Well, I’m as surprised as you!

It was my friends that told me first that I was featured on The Star Newspaper R.AGE Featured Blogger’s section.

At first I thought it was a prank. Well it was my birthday 2 days ago, I guess people can play pranks.

Then throughout the day I got friends buzzing me on MSN and Twitter saying that, “Hey, I saw you on newspaper!”

It was until WillyCW (visit his blog here) sent a Twitpic of the newspaper clipping.

Oh my!

So how did it happen??

Some people asked if I paid for the “ad”. The answer is, no.

Kenwooi from the infamous Kenwooi.com asked if I wrote to R.AGE to asked to be featured.

The short answer is, yes.

The long answer, is that all you have to do is write to them at alltherage@thestar.com.my introducing yourself and your blog. They will take your blog into consideration, and if your blog fits the bill, someone will contact you for more details. You can find the blog post about R.AGE looking for bloggers to be featured over here.

As I quote,

“As The Star’s youth section, R.AGE has always been about representing young voices and giving Malaysian youths a platform to express themselves.

This featured blogger section was created to partially fulfill that commitment. While bloggers already have their own ”publishing tools” to air their views, we hope to bring them together to build a community.

This way, we add another filter to the information available on the net — a repository of sorts to find out what young people are into these days, what they are thinking and what they are all about.

So, it doesn’t matter if you’re a top blogger or a n00b (yes, there’s space for you too!), or if you blog about travels, technology, cars or your daily life — we want you to share it with us.”

Then two weeks ago, the someone who contacted me was the infamous Niki Cheong (Twitterers look here) who asked me for a picture. And the rest is history.

Lesson of the story? Get A Thick Skin

And make that first move.

I was probably one of those n00bs that thinks that being a n00b I am just started blogging a few months ago will probably not fit in there, but now I am glad that I made that first move.

Dengan muka tebalnya I sent in my introduction. It paid off. Now it’s your turn! :D

The other two bloggers that got featured on this issue are:

• Eugene Lee from Food From Thoughts
• Serge Norguard from DustyHawk

And thank you everyone for reading and supporting this blog! And if you happen to fumble upon this blog after reading the feature on the newspaper, do drop a word so that I can say HI to you!

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”?

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.