I was chatting with my ex-colleague the other day. He was one of the guys who went to UK with me – also my housemate for 7 months in London. During our stay there, he always met up with this good friend of his who was based in London.

I used “was”, because my friend told me, his good friend has just passed away due to cancer few months ago. It was very sudden. My friend then told me the whole story and somehow, I’m deeply touched by the entire incident. Perhaps it’s because I can imagine myself in that position, to lose someone so dear, in such a short time and totally out of expectations. I was completely speechless after that and didn’t know what to say.

To make things worse, this friend of his has actually lost her boyfriend due to cancer 2 years before this. She was really unlucky even though she came from a very rich family and had the opportunity to further her studies in US and UK. Her friends used to be envious of her because of her background, and they often regarded her as someone lucky.

But in her diary, she wrote that her greatest gift was her family and friends… not the money, nor the opportunities.

And I agree with her. Having all the money in this world is useless if you cannot even spend quality time with your family and friends because money can only bring you ‘that’ far. How often have you heard of stories where rich people end their life due to loneliness or rich people trying so hard to know some real friends? Because money can’t bring you those. Money can’t buy everything.

And really, if you don’t have the opportunities to spend quality time with loved ones…. what’s the point? Do you think you can still lead a happy life?

So stop thinking that people who can fly here n there, buy big houses and cars, and can afford everything they ever need ….are lucky. Because that is not how you should define “lucky”.

At the end of the day, family and friends, and the moments you spend with them, are the things that will decide whether you’re a lucky person or not. Nothing else matters more than them.

And people, always remember that life is really fragile. It just takes a few seconds to decide your fate, to decide whether you’re going to continue living in this world, or not. So, just live your life to the fullest. Stop giving excuses for not doing certain things that you really want to do. Also, if you feel like you’re wasting your time doing something, then make a change. If you think there’s something you really want to try out, then go for it. And if there’s someone that you really miss, give him/her a call. Don’t just sit there doing nothing and waste your life. Life is too short for you to waste it like that.

Last but not least, all I want to say is that most of us have the wrong assumption that being lucky is to be able to buy all your needs and wants. This is how our world has made us think. In the end, most of us chase after all these things in order to be the next lucky person that everyone around us envies or talks about. And most often than not, this ‘chase’ will never end because it’s just too impossible to end.

But don’t get me wrong, it CAN end…. not by being involved in the ‘chase’, but by being content and appreciate what we have. Once we do that, I’m sure most of us will realize that ….actually…we’re all very lucky because we can spend quality time with our loved ones. So what’s next then? Help spread this ‘good luck’ of yours to other people.

Hope it helps.

Pelf, a friend I met in the blogosphere recently contacted me to help promote this new campaign called “Turtle Blogathon”. She’s an environmentalist by the way. To be honest with you, I’m not really into such campaigns or anything that has something to do with promoting other stuff. However, this is different, because it’s about helping the environment and if it’s anything to do with helping the environment, I wouldn’t mind at all.

Anyway, here’s part of the content extracted from the web site.

WHAT IS A TURTLE BLOGATHON?
A Turtle Blogathon is an event where we blog non-stop for 24 hours, about matters relating to marine and freshwater turtles. We will be staying up all night, researching, writing and publishing one blog post every hour, even when you’re asleep. And for staying up all night, we collect donations.

The name “Turtle Blogathon” is adapted from the original Blogathon where bloggers update their websites every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight to raise funds for their chosen charity.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
The main objectives of staying awake all night and doing the Turtle Blogathon are:

• to raise funds for the Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC) because we are a new turtle conservation organization and we are starting from zero in terms of funding. What we do have is experience, lots of experience
• to disseminate information about marine and freshwater turtles because we realize that the general public doesn’t know much about the turtles, despite these creatures being on earth since many years ago. Did you know that the earliest known turtles date from 215 million years ago, making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups and a more ancient group than lizards and snakes?
• to spread awareness about the plight of these turtles, because they are fast becoming extinct. And if we do not do anything today, our future generations will not know what turtles are!

So there you go, some basic information you need to know about this.

And yes, you can play a part in this too. Simply help to spread the words around or go to their web site HERE and have a read..

Hope it helps.

Let’s admit this, our attention (yes, all of us) span are getting shorter as compared to ….say…10 years ago? Perhaps it’s due to how we’ve been brought up (babies who watch TV often tend to have shorter attention span when they grew up), or perhaps it’s because we have too many choices thanks to the Internet.

Well, irregardless of the reasons, it is a fact that we all must admit. Just look around you and I’m sure you can find the following examples pretty easily:

• People having problem listening to others properly.
• People interrupting while others are doing or saying something.
• People getting agitated when something goes on for a bit longer than usual.
• People falling asleep during a long meeting session.
• People getting tired of a new toy which was bought few months ago.
• etc….

