Apr 15, 2011
A Powerful Message from a Powerful Artist
Jeff Buckley is the artist who, to my personal opinion, did the best cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah ever! And I really thought that this text below was worth sharing:
Apr 12, 2011
Unhand me, you fool!
Before I carry on with this post, I ask that anyone who reads this give me leave for certain words, phrases or messages that may appear offensive in any way whatsoever. Know that all that I write, I write on behalf on the Unheard Voices of my people, my peers, my country, and my world.
The date was 2nd April 2011, when four friends and I met with an employee of Shell's Global Team (whom I shall keep anonymous). I woke up that morning filled with excitement, knowing that I'll be given an opportunity that only a few would ever meet. As we reached the location of our meeting, we prepped ourselves for an informal style of understanding certain aspects of the corporate world by means of listening to the said Shell employee.
She delivered her take on how technology, diversity and ethics are prevalent in performing at the corporate workplace. Right now, you may think that this meeting indefinitely turned into another typical talk where the information we got were the exact same as what magazines or newspapers send out to us. Well, it wasn't so (thank God). She went on explaining on the three topics and shared many experiences she had with us with regards to her entire working experience, both with Shell and firms prior to Shell. Not dwelling into that, she later opened the discussion into a question and answer session which I really must say cleared up a lot of the clogs that were lingering in my brain. I mean, it's not like we get this kind of 'necessary information on how to deal with ourselves and our surroundings once we enter the workforce' everyday; and this is the problem with this country.
My question after the session was this: "Why weren't we exposed to such information even earlier on in our lives, say in high school perhaps?" "Why hasn't the government fulfilled its role in developing the younger generation of this nation if we really are the future of the country?"
The current reality of the generation I am in is that we enter the working world unprepared, thinking that everything that we have learned in school, college and university will suffice. You know, and I know, that this is clearly not the case. We have questions for you, older generation, that you constantly fail to provide us answers to; "What should we expect when we first start working?" "How do we manage our finances once we start receiving salaries?" "Should we follow our passion or chase after financial stability?" "What do firms look for when they hire a fresh graduate?" "How do we deal with ___ (fill in the blanks) that is a pain in the ass (forgive the vulgarity) in our working life?" "What are the benefits that we should seek during employment?" The list will just go on and on and on, on a never ending treadmill heading towards confusion.
Eventually, I deduced that there could be two main reasons (or excuses) that the older generation (including parents, teachers, lecturers and the government) tell themselves to warrant themselves from shouldering the responsibility of preparing the younger generations for the future;
With regards to excuse #1, I find it really absurd that this should even be conjured in your mind. What's the rationale in making us fail in order to succeed if we could just succeed without failing? You have plenty of experiences, you share some and withhold others. WHY? You teach us not to smoke and forbid us from taking drugs, but refuse to teach us the necessary soft skills to jump-start success. If you want your children to learn to not play with fire, would you want them to get burnt as a learning experience? The very advantage of our generation is that we have both technology and a previous generation to teach us about the realities of life. The only reason why the latter should be withheld is that you're afraid that our success will supersede yours. But shouldn't that be the proper way of life? Isn't that what you call progress? Spare us the hardships, and we will deliver a performance never before seen in the history of man. And to my country, this is especially intended for you; know that we can learn faster if we are spared from the mistakes that were made before from our previous generation.
For excuse #2, let me just tell you this nicely, YOU ARE WRONG! Well... I would rather think that you are the ones that learn far too slowly. You refuse to accept change the way we do. We respond to changes the moment they arrive, while you scamper with your conventions. We exploit the internet and telecommunications that gives us far more knowledge, power, influence and network that you have in your lifetime. We have a drive to succeed in life, no matter our age. In my old school, there were so many lost opportunities, where students dreamed of studying in Ivy Leagues but never did because they didn't know how. Where is the school in tackling this issue? Why not teach the young ones about the financial world; stock market, Forex, etc.? We can handle it! If there's a problem with maturity, it's with you. Why must we wait till we graduate and enter the working force to find out all the available avenues for success when you could show them to us? I fail to fathom your logic in all this. And for those teens who do in fact have a rather low maturity, no lesson is wasted. Somehow and some-when, what you taught them would serve to their welfare, be it a small or big change.
