First of all, I have to apologize for my lack of updates and I have been slacking off at reading your blogs. Busy with work and life, my bad at that!! Sorry!

This morning I have heard from the radio station, there was this community message thing done by OneFM from time to time to promote different human values. This time it’s about trust.

The setting was pretty typical, a girl gives her friend something to do, and asks for the progress. The friend reassures that everything is in control, and the girl starts to worry that the details are not done well enough, things are that she must do everything right or they might lose the job and this and that.

The friend listens to her worries for a while and when she couldn’t take it, she interrupts, “You’ve passed the job to me, then you should trust me to do the job well!”

Exactly. Have you ever ask yourself, how much do you trust your friends, family or colleagues, and do you trust them enough?

Image @Denise Lamby on Flickr

I’m sure that a lot of us work in a team or together with other people a lot of times. Unless you’re a lone ranger then you might not have to deal with anyone else, but then there must be some time that you have to cooperate and work with others to get some things done.

It may be that project you want to pitch for the company, that daily admin job of the office, that wedding you’re going to organize, that Chinese New Year chores you want to start working on with your family, or that holiday trip you’re planning with your friends.

Humans are social animals. We can only get so much done by ourselves, that’s why we need the help of others. And when we need the help of others, we have to trust them to be able to help us.

Lack of confidence is annoying

There’s nothing more annoying than asking help from someone then not trust them enough to do the job. Well it doesn’t matter if you are forced to be in a team or if you asked them for help, but as long as you’re working together, you should trust them.

Because most of the time they know what they’re doing before even taking on the task. This shows that they’re confident to do the job, so why are you not confident in them?

If they’re professionals, you should trust them even more because they know what to do better than you.

If they’re just as clueless as you, you should trust them to be able to make good enough decisions.

If they’re not as competent as you, you should trust them to make some progress and guide them along the way, not doubting and dismissing their thoughts and actions.

Relationships are built on trust

Of course, being overly confident and trusting too much can sometimes lead to disappointment. But really, if you don’t give at least a minimum standard of trust and be an ass trying too hard to get things right your way, you will end up hurting the job and the relationship more than being any real help.

Relationships build on trust. It’s only through trusting someone that we be open to each other and form a great relationship, to be great friends or great family or great colleagues. To gain trust you need to prove yourself to be trustworthy, but you have to do the most basic thing first too.

Learn to trust. :)

Do you trust your friends and family enough? Or are you one of the worry-warts that think too much? ;)

Have you ever met people who complains about how his BMW is not going pretty smooth lately when running at 150KM/H?

While you’re driving a 10 years old second hand Proton Saga?

The scenario isn’t exactly the same, but I have met people who loves to talk, complain, or if you want to put it nicely, share about their materialistic well-beings with people who have far worse scenarios than them.

It may seem like you’re sharing your stuffs with me to you, buddy, but in my ears it only sounds like you’re bragging.

It’s unlikely for rants to appear on this blog, but well I’ll make an exception this time. Take your brags to somewhere else for f**k’s sake, it’s pissing me off!

Image @Christian Yanchula on Flickr

You think that’s bad? It’s much better than what I have so f**k off!

Sometimes you just can’t stand people who complain so much about that one scratch on their iPhone or how she got that crack on her Louis Vuitton handbag, while you’re holding an ancient Nokia model or a bag you got from the market for RM10.

While you can try pretty hard to smile and acknowledge their pain or empathize with their problems, deep down you’re already cursing about this asshole that talks too much.

Let’s face it, money matters. It’s what drives the earth around. And while some people are born with a silver spoon stuck up in their mouth, many others have to work their ass away to afford even the smallest of luxury. Hell, some even struggle with the basic life commodity.

If you’re happen to be one of the lucky ones that are born with a silver spoon, congratulations. If you are that good that you can work to be one of the most successful and richest people around your age, congratulations. If you manage to get that shiny Alienware laptop or that Prada trenchcoat, congratulations to you too.

