So...

Isn't it weird that people who talk so much about you (behind your back that is) think they know everything about you and they have the right to do so?

I just find these people are amazing. They make conclusions and define the kind of person you are when they have barely known what you have gone through in your life. Well, limited minds have limited thoughts. If they can sit and talk about others all the time, and think what other rumours so called news to spread, gosh, I can imagine how boring their life is. I hardly even have time to think what to eat or cook!And these people have all the time in the world to talk about others?! Wow...

As the saying goes, what goes around comes around. Spreading untrue stories about another person to others will one day come back biting. How? Well, karma has its own way dealing with these people.

I always feel, if you have nothing good to say, just shut up. Stop spending your "bored times" thinking what to talk about others. Use it to make yourself better. Use it to improve your life. Always remember, no one is faultless and perfect in this world.

The world had only ONE Mother Theresa. And she's dead.

On being selfish

Source: iobad.com via Andrea on Pinterest

Family isn't always blood

Something that keeps my chin up

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

When someone belittles me, Mr Gandhi's words keep me going. :)

Something to keep you looking up

Inspiration

When you are walking in a dark place, where there is nothing you can see or have a clue where you're heading to - a torch light would help, wouldn't it?

I call that inspiration. 

A source of light that provides you a sense of direction. It may or may not point you towards the right path, because where you are heading lies within the decisions you make. But the torch light lets you see clearly where you're going. And it will stay with you - it wouldn't decide to suddenly stop working just because you took a path the torch light did not like. Would it? :)

A year back, everything was bleak for me. I was so sure I wouldn't make it through the next one year alive. I am not weak - I just didn't see the purpose why I should even be alive. When life goes out of plan, most of us surrender. When you're older, it gets much tougher to change things around you and start over - most things are almost settled down and in my case, I've settled down at a much younger age. It was difficult and no one really understood the struggle I was against at. 

"The hardest part of the ending, is starting again." - Waiting for the End, Linkin Park.

I was walking in the dark with no sense of belonging and purpose. From the outside I knew I looked fine. For everyone. But from the inside, I knew that wasn't the case. The worst part? I didn't even know my problem was the loss of purpose in my life until my friend came along and pointed to me - find yourself back. She was right, I had to find myself back but how?

I needed inspiration and encouragement, and a jolt of motivation. With my best friend's help, I saw a light pointing me to a direction, picked up pace and built my confidence. But to move on further in life, you need more than that. I needed more than that. 

There has to be a solid pillar, that I can hold on to and feel safe. And at times, it turns into a torch light that stays with me showing me the way when I needed it.

I am lucky to have found my torch light.

Essence of Bhagavad Gita

"Whatever happened, happened for the good; whatever is happening, is happening for the good; whatever will happen, will also happen for the good only. You need not have any regrets for the past. You need not worry for the future."

"What did you lose that you cry about? What did you bring with you, which you think you have lost? What did you produce, which you think got destroyed? You did not bring anything - whatever you have, you received from here. Whatever you have given, you have given only here. Whatever you took, you took from God. Whatever you gave, you gave to him. You came empty handed, you will leave empty handed. What is yours today, belonged to someone else yesterday, and will belong to someone else the day after tomorrow. You are mistakenly enjoying the thought that this is yours. It is this false happiness that is the cause of your sorrows."

"Change is the law of the universe. What you think of as death, is indeed life. In one instance you can be a millionaire, and in the other instance you can be steeped in poverty. Yours and mine, big and small - erase these ideas from your mind. Then everything is yours and you belong to everyone."

"This body is not yours, neither are you of the body. The body is made of fire, water, air, earth and ether, and will disappear into these elements. But the soul is permanent - so who are you?"

"Dedicate your being to God. He is the one to be ultimately relied upon. Those who know of his support are forever free from fear, worry and sorrow."

What today means to me

The best thing in life is finding someone who knows all your mistakes and weaknesses and still thinks you're completely amazing.

:)

Every sunset, has a sunrise

There is one thing I learned -

The world doesn't stop moving just because your world stopped one fine day.

People carry on doing what they do. Yes, they get sad and all depressed looking at you going through a hard time, but really, no one bothers anything else after that. They probably get worried once a while thinking what you'd be up to and doing, but then again really, no one is really bothered.

Losing a love is almost like seeing the world come to a standstill. Time just stops - for you only by the way. The rest around you stop momentarily and look at you and will be kind enough to make the time move a little. But after some time, they too have a life to take care of. That is when you must know, it's time for you to move on. The world doesn't stop, just because yours did.

