I was talking with my friends about change. Apparently, change seems to be quite a controversial topic, in some cases. No matter if it’s a change of place, a change of environment, perhaps a change of career or relationship status, there is always one element something that is taken into consideration:

Time.

Apparently, a change is waste of time. Not the time for the process of changing itself, but the time spent on the activity before the change.

It is as if that if you made a change, whatever that you have done before is just wasted down the drain and the change is “not worth it”.

Or is that really the case?

Image by TW Collins on Flickr

When do you need change?

Change comes in two forms: by fate, or by will. Usually the former is uncontrollable, if it happens, it happens, and you can’t do anything about it. But the latter is a decision that is in our hands, that we can choose if we want it to happen.

And usually it’s a tough decision indeed.

If we are to choose if we want to change, it is usually out of desperation, tiredness, or boredom. It is ultimately a loss of interest in something that only then, the idea of change comes to mind.

However, apparently, the longer the time we have invested in the subject, the harder it is for us to change.

If you have been dating for the guy for 5 years, and even though you have gone so tired of his feats you are afraid of change, because it would be a waste of what you have done for him.

If you have been working in the company for 8 years, and a change of career will probably bring new prospects and new developments, the fear of change strikes when the sense of insecurity and the idea of adaptation to a new environment makes you feel even more tired of your job now.

If you have started studying the course for a few semesters and you find that it is not something you would like to do for life, but you are afraid to switch your course because of the time and money you have paid to get this far.

But, seriously, what is better for you? Being stuck in a bad state, or taking that step to make things happen for better?

Making that step to change for better

Sometimes when we are afraid to make that change, we will just sit back and pray that everything else will change to be what we want it to be.

But as the old saying goes, “If you can’t change the others, you’ll have to change yourself.”

If you want to have a better life, make that step. Time is an irrelevant measure, because if today isn’t good, tomorrow is not likely to be better. Of course I’m not encouraging you to throw your resignation letter just because you had a bad day at work, it’s an analogy, well you know what I mean. :P

Observe for a period of time before the change. And when you’re sure that things will not get better, go for it.

It doesn’t matter if things will get better or worse, most importantly you have made that step to change what was not good before.

If it gets better, congratulations, you’ve made the right choice!

If it gets worse, congratulations too, it’s time for another change!

Change, anyone?

So, are you considering making that change now? ;) Or are you still in doubt, weighting the consequences and the “price”?

So we have hyperminimalism in the visual arts and architecture (pretty much thanks to the modernists and Kasimir Malevich for starting Suprematism), but have you heard of hyperminimalist writing?

I first came across this idea from Unpublished Guy’s blog. His blog is:

“Something happened. A man with glasses was involved.”

So what about that?

The idea is to dip and dap into the ideas that you’re presenting, then leave everything else for the reader to fill in the blanks. As our Unpublished Guy puts it, “Minimalism leaves the reader to take an active role in the creation of the story by filling in the blanks left by the author’s spare prose.”

So lets see what kind of interesting ideas can we get from here? ;)

Of course, you don’t get the picture until you’ve seen more of these. Here’s more example from Naissance, a blog by Shelli,

“It shattered like the glass embedded in her hand.”

Somehow, the power of hyperminimalist writing seperates you from everything else on the page, and when you read that single line your head spins to imagine the scene and everything else around it too — the shattering sound, her face as it shattered, the environment, or what is it that actually shattered. Her heart, perhaps?

Another example from Crockstar Blog,

“Sometimes shorter really is better.”

Or is it?

You question and it keeps you thinking, don’t you? So there, it’s successful. ;)

So to try my hand at this… here’s some of my plays:

“Two mice and a cheese. One has to go.”

Maybe that’s too long. Here’s another:

“Reaching my hands out to touch, yet it’s a mirage too far.”

One last one:

“He moans and shoot into the air.”

Ahem. :P

Perhaps these can make a good Twitter or Tumblr idea. :P

So come on, try your hand with this and see what you can come out with. I’m wanna know what’s in your head!

We’ve talked about maximizing your strengths on the previous post, now what do we do with your weaknesses?

We all have our bad times. Or perhaps some of us are already born with the certain disadvantages that put us a notch below the others. But actually, who is it that is there to determine what is normal or success? And how do we weight ourselves, is it from your heart, or is it from how others see you?

After watching this talk by Aimee Mullins on TEDs, I guess she gave us a very simple but powerful answer.

“It is not so much about overcoming adversity as it is opening ourselves to it, embracing it. Grappling with it. Maybe even dancing with it. Perhaps as we see adversity as something natural, consistent and useful, we’re less burdened by the presence of it. “

Dancing with adversity, making it your partner. Now that’s some new idea that we all can use.