But don’t share or complain about it in front of people who are way far behind from your achievements, because in their ears it sounds more like bragging and boasting and blowing your own goddamn trumpet.

Dealing With Braggers

If you’re one of the less luckier ones who have met one of these holes (you know which hole I’m talking about), and you don’t want to be one of those hypocrites, there are a few ways to deal with them.

Smile and nod away. Just keep quiet but refuse to give your input on his problems (just because they are not yours). Eventually he will find you boring and stop talking about his stuffs.

Smile and say, “Hey, you have better stuffs than me, why are you still complaining?” Well that’s the truth, really. Most braggers will get the message and stop the sharing session already, but in case that still doesn’t work…

Tell him YOUR problems. Tell him how much you’ve spent on fixing that 12 years old car, how cheap you’ve gotten your bag from the night market, how cheap your laptop is with its lack of features, how bad your malfunctioning phone is with black and white screen.

That should do the trick. If they still have some conscience, they will stop talking about their problems and focus on yours instead. If they really just wanna brag, just walk away. You don’t need a hole like that to be your friend, do you?

Choose who to “share” with

If you really have a problematic BMW car or a scratched Louis Vuitton bag, choose who are you going to share your problem with. Most people who are much below your level in terms of materialistic sufficiency will find your words a sore, no matter how honestly you really want to share about your problems.

Find someone who is almost the same level or higher level than you. That means find someone who owns something of similar of what you have or even better, and ask them about their opinion. Finding someone who own something much worse or can’t afford it at all will get you branded as a bragger.

That includes your brother/sister and your best friends. You have no idea how much sourness that can be generated when you talk about money and luxury, no matter how close you are with them. You’re better off asking the advices of the more experts anyway, why make sad cases with your friends?

If you just simply wanna brag, well, you’re an asshole.

Have you met any braggers before?

A lot of them are doing it without noticing it, but some of them really are just bragging for the fun of it. Have you met any lately? How do you deal with them?

I don’t know about you, but there are so many people in our lives that it seems that we’ve seen them forever, we’ve known them forever, yet we don’t really know them.

This might sound confusing at first, but take a look around you, it may be that guard that keeps your house and office safe every day, that nasi lemak seller that you buy your breakfast from every day, the bus conductor that gives you your ticket, or even that guy or girl that sits at that corner of the train every day.

They’re like the closest strangers, ever.

Sounds romantic and fictional, but it happens. There are so many people around us that we see every day, you may notice the change of their hairstyle, the new shirt they’re wearing, the new bag she gotten, the new phone he had, yet we don’t know even know their name.

They are the closest strangers, ever.

Image @Daviddesign on Flickr

It’s so hard to say “hi”

A tweet from @Available had illustrated this pretty well,

“at the supermarket, i’m afraid to talk to the person next in-line, yet on twitter…HOW ARE YOU?!”

Yeah, why are we so afraid to talk to the stranger around us in real life, yet we’re so daring to say hi to just virtually anyone on the Net?

Is it because that we’ve grown so accustomed to the notions that strangers may not be good people, so we would rather not take the risk and say hi at all? Instead, over the net you can say “hi” to anyone because they can never harm you, physically?

But then, isn’t that cold? Can you feel the chill now, the chillness of the urban life?

A word is all it takes to spark

If we’ve taken the first step to say “Hi”, we might have not been strangers anymore.

I remember that when I was young, I used to buy these noodles (Pan Mee) from this vendor almost every day. Eventually the aunties there grew to recognize me, and while we ceased to talk other than closing the deal, it felt warm inside that they actually know what I wanted even before I ordered.

Then one day, I said “Hi” when I arrived at the store. The auntie smiled back, and we sparked a conversation about my school, my studies, her work, her life. And what’s interesting is that she seemed to know so much about me, about how I grew up over the years, when I changed my school bag, when I got a new haircut.

We’ve seen each other every day, all it takes is just a plain “hi”, and we’ve grown to know each other a little bit better. Not so much of a stranger anymore, are we?

Customer relations, they say. Humanity, is what I call it.

Let’s not be Strangers, shall we?