Pull yourself out of it, or risk being sucked into a timeless depression that brings you no where. I am glad though, that it didn't take long for me to get myself back on track. Looking back at the past year, I am happy  I took several decisions that made my life much more meaningful. I am glad, I did not waste my time by being sad and worried of what people might say.

Of course, there will be those who would say things one way or another. It goes back to yourself which ones you would want to listen and let steep in your heart and mind. Someone who reads my blog regularly sent me an email, suggesting that I should I watch the movie P.S I love you. For a person who had nothing to lose, buying a DVD to watch a recommended movie is not much of an hassle. And so I did.

That movie made me realize it is OK to be happy. It is OK to go for a vacation. It is OK to laugh and do things you love. It is OK to fall in love again. 

The movie also made me realize, that you can get really sad when you find out people around you are actually doing something with their lives while you drag yourself into endless list of whys. Because, like I said, no one is really bothered about anything. No one wants to stick around a cry baby for eternity. Complaining and analyzing why some bad things happen to you is not going to bring any good.

So here I am, being glad for how things turned out. :)

On Happiness and Pain

You will never know true happiness until you have truly loved, and you will never understand what pain really is until you have lost it.

Your time is... limited

Just a piece of my mind.

It's a weird, weird world I must say.

A single event can cause all right things to appear wrong, and all wrong things appear right. I am just surprised at the amount of assumption one makes with just a slight piece of information or news that is neither true nor proved. That's probably because, most of us only choose to hear what we want and make up the rest of the story as how we wish it is - even if in reality that is not true. Why? Because we feel we are the right ones.

I once had a discussion with a friend of mine many years ago on what is right and what is wrong. Interestingly, that discussion opened up my mind to a new way of thinking - what is right for you maybe wrong for someone else and vice-versa. It's a simple logic, and yet many refuse to give to the fact they can be at times may have a point that is, well, right in their own beliefs.

Recently, there has been some instances someone thinks they know my late husband better than I do. I can only laugh at this. Who else is in a better position to know about Sathyan than me, the one he loved dearly till the last of his breath? Just hope some things would make sense to people outside of my marriage that no one is in better position to know or understand the way my Sathyan thinks and does certain things. If there is one person who knows what are his last wishes - that person is me, and only me.

When I took his hand in marriage, I promised to stand by him through good and bad times. In which, as his wife, I did. I also feel if there is anyone who wishes to question my sincerity and loyalty towards my late husband, the only person fully qualified to do so is Sathyan himself, and no one else. I had a blissful marriage with Sathyan and I am ever so grateful for having had the opportunity to live the kind of life some can only dream of. Not everyone gets a perfect husband, you see.

The best thing that you could do or give someone you love is your time. When Sathyan was around, I did exactly that. I dedicated every minute of the day to be with him, and take care of him. I have the full satisfaction that I did everything there is to give him a good life while he was alive and married to me. That is probably why, I was better prepared to accept his death because I knew it was imminent. The fact that I was able to cope with his loss in bravely manner is partly due to the intense level of emotional turbulence that I had to endure from the day one he was diagnosed. And secondly, I had great friends who helped me see the light and live a life, instead of knocking my head down expecting me to grieve for as long as there is eternity.

I have been through a situation that required me to make decisions in life and death situations, in which I saved my husband from the brink of death four times. Even in his last moments, I was fighting my way through. People labelled me as selfish because I wanted my husband to live despite knowing the fact that he was suffering. What these people don't know is that, he wanted to live. I still remember the day we came back home from the hospital after finding out the remission ended. Sathyan lay down on my lap and cried hugging me. He begged me to save him, and he wanted to live a long life with me. His hazelnut eyes were full of hope. And for that reason alone, I never gave up. For this, I was labelled selfish. 

When I started moving on with my life and find ways to keep myself occupied, a lot of people wondered how I could get back on my feet and start being happy despite the loss. For this I only have one answer:

Only those who feel guilty of not being able to fulfill a dying man's last wishes or be with him during his last moments would grieve for a longer period of time. I never had such guilty feelings because I loved my husband sincerely with all my heart, took care of him with all my might and gave him the best of everything with all I could. 

Anyone who truly knew Sathyan personally would know that the one and only thing he ever wants, is for me to be safe and happy. 

"Remember me and smile, for it's better to forget than to remember me and cry."

It's love that heals the wound...

... not time.

This past few months, couple of things taught me very hard lessons. At a time when love was lost, I felt, very intensely, a sense of not belonging to anything. As I tried to "assume" it's just in my mind, I couldn't. The feeling was and is real.

