammed Asad’s Road to Mecca a few weeks ago, even though I bought it a few months ago, and I only finished about 20 pages so far. 

    All my views are really based on personal experience and very little else. I’ve always been at odds with mainstream views since I was a kid, and I guess it rightfully earned me the ‘titles’ that are not so complimentary because I can understand why people would see me as pompous, arrogant, aloof, condescending, and so much more. I’ve actually been called all that and more directly by family, friends and strangers alike. 

    But trying to be better than others is never what drives me. So I don’t pay much attention to such criticisms unless it’s accompanied by a seemingly sincere attempt to quantify it, in which case I’ll consider it and correct my views/actions if needed. 

  • Who am I?

    Ask me any question you’ve ever wondered about me. I’ll publish all answers (unless specifically requested not to). In my efforts to understand others, I sometimes fail to see myself clearly. It’s only through meaningful engagement with others, especially those that have no vested interest or natural bias in my life, that I am able to get a view of how I appear to others versus how I perceive myself.

    I’ve been contemplating a career change by becoming a life/career coach as an option. But in the back of my mind I’ve also been entertaining the idea of moving into the holistic health industry. Alternate healing methods have always fascinated me, and my research and personal experience in tracing back physical ailments to emotional triggers further cements my views that most modern medicine practitioners focus on symptoms rather than root causes. Worse still is that often enough they use a broad sword approach to remedies where the finesse of the scalpel is called for. 

    So go ahead. Entertain my pathetic attempt at crowd sourcing and tell me what you think of me, or ask me what you may have always wondered about me, my sanity, my dysfunction, or anything else. I’m morbidly curious to know what you think of me. What image does my blog conjure in your mind about its owner?

    P.S. This is honestly not a fishing expedition for compliments. 

  • roxygen replied to your post: The ‘inspiration’ tag on Tumblr is really…

    I can’t cosign on the career bit, but I tend to get sad whenever commercial jingles scrawled on paint samples become sources of inspiration. It makes me feel as if a little part of all of us has died.

    I know what you mean…it’s like that deflated feeling I get after watching a really inspiring commercial hoping it’s some message of goodwill from a charity organisation or some NGO interested in quality of life, and it turns out to be a commercial for life insurance. 🙁

  • Student Debt in the USA

    Simple truth

  • Free Advice on Document Writing

    Here’s my pet peeves when it comes to document writing:

    1. The document is worded the way the author thinks rather than how it is supposed to be read
    2. The content is answering a question that is irrelevant to the subject or focus of the issue at hand
    3. The audience is completely forgotten in the pitch of the document
    4. The formatting is inconsistent and tardy
    5. Slang or other informal terms are used

    If you want to make sure that your document serves its intended purpose, and that it will be read, then keep the following in mind:

    1. Write it the way you want it to be read, not the way you’re thinking it out loud. It shows.
    2. After every statement or three, ask yourself if you’re still answering the right question or responding to the right need. If not, delete and rephrase. The last thing you want is a really good answer to the wrong question! 
    3. If you’re writing a document intended for junior level staff, go into approproate detail that will be needed to guide them in what they need to do. If it’s for senior management, including irrelevant detail will lose their attention as well as give the impression that you’re petty or nitpicking.
    4. Take the time to align your margins, justify your text correctly, and apply suitable capitalisation to your headings and sub-headings. A shoddy looking document is that much more difficult to take seriously.
    5. Using cool terms that are the latest social buzz may sound cool to your friends and social networking buddies, but it leaves a bad after taste in a formal document because it undermines the professionalism of the reader, and assumes a level of familiarity that is most probably inappropriate.

    Hope that helps. And I hope that some sorry sod is spared the pain of having to read a crappy document as a result of these simple points being applied.

  • Eish…interesting…with quite a twist to the story as well. Who would have thought that Obama’s white mother is a descendent of a black slave?

    Obama lineage linked to 1st African slave

  • Obama: My Work Here Is Done

  • Question – Living Selflessly

    84thlife replied to your post: 84thlife replied to your post: 84thlife replied to…

    And FWIW, I really do hope you find examples of people, personally in life or famous, whoever, who you do think do selfless things, even if just occasionally. I’m sure there are some out there. Mahatma Gandhi? Mother Teresa? Someone else?

    I guess the truth of it all is simply that I won’t see the world any differently as long as I see these shortcomings in myself. I see this lack of selflessness in my own character, hence I find it difficult to see anyone else’s motivation any differently. I guess the desire for divine reward is the only admirable selfishness of the lot, and it’s entirely understandable. Perhaps I’ll have a life experience that will convince me otherwise, but until then, I am cynically jaded, am I not? 🙂

    Edit: I don’t have much respect for Mahatma Gandhi. I think he was elevated in status more than he deserved, similar to Nelson Mandela. And I suspect that this would sound like blasphemy to those that love and admire these people, but society tends to overstate the virtues of people that simply step up and take a lead in a vacuum of principled behaviour. So it’s easy to understand why many would admire them. :/ Sorry, my jadedness knows no bounds this morning. 🙁