Really, the world needs more warmth. It isn’t that difficult, really, just start with a smile in your face, and say “hi” to them. The person in the same lift with you, the janitor at the corridor, the canteen cashier, the uncle at the bus corner, the girl next class, the boy next department.

Who knows what might spark from the simple “hi”. But whatever it is, it’ll not be a bad thing, it rarely will. Ditch the newspapers or the goddamn news, the world has more good people than you think.

Hello, stranger. How are you today?

Well, its been months since this blog had started, and honestly I didn’t talk much about myself, as much as I wish I do!

To get rid of the anonymity between you and me, I am for once dedicate this post to talk all about me!

Yay, all about Grey! The blabbering bastard that gets high on listening to a guy singing like a girl and talks about sex all the time. Yeesh, what kind of a person is that?

I will not bore you with how many hairstyles I have changed in my life or how many pets I have at home. Instead, I will share with you my interests and thoughts that means a lot to me of who I am.

Well, lets just keep it short, come and learn all about me today!

Warning: Really, really long post ahead!

The Basics First

Grey got a new haircut, like yesterday!

By the time I write this post I’m still 22. In 4 months time I’m going to be 23, and oh, time flies! 23 years gone in my life, and what have I done? Catching up with all those porn probably.

It felt like yesterday that I have just graduated from Confucious Private Secondary School and moved on to KBU International College. I graduated from college in Graphic Design, and now I am working in Piradius Design as a web designer.

Doesn’t show through huh? Yeah I think so too. I’m a designer that talks and craps more than design. ;)

Besides that, I am also a choir singer for around 9 years now, and a crappy piano player for around 7 years. I started late in my teens, I’m not greatly talented, but I still enjoy playing it as a hobby. As I always say, if you start now, when you’re 50 years old you’ve probably played for more than 30 years! Isn’t that an achievement? :D

I love my Chinese and English

My mom thinks that the whole family are bananas who can’t read chinese, so it’s a wise thing to send me to a chinese secondary school. I appreciated that, of course! The Chinese culture is fascinating, 5000 years worth of culture is not something that you can feel in matter of minutes. There are so much Confucianism and Taoism values that I had absorbed and learned to appreciate today.

Many people make the “Confucianism is confusing” joke. Well it’s funny a little, but Confucianism is a very highly respected set of moral values to the Chinese. Go read about it and you will see why, it determines almost 80% of all about Chinese culture today, from values in filial piety to relationships. Mostly everything.

Grey is so desperate he'll eat anything. Really!

Then there’s the English world that I’ve come across in college. Thanks to the banana friends and the English nature of the course, I had to brush up my English language skills like from zero to hero. Well not really hero now neither, but you get what I mean. :P

My banana friends had introduced me to the world of the Western culture. They listened to Rihanna and Lady Gaga, they watched Heroes and Harry Potter, they followed American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance… None, and I mean none of these I have ever come across during my secondary school life. And I love them for doing so. I was a total Taiwan and Hong Kong follower back in secondary school, now I guess I’m a global guy.

An Open Mind

I'm in Second Life! If you're in, look me up, the name is Dadaist Gears. ;)

A mix of both worlds had opened my eyes to many things indeed. And with a mix of a third world it really got me going to have the urge seeing the world even more.

What third world, you say? It’s Second Life. For a time during my college I was so free and I came upon this online 3d world community/game thing. And I was hooked, very hooked. There are so much cultural diversity in there that you can never explore it all. I tried, and I was amazed.

Second Life showed me that the world is not as simple as what the media wants us to see. There are so much other subcultures that we can never know from the TV or radio. There are the furries, the Goreans, the steampunks, the goths, the adult scenes, the nekos. There are so much room for experimental developments, so many groups to look into, so wide the spectrum that I was overwhelmed initially.

Then it came to me that the world is really much larger than what we think it is. There are so much to see, so much to learn, the only way to get through all of it is to embrace the differences.

Perhaps this is why I am so open to talk about just anything, because I have a real high threshold for shock factor and differences.