So stop withholding your knowledge from us. Teach us. Show us. Tell us. Believe in us. In turn, we promise success. We will deliver. Just watch and see; Once you let us, we will shine!
The date was 2nd April 2011, when four friends and I met with an employee of Shell's Global Team (whom I shall keep anonymous). I woke up that morning filled with excitement, knowing that I'll be given an opportunity that only a few would ever meet. As we reached the location of our meeting, we prepped ourselves for an informal style of understanding certain aspects of the corporate world by means of listening to the said Shell employee.
She delivered her take on how technology, diversity and ethics are prevalent in performing at the corporate workplace. Right now, you may think that this meeting indefinitely turned into another typical talk where the information we got were the exact same as what magazines or newspapers send out to us. Well, it wasn't so (thank God). She went on explaining on the three topics and shared many experiences she had with us with regards to her entire working experience, both with Shell and firms prior to Shell. Not dwelling into that, she later opened the discussion into a question and answer session which I really must say cleared up a lot of the clogs that were lingering in my brain. I mean, it's not like we get this kind of 'necessary information on how to deal with ourselves and our surroundings once we enter the workforce' everyday; and this is the problem with this country.
My question after the session was this: "Why weren't we exposed to such information even earlier on in our lives, say in high school perhaps?" "Why hasn't the government fulfilled its role in developing the younger generation of this nation if we really are the future of the country?"
The current reality of the generation I am in is that we enter the working world unprepared, thinking that everything that we have learned in school, college and university will suffice. You know, and I know, that this is clearly not the case. We have questions for you, older generation, that you constantly fail to provide us answers to; "What should we expect when we first start working?" "How do we manage our finances once we start receiving salaries?" "Should we follow our passion or chase after financial stability?" "What do firms look for when they hire a fresh graduate?" "How do we deal with ___ (fill in the blanks) that is a pain in the ass (forgive the vulgarity) in our working life?" "What are the benefits that we should seek during employment?" The list will just go on and on and on, on a never ending treadmill heading towards confusion.
Eventually, I deduced that there could be two main reasons (or excuses) that the older generation (including parents, teachers, lecturers and the government) tell themselves to warrant themselves from shouldering the responsibility of preparing the younger generations for the future;
Excuse 1: "We learned the hard way and got here, so you too should do the same."
Excuse 2: "You are not matured enough to understand even if we told you."
With regards to excuse #1, I find it really absurd that this should even be conjured in your mind. What's the rationale in making us fail in order to succeed if we could just succeed without failing? You have plenty of experiences, you share some and withhold others. WHY? You teach us not to smoke and forbid us from taking drugs, but refuse to teach us the necessary soft skills to jump-start success. If you want your children to learn to not play with fire, would you want them to get burnt as a learning experience? The very advantage of our generation is that we have both technology and a previous generation to teach us about the realities of life. The only reason why the latter should be withheld is that you're afraid that our success will supersede yours. But shouldn't that be the proper way of life? Isn't that what you call progress? Spare us the hardships, and we will deliver a performance never before seen in the history of man. And to my country, this is especially intended for you; know that we can learn faster if we are spared from the mistakes that were made before from our previous generation.
For excuse #2, let me just tell you this nicely, YOU ARE WRONG! Well... I would rather think that you are the ones that learn far too slowly. You refuse to accept change the way we do. We respond to changes the moment they arrive, while you scamper with your conventions. We exploit the internet and telecommunications that gives us far more knowledge, power, influence and network that you have in your lifetime. We have a drive to succeed in life, no matter our age. In my old school, there were so many lost opportunities, where students dreamed of studying in Ivy Leagues but never did because they didn't know how. Where is the school in tackling this issue? Why not teach the young ones about the financial world; stock market, Forex, etc.? We can handle it! If there's a problem with maturity, it's with you. Why must we wait till we graduate and enter the working force to find out all the available avenues for success when you could show them to us? I fail to fathom your logic in all this. And for those teens who do in fact have a rather low maturity, no lesson is wasted. Somehow and some-when, what you taught them would serve to their welfare, be it a small or big change.
