Yesterday, I met up with a good friend of mine for lunch (not sure if she’s reading this), and she told me that she has been putting off some of the things that she wanted to do for months now. It’s not like she doesn’t want to do it, it’s because she places others before her. She helps others to do their stuff and by the time she finishes everything, she’ll be too tired to work on her own things.

To be honest, my friend is not the only person who is facing such a situation. I’ve heard this many times before where people keep postponing something important to them, just because they got other more ‘urgent’ stuff to do – work, family, partners, etc.

All I can say is, a change is needed here. It’s good that you put others before you but I also believe that sometimes, the more you do that, the worse it’ll become for you and for those people. To those people, they might end up over-relying on you. And for you, well, just realize that you are in this world to lead a life for YOURSELF. Yes, you need to spend time on yourself, not just on others.

By saying that, I mean you should start allocating some quality time to spend with yourself. Ask yourself what are the things that you really want to start doing (or trying if you’re uncertain). It could be going to the gym, reading that book you bought last year, designing a web site, attending yoga class, baking a cake, etc. Allocate 30 minutes to an hour each day for you to do such things. If your weekdays are pretty hectic, then make sure you have at least 2 to 4 hours EACH WEEK for such things. Also, having a list of to-do items can be a good starting point for you to help you get started. It’s fine if you can’t finish all of the to-do items. The important thing here is for you to know what are the things that you really want to do (just to put what you want on a piece of paper), and actually START doing it. Yes, the keyword here is START. If you never start, you will never progress.

Remember that your life is your own. If you don’t spend some quality time with yourself, who will? So start asking yourself what is it that you really want to do/accomplish, set up the list of to-do items, allocate some time for them and actually START doing them. STOP giving yourself excuses not to START. And once you’ve started, you will realize it’s really not that difficult. The next step would be make this new beginning as a habit, if possible and start to create momentum for it.

Last but not least, always bear in mind that life is too short to be spent on the same place – you need to start moving forward. You need to progress.

The saying “money is the root of all evil” has been around for ages now….maybe even longer than my 27 years in this world. But whenever I hear someone says this, I really start to wonder “is money really the root of all evil…or is it our own greed?”

Why do people want more and more money in the first place? Some, to survive. But for many others, to buy whatever they want and to achieve their dreams. But what if we are already content with what we have and don’t need new cars, houses, gadgets, or anything new for that matter? And what if we can actually survive for long term even without that unlimited supply of money?

Will we still want more money? And if there’s no need for extra money, will people resort to not-so-nice activities including hurting other people (robberies, extortions, etc)? Will people still say money is the root of all evil?

To be honest, I believe that if everyone can be content with what they have and occasionally spend some money to reward yourselves……the thirst for money will not be that strong. Because you won’t have much use for that much money anyway.

But if you are not content with what you have, and are always waiting to become rich (millionaire type of rich)…..then I can only say good luck to you. Just remember that if you don’t control your greediness, it will definitely bring you down one day.

Conclusion? To me, money is not the root of all evil but our own greediness is.

Note: and if you’re telling me that you want more money so that you can live happily. Then I can tell you, money may and may not bring you the happiness you want. But most likely, it won’t help much. As usual, it is easier for us to look “outside” for a way to make ourselves happy……..and not “inside”.

p/s….. to certain people who are already rich. Money is never a problem to them. But they will look elsewhere to fulfill the greediness within them. Seek for higher position, more power, more control, etc. All these can be considered as behaviors which are supposed to fuel their greediness.

A friend of mine was in Jakarta for an IT project which was for a Japanese client (different client from the one I was ‘serving’). From what he told me, the entire project was a total mess…maybe worse than the one I was involved in.

Told you common sense is very rare nowadays!

First, the client didn’t know what he wanted and kept on changing the requirements. Second, when the project has been ‘completed’, the client scolded my friend and his team for being useless because they have no common sense and kept giving him things that he didn’t want. According to him, my friend and the team should just use their ‘common sense’ in order to know what kind of business processes the system should cater for. Hmm…no information….so they have to use their common sense to get those information……..does that mean he’s asking them to GUESS what the system should have?

Now now now…don’t you think this kind of situation sounds pretty familiar? A lot of clients actually expect the consultants/programmers or anyone they’re paying their money for, to have the right common sense and to come out with whatever they want WITHOUT asking them. This is possible, if there’s someone in the team who can do mind-reading. Otherwise, it’s impossible.