Classical music, the alternative music today

Whenever I tell people that I like classical music, they will give me the look of detest, “Oh that’s some boring crap!” or the trying-very-hard-to-feel-the-same, “Oh I like classical music too! The violins and what’s that thing again… flute? Yeah, the blowy thing. I like that.”

The thing is that many young people don’t listen to classical music anymore, because it is difficult music. It is harder to relate to compared to those disco beats or Top 40 tunes. It has a much more complicated form and if you’re not used to it, you’re prone to fall asleep because of its relaxing effects.

I like relaxing music. Classical music does that for me, and I love it. They may be difficult to catch at first, but if you spend some time reading about it you will appreciate them much more. After all, classical music had always have the dramatic effect that can bring you so much up and down. Listen to these music here, here and here. Each of those music are written 100 years apart, they still are really good today, aren’t they?

Classical music is evergreen, because they’re the essence of history. They reflect the spirit of their times, and can still reflect the spirit of our times today. We love classical music because of it’s power to bring joy and excitement just about anyone, as long as you open your ears to it. Really, try it. ;)

I Love My Sex

Grey is with Sugar. Well not really a sweet mouth!

In case you haven’t notice by now, I love my sex. I’m very vocal about my porns and I am not afraid to share about sex. I guess one of the reasons why there is that I think that sex is a very human thing, yet most of us are afraid to talk about it due to our Confucianism teachings (see above!).

Sex makes us all happy. And let’s be honest, the word “sex” itself makes you feel curious already. All of us are attracted to sex because of it’s status of being a taboo in our society, it’s like a secret interest that is not so secret anymore.

This blog is made to be an open conversation to be just about anything. I bring up many interesting and sometimes controversial issues so that we can share ideas. And sex is part of it. And I love it. ;)

The Net Is My Life

Without Internet, I will probably rot and die in minutes. I spend almost 15 hours of my time online every day, well partly because of work, but it is pretty much my love and passion.

There are so much to watch on YouTube, so much to share on Facebook, so much to explore on StumbleUpon, and so much to read just every else. Call me addicted if you must, but if addicted is what I am being coined to enrich my life with, I’m really proud and willing to be an addict.

Grey loves his food! Really!!

Oh no, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a life. I go out with friends regularly, I enjoy a walk at the mall, I enjoy traveling, I enjoy great food at great places, I enjoy dating with my boy. Just anytime other than that, being online is what I will do.

Thats why I love my broadband too. I probably use it to the max. Without it, I’ll probably sleep till it’s there.

And online is where you can find me!

Grey trying to act cute. Fail!

If what I have written here is not enough for you to feed your curiousity, well you can always catch me on the Net!

My net nickname is Conancat, it’s a mixture of my love for both Detective Conan and cats back in my secondary school days. Apparently it had become so catchy that I decided to keep it forever. ;)

So thats why you will find that my Facebook, Twitter and Plurk all goes by the name of Conancat.

Even my MSN has conancat on it! Like, conan_cat87@hotmail.com!

So does my Gmail, conancat@gmail.com, and of course the new Google Wave, conancat@googlewave.com.

So hey, lets not be strangers, shall we? :) Let’s talk, like, really talk!

Add me anywhere above, or even better, everywhere above, and buzz me to drop me a tell me more about you! :D

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should save the comments for yourself neither. Drop a comment below, and tell me what you think about me! :)

While this may sound outrageous at first, but study shows that loneliness really does spread like a virus. When you’re lonely, you’re not only lonely yourself, people around you will feel lonely too.

And if that keeps up, it’s not a good thing because loneliness, instead of making more friends to care about you, makes friends leave you.

Find out why.

Lonely Girl

Loneliness Makes Others Lonely Too

I first read about this on Whichlaneareyou.com, which Marcell discusses “Is It Loneliness Is Contagious“. And yes, after reading it and this study by University of Chicago, I am convinced that loneliness is really, contagious.