Aimee Mullins: A Living Miracle

Image courtesy of Rams Sports Performance

Aimee Mullins was born without fibulae in both legs. In other words, she had to amputate both legs off when she was 1 year old, and theoretically she will have to live on a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

That’s what the doctors think.

And of course, as of all stories of all great people in this world, she did not buy that idea and made a miracle out of her adversity. She learned to walk using prosthetic legs by the age of two, and went on to do all what other “normal” kids will do — walk, swim, play, and run.

Oh yes, she can run really well. With her specially designed prosthetic legs she had set World Records on 100 meter, 200 meter and the long jump during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. No, she did not compete with the other “handicapped” group, she competed with the “normal” bunch who had meat on both sides of the legs, just like you and me.

Oh, instead you’re wondering why she looks so pretty and hot, she did model for Alexander McQueen back in the late 90s. Yep, she’s a model. A hot one at that.

And that is determination. And of course, she did what she preached in this video: to embrace your weaknesses and dance with it.

I am a huge fan of TEDTalks, and this video is another reason why you should watch them.

“The Opportunity Of Adversity”

Accepting And Embracing Your Weaknesses

Well, I’m sure not every one of you are patient enough to sit through the 22 minutes of the video. Let me just summarize the story for you here.

If you have a weakness, or at bad times, accept it to be part of you, embrace it and turn it into an opportunity to do great things.

A lot of us know that we have our own problems. It may be a physical, mental or spiritual problem. And a lot of us chose to just nod our heads at it, and decide to tuck them under the bed or the old dusty chest of the unknown in our hearts and hope we’ll never see them again.

Wrong.

Running away from your problems will not make them go away. They are still there, and they will be back to haunt you no matter how hard you try to hide them.

And if the problems won’t go away, why not just accept and embrace it, and make it a part of you to be proud of?

I personally have problems of my own too. I have been living with the pain of arthritis for the past 15 years, and still counting. I do admit that sometimes I will feel that I can’t achieve what many others can due to my own problems, mostly physically, but I know that I can excel in other parts of life if I work hard (and maybe smart) enough.

Aimee Mullins achieved what many has deemed “impossible” and became a living motivation for all of us. Now, I am passing on the motivation love to you. :)

Turning “Disable” To “Poss-able”

At the end of the video, Aimee shared her version of the word “Disable”, different from that from the dictionary:

Disable, (verb)
To crush a spirit, to withdraw hope, to deflate curiousity, to promote an inability to see beauty, to deprive of imagination. To make abject.

Ant. To make poss-able.

Someone with problems is not disabled until you crush their hope. And you are not disabled until you have lost hope.

The day you accepted yourself as a whole, the day you have gained so much more. Perhaps more than many others in this world will ever find, because everything about you, including your weaknesses and problems, are special to your own. Keep them.

Christmas is coming near, and well a blog isn’t a blog without something to celebrate Christmas!

Well for this blog this time, I am going to put together 15 Original Christmas Songs from people all over the net!

These people I find are highly talented and highly creative to come up with these original Christmas songs, something that are very different from the Christmas traditionals that we hear every day.

What’s even greater is that these people had put in that much effort to create content that is original and are actually very good all by themselves to share with the world. The power of Web 2.0!

I’m not gonna bug you with more prep talks, bump in for some sweet (and some funny) original Christmas music!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Image by Lottakind

Mia Rose – What would Christmas be like?

Blue Christmas

“Meet Me By The Mistletoe” – Destenee

Straight No Chaser – 12 Days of Christmas

Marie Digby – Bring Me Love

I Don’t Want Nothin’ For Christmas

Straight No Chaser – The Christmas Can-Can

The First Noel, Jingle Bells – Piano Christmas Songs by Roy Zu

Achmed Sings “Jingle Bombs” – Jeff Dunham

Christmas Lights – Jason Mitchell

Fred Figglehorn – Christmas Cash

No Christmas For Me – Zee Avi (Malaysian!! Support!!)

On Christmas

It’s Feeling Like Christmas – Joyce Cooling

Korean Boy Singing Christmas Song (SUPPORT TOO!)

That’s all, folks!

Liked the videos? Which one do you like? :D

And hey, how are you enjoying your Christmas so far? Been shopping a lot, I suppose? ;)

That’s a confession one of my friends made the other day, when he came over to ask me how to burn MP3s into a CD.

I was shocked. How can someone not know how Mona Lisa or to burn a CD at this time of age?

After my initial shock, I was even shocked by my own ignorance.