Sadness often gets to the core of myself making me realize how I have failed to acknowledge this feeling earlier. That would have saved a lot of trouble for me. But I think, at times I did try to get the message out to someone close to me. But it all dawned back on me with a huge question mark - what else you want more? My issues are always trival. But I feel, often the small things that matters the most. My concerns are often labelled as "complaints".

I finally realized I was not wrong to feel neglected. These feelings were real, and as a sane person I should work towards acknowledging it and make it clear to myself in order to be content and happy. I just have to overcome the feelings. This brings me back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What I experienced is just one of the basic things that a human should have to remain as humane as possible.

I once blogged about how not being on anyone's priority list made me realize the magnitude of my loss. It was definitely not easy to accept the hard facts, but it was doable. I had to remain as strong as I used to be and be resilient. I did just that, and got my life back on track. It was lots of work - but achievable.

I made a come back on many things that took a back seat in my life - mainly my career. I have been working hard, very hard to get back what I have lost despite knowing the fact there are obstacles all around me trying to stop the momentum going. Why? Because grief, my dear readers, is often mistaken.

Most people think it will take time. But what they did not know was it is a phase that is unique to everyone. There is no length in grief - it all depends how strong your heart and mind is. And how certain situation makes you better (or worse). There is no schedule for grief and it cannot be predicted when it will end for someone. It can be sooner, or later, or even never. The wave hits you in cycles. And then it will be all up to you - hold on or let go?

As such, those around me expect me to take things slowly, which baffles me. Why should I? What one does not understand is, one death is enough to teach me about life and how it could end fast. Harping on something that cannot be fixed or return is not going to do much good to anything or anyone. A practical way to look at things is by thinking beyond the commonly accepted society's perspective. If there is one thing that Sathyan has taught me, that would be : Life is for living. Don't waste it by being sad or worried.

Don't be sad for yourself and don't be worried about what others may think. This has been the mantra that kept me going. After all, those who mind don't matter and those who matter won't mind.

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..."

- Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Let's end 2011

With this quote from the movie Braveheart (courtesy of a kind-hearted soul who trusted me enough to lend the Blu-Ray copy!):

Every man dies, not every man really lives.

Happy 2012! =)

On Love

Anbilaar ellaam thamakkuriyar; 
Anbudaiyaar enbum uriyar pirarkku.

- Thirukural

What it means:

Those without affection in their hearts will keep all they have for themselves; The tender-hearted will even give away their bones.

In other words:

One who doesn't love is possessive about everything; One who loves would even be willing to part with their bones.

Iridescent

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation
You build up hope, but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
and let it go, let it go.

- Linkin Park

On trusts

Last week, I had the privilege to attend a 2-day training on dynamic work habits which is basically about the habits of highly effective people. 

My favorite take away is the quote mentioned by the trainer:

"Trust has to be earned."

One of the most fragile aspect of being human is our ability to trust. A broken trust is probably the hardest substance in the world that you can try to patch back, but it will never be the same - again. There are few things that happened these past few days that made me realize how true this is.

One of the things I value most in my relationship with anyone is privacy and personal integrity. I highly value these basic human rights because that's what we are - we're human. We have the right to have our own privacy. And when we selectively confer someone with some information that is highly private for us - we trust this person to keep it that way. But what happens when someone breaches this trust and exploits the privacy? Isn't it a way to lose one's integrity? Where are your moral values as a civilized human?

See how easy it is to spot someone not worthy of your time?

For me, even sharing of my phone screen lock password with anyone is highly offensive - I'm hard-coded that way. That's what my job is about. Every day I work with thousands of records and data that has millions of customer information. Often I've came across cases where bank-related information were entered in incorrect fields which makes it very readable (it's purely human error). But I was trained to be a person with the highest form of integrity, so it is my responsibility to safeguard these information (I often mask out sensitive data before it reaches the wrong hands). See how crucial this attribute is? 

What if you sent your credit card information to a friend (to buy something for you) and another person reads his/her email (probably through a saved/shared password) - imagine if it was read by someone who makes unethical use of your private information? Just imagine the consequences!

Would you trust that person again?

I was out shopping with Puspa yesterday at Parkson. The salesgirl that we were dealing with took the items Puspa bought to the nearest cashier for her and it just so happens to be the queue was very long! Leaving Puspa queuing up at the cashier counter (typically Malaysian you see, we don't want to lose either way), the salesgirl and I went to check whether the opposite cashier (which was partially hidden) is open. The salesgirl gave a quick look and said to me it's closed. I was sure it's not.

So I walked further towards the cashier counter and saw a small girl sitting there, waiting for customers to come! There were none! I verified with the cashier girl whether the counter is open and she said yes! So lesson learned?

Trust is good but verify is better. :)

Quote for the day

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
-- Dr. Seuss