As more and more content come pouring onto us, our attention span will become shorter and shorter because there just isn’t enough time for us to go through every single content. In the end, we’ll spend very very limited amount of time on 1 single content before we chuck it aside and go on to the next one. And yes, content in this context can be the person talking in front of a meeting.

I know this (the amount of content pouring in) cannot be avoided at times but what can be done here is for us to be less wasteful. Pick the content carefully and give our full attention to it. Listen to the person WELL if you chose to listen in the first place. Focus on what the person in front has to say if you chose to sit in the meeting (remember that nobody can force you to do so besides yourself). Fully utilize the new toy that you have just bought…. or better, justify why you need it before buying it and remember those reasons AFTER you bought it.

And I believe that is the best we all can do for ourselves, our money, our toys and also the people around us. Be more selective and then give our full attention whenever we are engaged in something or with someone.

Oh, and as for businesses or content providers….it also means if your stuff is not good enough, you will be totally ignored. but either you try to make us look at you….or don’t try at all. It’s up to you.

I went to one of my good friends’ wedding dinner the other day. The food was pretty good but 4 people on my table had to leave early. So we ended up with a lot of leftover food after their departure. None of us wanted to pack the food up, so we left it there. What surprised us was that the waiters actually poured all the rubbish/waste (bones, etc) onto the clean food when they were changing the plates for us.

Maybe it’s the restaurant’s policy for not allowing their own people to eat… I don’t know. All I know is that…those clean food should not be wasted that way. They can pass to their workers, or ask people if they want to take away, etc. Anything is better than just throwing them away like that.

Maybe they are not to be blamed? Maybe they are being trained to do so by the customers? Or maybe they just want to keep a good image of the restaurant? *sighs*

To be honest, I believe their action could be due to the fact we’re in Malaysia – a country where clean food and drinks are abundant. However, this abundance has actually caused people to waste a lot of food and water. After all, things that can be obtained easily will not be treasured and appreciated – in this case, the food and drinks.

Yes, I know most of us here can afford good food and drinks…and we pay for them. So we are supposed to have the rights to do anything with them (a friend once told me this). But shouldn’t we think about those poor people who cannot have proper food and drinks (and they exist even in our own country)? And don’t you think it’s really a big waste if we just throw those food away?

Maybe it’s time to do something about this bad habit of ours? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking you to swallow everything even though you’re very full. I’m asking you to try your best not to waste – don’t take so much if you can’t finish, don’t order a large portion, share it with friends, take away, etc.

Well, I know sometimes we can’t really avoid wasting a little bit of food, but we should always try to minimize that. Learn to order according to the amount you can consume.

I always wonder, nowadays we can easily get the info we want anywhere, anytime and EASILY. Just go to Google and you can easily find anything! This is very useful for us because it helps us to gain more knowledge, learn more stuff, do more things, connect with more people.

But also it makes us listen too much to others.

• When we want to know about local news, we go to CNN, BBC or The Star (for Malaysia).
• When we want to find nice food to eat, we go search for food reviews.
• When we want to go for vacation, we Google for the interesting places in the world (within our budget).
• When we want to solve a problem, we Google for it and get the top 5 articles in the search result.
• And for some people, when there’s a problem they don’t know how to do, they go to YouTube (I actually have a friend who went to YouTube to learn how to fold clothes! Oh, and he ended up making a big mess).

..and others, just to name a few.

As a matter of fact, the amount of information that we get everyday is just enormous and I believe it has reached a stage that filtering the information becomes more tedious than receiving the information. Thus, we turn to the so-called professionals aka the media and the ‘expert reviewers’. We believe that they will do the proper filtering for us. After all, we do pay some of them for that!

Actually there’s nothing wrong with this but I do notice that as time goes by, these individuals might end up having a louder voice within us than our own voice. We become indecisive. We believe most of the things THEY say, right or wrong. Or when there’s only one solution in Google for the question we asked, we believe that should be the right one (especially if there are some idiots who claimed the solution is genuine without trying it). But is it really the right one?

Perhaps it’s time to really think about such things (I know some of you already do. So this is aimed at people who rather go with the ‘flow’). Forget about all the press, news, articles, reviews or even commercials. They are there to HELP you in making decision, not making the decision for you. Ask yourselves, what is it that you really want? You want to buy a car? Do you really think you need it? Do you have the money? Will you die without buying it? What about that game with superb review (sorry ya, I’m a video gamer), do you think you will really enjoy it? Can you imagine yourselves enjoying the game after reading the review? How long do you think it’s going to last you? Can’t you wait for 6 months and get from the secondary market?

Ask more questions! Fill up some blanks with those reviews, articles, etc but the final decision should come from you. Stop listening too much to others and start listening to yourselves.

p/s……. few years ago, all my friends told me to give up on a girl. But my heart told me to go on. The end result was not what I wanted but I have no regret at all. Because if I’ve listened to others, the issue might still be unresolved until now.

p/s…….. also, remember that listening is not a bad thing but listening without filtering is.