This is because each company has its own unique business processes and no matter how much we try to use our common sense, it’ll be very hard to ‘predict’ or ‘guess’ which is actually the correct one. The best solution here is to suggest to them your ‘best practices’ if they don’t have one….and if they do have one, get it from them without making any wild guesses. That’s the best we can do.

Because at the end of the day, you will be surprised that some companies have really weird business processes…..processes which don’t make sense at all and processes which make your wild guesses look childish.

So now you tell me, do you still want me (or my friend, or anyone you’re paying to work on a project) to use my common sense ……..or do you want to minimize the time I spend on guessing, and tell me right away what are your business processes? Remember that your common sense might not be the same with my common sense.

Decide now, and don’t blame me if your decision makes you lose money though I’m pretty sure you will. Hahah. Because the ‘blaming’ and ‘flaming’ are part of the deal after all

I’ve been very busy lately. My previous blog posts have been written last week This is actually my first blog post for the week but I’ll try to make it a short one.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that nowadays nearly everyone has an instant messenger account and we use these messengers very often in our life – be it at work, or at home. And nearly all of these messengers have a feature which allows the users to set the statuses, pretty much like Facebook status. This status feature is very useful actually since we can post up announcements, promote something, or just to tell the world how we’re feeling at any particular time.

Funny statuses by people (not my YM)

But there’s not all. To me, these statuses also show glimpses of the person’s personality. For example, if a person has the status “Today is a f**ked up day”….and he/she has it for several days, then it either means the person is a very hot-tempered and frustrated person or the person is actually a very forgetful person (since he/she forgot to change the status after several days).

On the other hand, if a person’s statuses are always sentences like “……..”, “Why can’t you understand me?”, “Why do you do this to me?”, “Why everyone treats me like an idiot?” ……..these statuses show that the person is having some serious emotional problem. My first impression upon seeing such statuses = this guy/girl is not suitable for very stressful job because he/she will most likely lets his/her emotion gets the better of him/her.

And there are also people who always put you in the invisible list but would not hesitate to message you. To me, these people are either very busy people, or they are selfish. If they don’t want you to message them, what makes them think they can message you anytime?

Ah well, I don’t know. This is just my observation. I’m actually taking my break now so my mind is a bit …mixed up between all those Java codes and the real world stuff. Sorry if it sounds funny. LOL.

Last but not least, if you’re on Twitter, maybe you can add me in there

Here’s my account – daydreamer20.

I was listening to the radio the other morning and there was this funny news about Brad Pitt calling up a store to order something for his wife. The conversation sounds something like this.

Storekeeper : Morning, this is XXX store, how may I help you?

Brad : Hi, this is Brad Pitt. I need…

Storekeeper : Yeah right, you’re Brad Pitt *hungs up*.

In the end, Brad Pitt was forced to call up his personal assistant to handle the gift purchasing thing.

That is when I started asking my question this question “Are the rich and famous really as arrogant as most people think they are, or the society actually made them so without any proof?” I think this is kinda like the chicken-or-egg question which means there is no definite right or wrong answer.

Funny look from the famous president

Some of the rich and famous ARE arrogant (not humble) by nature. They tend to look down on those who are not as famous or not as rich as themselves. Who are you talk to me when I am driving a Ferrari but you’re driving a SLK (small little kancil)? Or even if they don’t say it that way, they will look at you that way. Because to some of them, comparison is the way of life and if you are superior than them, they will treat you as their close friends or maybe even worship you like a god. But if you’re more inferior than them, they will either ignore you or treat you like an alien. This group is the extreme version of the arrogant rich and famous people.

But there is also another group which is …well…innocently regarded as arrogant even though they’re not. Why? Because even some of the normal folks, people like us, treat comparison as part of our life. We might see these individuals as far more superior than us, and thus do not dare to approach them. We “isolate” them. But does that mean they are not approachable? Does that mean they are arrogant and treat us like lowly citizens? Nope. It is us who are isolating them and labeling them arrogant. Not the other way round.

That’s why the next time you want to say someone rich and famous is arrogant, think about it. Have you ever considered approaching the person? Is it really true that he or she is not approachable? Is he or she really arrogant? Or is it just something someone else has told you before and you didn’t bother to find out how valid is that statement? Maybe you should approach and find out by yourselves first because at the end of the day, some of the so-called “arrogant” people are actually nice people who have been made “arrogant” by the society.

Lesson of the day – don’t discriminate people (or putting a big label “ARROGANT” on his forehead) if you don’t know them well enough.