So stop withholding your knowledge from us. Teach us. Show us. Tell us. Believe in us. In turn, we promise success. We will deliver. Just watch and see; Once you let us, we will shine!
Apr 11, 2011
A Pencil Case on The Outside, Kindness on The Inside
Today, a stranger successfully changed my cynical view of the world.His honesty of returning my lost pencil case made me realised that the world is not a vicious place after all..
We imagine tigers, lions and hyenas manifested in the form of homosapiens walking among us. These cunning creatures then pounce on our jugular vein when we slip even for a second and rip us into pieces. One mistake is all it takes to bring us down, tear us apart.
No mercy. No sympathy. No virtues. No kindness.
The only mechanism working? Survival of the fittest.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it might be just a pencil case..Nothing significant in value in there (except for my pendrive). Anyone could have took the contents and threw it away, or heck, even ignored the sight of my pencil case on the table, wait for another person to hand it up to the lost and found counter. This stranger did otherwise.
The pencil case tells a different story altogether. It brought out the best in a stranger and completely changed the life of another stranger.
Just imagine how powerful a simple kind gesture could change another person's perspective. To him, he might had felt that it was his responsibility to return it to the rightful owner, but to the other, it means the world, because kindness is out there somewhere. He made me believe that life should be worth living because there will be many more kind souls like him out there.
As I could not believe my luck that someone so honest surrendered my pencil case to the security office, I found it rather hard to believe that it was literally untouched. Everything was exactly in its place. I filled in the forms to retrieve my case and requested for the stranger's details so I could thank him personally (and profusely).
What this stranger did made me reflect on Mitch Albom in Five People You Meet in Heaven. 'Strangers are family you have yet to come to know'.
I sent him a text message, offering a gift in return for his kindness. Something I would truly value from this incident. Zeeshan, called me back and spoke with a thick Pakistani accent which sounded (i swear to god) like angels singing from the heavens.
He said, 'It is my responsibility to return it. I am honoured.'
I was dumbstrucked. I had never met a stranger so beautiful. Again, I thanked him gratefully and sent another text message saying how much I appreciated his kindness. He replied me with something I would always keep close to my heart;
Just remember, we lose several things in our life, the only thing you can't afford to lose are your parents.
Heck, a stranger with such maturity on top of his genuine values. That made my
*Zeeshan, wherever you are, whoever you are, I am truly grateful and honoured for God has sent an angel like you to walk among us mere mortals. We might be of different race, creed and colour, but I have learnt so much from you. You blur the borders of nationality when you showed me kindness does not only come from people my own colour. You are indeed a man of virtues. May God bless you wherever you are. I am glad we crossed path, even if there is no image on your face. You are indeed, a hero in my eyes.
Apr 8, 2011
Are you in between?
We like things in neat and cute labeled packages. We like to categorize, identify and understand. We need control, organization and predictability. That is how we are designed, we are designed to label, identify and associate with things that we understand. Sadly, if we don't understand something, we ignore it, alienate it, deny its existence, we get scared. The truly scary thing is, sometimes when we get scared, we condemn it.
But what happens if you're so stuck in between that you can't be labeled? You're hard to label? Too complicated to label? what then?