Initially he came over to ask me to help him burn some MP3s he gotten from his friend into a CD so he can listen to them in a car. A good selection of classic Kenny G, Celine Dion, Jim Brickman, Boyzone.

He asked me, “Can a laptop copy MP3s into a CD?”

“Yes of course! As long as your laptop has a CD burner and the right software.”

“Oh… what’s a burner?”

I was baffled and paused for like 15 seconds before I answered.

As I was burning the CD for him, I showed him the wonders of Facebook and the many funny and interesting videos shared there. He doesn’t have a Facebook account, because he doesn’t know what is it all about.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to ask…”
“Yea?”
“Who’s that lady in that picture? I’ve always seen here at a lot of places.”

Monalisa

I froze for a second.

“You… don’t know who she is?”
“Uhh… no?”
“She’s Mona Lisa!”
“Who?”
“This the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci! Don’t you know who Da Vinci is?”

“Uhh… who?” He was smiling sheepishly as I raised my voice.

“Da Vinci! Didn’t you read the Da Vinci Code book as it was the craze for the past few years?”
“Uhh… I think I’ve seen the movie poster before.”

I spent the next 30 minutes explaining to him who is Da Vinci, what the Mona Lisa is all about, some trivia about the difference of comic, illustration and art, and how to burn a CD.

For a moment, I was really shocked. He’s the same age as me. The computer craze generation. How can there be anyone who doesn’t know how to burn a CD at my age?

Then my conscience hit me. He is the same age as me, but we led very different life. I grew up in the city, he grew up in the country. He came to the city to learn pastry after his high school graduation, as he said, the school was all punks and he has no real good memories from it. He worked in a pastry materials distribution warehouse as a product tester, and turned to direct selling for more income.

He knows everything about spirulina and his vitamins and his cooking wares. He knows how to do facial, how to keep your face and skin good, how to live a healthy living with good food habits and good supplement intake. He knows how to talk and how to sell. He doesn’t know what is Restaurant City or FarmVille. And no, he doesn’t know how to burn a CD. Nor Mona Lisa, because he never read about her. Or anything that involves reading. His language of communication is Chinese, and that’s about it.

That’s the world of my friend. His world Now, who am I to judge him?

We all have to bear in mind, we’re all part of the luckier ones in the world. There’s probably 3/5 of the world’s population that has never touched a mouse before.

Well, on the other hand, they may have lived with mice and see them running around every day, while we squeal and shriek when we see one like every few months.

When he left that day, he thanked me for telling him who is Mona Lisa and teaching him a lot of things with that happy-go-lucky classic smile of his. I smiled back, closed the door, and smacked my head.

I shouldn’t have raised my voice in surprise. Who am I to judge him?

Attention to details?

“If you want to be successful. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing, and believe in what you are doing.” – David Venter

I have always believed that simple words or quotes, by anyone on the net, shows the zeitgeist of our time.

No matter how funny, how sad, how philosophical, how boring, how exciting, how stupid, how smart these quotes might seem to be, they do mean a thing. It might seem to be meaningless at first glance, they might not mean a thing to you, but when you’re looking at it, closely, how many things are happening around us, all of us, each second, each minute?

I am here to share some of these quotes that I find interesting and come upon every day. Perhaps such, it will open your mind and have a different perception towards my world. Their world. Our world. :)

Net Quotes Of The Day - 13/10/2009

“It’s a sunny day shining upon the english countryside. And my train is delayed due to line problems. Been a while since i rode a virgin” — Ren Woofie

“Post Processing over 3000 pictures taken during the weekend. I love my work, I love being busy, I love photoshooting!” — Melvin Foong

“please appreciate your time~~~!!! manage your time well~~~!!! do what u want to do~~~!!! ok!!!???” — Kevin Chin

“I hope tat morning will hurry and come, appearing when i cant hide my weakness and cry out… It is only cuz when u are not here, its strange the nights are so lonely…” — Sam Shiro

“Formal shirt + Boardshort to a wedding: It’s like Bob Marley & Peter Tosh just peed on me from heaven. Jah, it’s skanking time!” — Freddy Tan

“Can someone take out de MONDAY from the calendar~!? superb hate MONDAY!” — Kenji Keong

“Well Amah, some people have the luxury of shopping all day while some are inspired to design when in the total comfort of pjs.” — Cynthia Lye, on wearing PJs in the afternoon

“(Mark Ooi) is hit hard by the Monday blues, like the fat drunken man who decided to cross the railway tracks at night and got his foot stuck while staring blankly at the blaring lights of the oncoming speeding train.” — Mark Ooi

If you see a good quote around the net and would like to share with everyone, don’t hesitate and send it to submit@caramelz.my. I will post them on the next update :D