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine approached me. She asked, "I wish i know the feeling of being over-confident, over-perasanness" were her exact words. Here i am, Mr. Perasan, immediately thought she was indirectly saying that i am "over-confident, over-perasan" replied, "It is a great feeling, you can be who you want to be and not care about what other people think." (attempting to make myself look good, if in fact she was referring to me.) It is not until we start talking further on in the conversation that i realized my friend is insecure. Trying to do my part to engage in the conversation and making her feel better i said, "We as a society like to label ourselves so much that we tend to stick to one extreme, in your case, being insecure or being over-confident. If you're not able to feel over-confident, then you immediately think of yourself as being insecure. What we fail to realize is that we exist better when we're in between. When we don't put a label to everything. We don't have to stick to only one extreme, why not just be confident? That way you won't have to feel like you have to hide in your little shell of "i suck" or even burst out every second with "i rock suckas!". No one likes a show-off." Being in between, in my opinion, is being in a state of balance, where you have just the right amount of the good stuff and the bad.
I'm a little surprised that society often claim that the idea of "being in between" does not exist. It is actually quite laughable to me because i don't understand where that view comes from. In some situations, when we don't choose, when we remain in between, others would say things like "that whole being neutral, being balanced, being in between thing does not really exist, being in between? C'mon man." Personally, i feel like "being in between" plays into a large spectrum in our lives as a whole. As a society, we like to put things into little boxes and say that, "you know, this is this, that is that, there's nothing in between. You're either this or this." BUT THAT'S NOT HOW LIFE IS. It is a large spectrum and i think we can all agree that everyone is different and special in their own way. On one hand, you do have the two extremes, and this way of thinking is unavoidable.
Take sexuality for an example, you have the gay/lesbian people that would never think of sexually touching someone of the opposite sex, and you have the straight people, who would never think of sexually touching someone of the same sex. These two extremes have such different ideas, beliefs and feelings that they become bigots to their own sets of ideas and beliefs -so they disagree and condemn each other. But what of those in between? The bisexuals? Often times you'll hear straight people say, "Bisexual? nah this dude's gay." and the gays would say, "Bisexual? no honey, you one of us. Lets dance to Madonna." (Ohhh the stereotypes. I don't mean anything by it, it was just a joke. Let the record be shown that i do not actually think that all gays dance to Madonna.) But what most of us fail to realize that, there are so many people in between, and again in this context, just because someone is a little bit in between does not mean that they're gay, it does not mean that they're straight either. THERES A HUGE SPECTRUM OF PEOPLE AND EVERYBODY HAVE DIFFERENT FEELINGS. You can't classify somebody's feelings and say, "well you're gay, because you're this and this and this". There's no certain criteria, your feelings is just part of who you are.
I think that this is one of the biggest problems we have as a society in which that we try to label people and it just DOESN'T WORK. In context to my friend earlier and sexuality, the whole idea of labeling is the reason why there are so many people, such as she, going through these kind of problems because they simply don't know that they can be in between. We give them these things and say, "if you're this and this and this, you're insecure. you're gay" and "if you're this and this and this, you're perasan. you're straight". We really give them no room for in betweens and there are a lot of people that are in between. I think as a society we shouldn't persecute people for being in between.
But what happens if you're so stuck in between that you can't be labeled? You're hard to label? Too complicated to label? what then?
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine approached me. She asked, "I wish i know the feeling of being over-confident, over-perasanness" were her exact words. Here i am, Mr. Perasan, immediately thought she was indirectly saying that i am "over-confident, over-perasan" replied, "It is a great feeling, you can be who you want to be and not care about what other people think." (attempting to make myself look good, if in fact she was referring to me.) It is not until we start talking further on in the conversation that i realized my friend is insecure. Trying to do my part to engage in the conversation and making her feel better i said, "We as a society like to label ourselves so much that we tend to stick to one extreme, in your case, being insecure or being over-confident. If you're not able to feel over-confident, then you immediately think of yourself as being insecure. What we fail to realize is that we exist better when we're in between. When we don't put a label to everything. We don't have to stick to only one extreme, why not just be confident? That way you won't have to feel like you have to hide in your little shell of "i suck" or even burst out every second with "i rock suckas!". No one likes a show-off." Being in between, in my opinion, is being in a state of balance, where you have just the right amount of the good stuff and the bad.
I'm a little surprised that society often claim that the idea of "being in between" does not exist. It is actually quite laughable to me because i don't understand where that view comes from. In some situations, when we don't choose, when we remain in between, others would say things like "that whole being neutral, being balanced, being in between thing does not really exist, being in between? C'mon man." Personally, i feel like "being in between" plays into a large spectrum in our lives as a whole. As a society, we like to put things into little boxes and say that, "you know, this is this, that is that, there's nothing in between. You're either this or this." BUT THAT'S NOT HOW LIFE IS. It is a large spectrum and i think we can all agree that everyone is different and special in their own way. On one hand, you do have the two extremes, and this way of thinking is unavoidable.
Take sexuality for an example, you have the gay/lesbian people that would never think of sexually touching someone of the opposite sex, and you have the straight people, who would never think of sexually touching someone of the same sex. These two extremes have such different ideas, beliefs and feelings that they become bigots to their own sets of ideas and beliefs -so they disagree and condemn each other. But what of those in between? The bisexuals? Often times you'll hear straight people say, "Bisexual? nah this dude's gay." and the gays would say, "Bisexual? no honey, you one of us. Lets dance to Madonna." (Ohhh the stereotypes. I don't mean anything by it, it was just a joke. Let the record be shown that i do not actually think that all gays dance to Madonna.) But what most of us fail to realize that, there are so many people in between, and again in this context, just because someone is a little bit in between does not mean that they're gay, it does not mean that they're straight either. THERES A HUGE SPECTRUM OF PEOPLE AND EVERYBODY HAVE DIFFERENT FEELINGS. You can't classify somebody's feelings and say, "well you're gay, because you're this and this and this". There's no certain criteria, your feelings is just part of who you are.
I think that this is one of the biggest problems we have as a society in which that we try to label people and it just DOESN'T WORK. In context to my friend earlier and sexuality, the whole idea of labeling is the reason why there are so many people, such as she, going through these kind of problems because they simply don't know that they can be in between. We give them these things and say, "if you're this and this and this, you're insecure. you're gay" and "if you're this and this and this, you're perasan. you're straight". We really give them no room for in betweens and there are a lot of people that are in between. I think as a society we shouldn't persecute people for being in between.
I like doughnuts and cupcakes, does that mean that i have to pick one? That i eventually must only eat doughnuts? I have different views on BN and PKR, does that mean that i will affiliate myself with only BN or PKR totally, probably not. I have my own sets of beliefs and I'm in between.
(What is better than doughnut and cupcake? CUPCAKE-DOUGHNUTS YOO!!)
We make people commit and it just doesn't make sense to make them commit to just one thing. I'm just saying that we should probably keep our minds open on this type of thing. We should realize that there are differing things and that there's a scale for pretty much everything. There's so much "in between" that we shouldn't have to label things as this and that. We should free ourselves from labels. (i'm not saying go out and buy pirated/cetak rompak dvd's, clothes).
You get the idea. I hope.
I'd like you guys to think about this issue, chew it over, spit it out if you don't like it, you can swallow it if you like. (I'd like that too). If you have your own beliefs or if you disagree, i'd like to hear them down at the comments section. If you agree, heck yeah, put that down there too.
P.S Don't do drugs and make good choices. Stay in school. Eat, pray, love. Be in between.
If you're still skeptical, look at Hannah Montanah, she's got the best of both worlds!!
You get the idea. I hope.
I'd like you guys to think about this issue, chew it over, spit it out if you don't like it, you can swallow it if you like. (I'd like that too). If you have your own beliefs or if you disagree, i'd like to hear them down at the comments section. If you agree, heck yeah, put that down there too.
P.S Don't do drugs and make good choices. Stay in school. Eat, pray, love. Be in between.
If you're still skeptical, look at Hannah Montanah, she's got the best of both worlds!!
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