Let’s take a real world example. One day a friend comes to you and tells you that he is lonely. He will start explaining why he is lonely, and he will start giving you real world examples of how others make him lonely. He will start to count every fault that people make, every little detail that people do that makes him feel lonely, every single glare, single grin, or even a single hand wave is enough as a “hint” for people is trying to isolate him and make him lonely.

It’s so natural that when you’re lonely, everything is against you. He is rationalizing everything to be against him, even if they are not.

And you listen so intently to his speculations and you actually start to believe that it is true, perhaps out of sympathy. You begin to let your rationale down. Then part of you will start to think, maybe what he said is really true. And maybe all those glares, those grins, those gestures do mean that they are isolating him.

Then you start to get away from those “friends” of him because you think that they are bastards to make your friend a loner. You’re left with your loner friend. He continues to be a loner, and eventually you’re getting lonely too because you have lesser and lesser friends.

And eventually you get sick with your loner friend, you’re left with yourself.

Loneliness is a very scary bug, isn’t it?

The Loneliness Bug

A lonely person is likely to lose touch with another person, who in turn gets cut off from others, and both end up on the fringes of a social group.

“A lonely person who anticipates others are going to act negatively toward them finds evidence in their environment for that, partly because they anticipate it and partly because they elicit it,” Cacioppo told LiveScience.

They found loneliness is catchy with three degrees of separation. So a person’s loneliness depended not just on his friend’s loneliness but also on his friend’s friend and his friend’s friend’s friend. Participants were 52 percent more likely to be lonely if a person to whom they were directly connected (one degree of separation) was lonely. For two degrees of separation, the number drops to 25 percent and 15 percent for three degrees.

Over time, lonely individuals become lonelier and transmit such feelings to others before severing ties. “People with few friends are more likely to become lonelier over time, which then makes it less likely that they will attract or try to form new social ties,” they write. Such friendless individuals ended up on the outskirts of their social networks. –Excerpts from Lifescience.com

Loneliness Is An Attitude, Not A Personality

I admit that I was kind of generalizing how the loneliness bug works there, it’s actually much more complex than that. But you can be sure that loneliness is a very scary social state. It doesn’t only make yourself feel bad, it makes the people around you feel bad and sad as well.

I personally had a lonely fit myself a few months ago. I was feeling so lonely and so depressed with myself, I kept myself to myself so much, I wouldn’t answer any calls, wouldn’t go out with anyone, locked myself at the room and made everyone around me worry. My loneliness made them feel lonely too as they lacked my company, and they too soon become depressed. As soon as they are depressed they don’t care less about me anymore, because they’re too depressed to care about me.

Then I got out of my loneliness bug and I started to build back the relationships. I apologized for what I’ve done (which is actually not doing anything) and we’ve gained back the trust gradually. I’ve gotten my positive outlook in life back by keeping myself focused on goals and tasks in life (one of them is this blog!), and I kept myself busy with challenging but happy things.

I got myself out of the loneliness bug and everyone around me is much happier.

Nobody is a born loner. Loneliness is an attitude, not a personality.

Think twice before feeling lonely!

Next time, when you feel lonely, think twice! Are you really that lonely, or are you just feeling depressed? If you’re depressed, get some chocolates, watch some movies, talk to friends, get yourself happy! You have plenty of friends, trust me, and they’re all wiling to be there for you, any time!

If there are actually some ass holes that tries to ruin your life, it’s their loss, not yours! So just get over it, and stick with the better friends. You’re never lonely, you just haven’t reach out to the good ones yet. :)

Don’t let the loneliness bug catch up to ya and pull ya down!

We always want to win, that’s true. Winning comes with a price too, maybe it’s hard work, money or other prices.

Sometimes the price is so high to pay, winning is not worth it anymore.

Especially when it comes to arguments in relationships. Try too hard to win and you’ll break the relationship instead.

In the end you get a broken trophy. Is it worth it?

Broken Trophy

Broken Hearts = Broken Trophy

Have you ever lost a friend or a loved one, because you’re both trying too hard to win? In the end you get the triumph of winning, but the “reward” that you got is actually just a broken trophy. Broken hearts, scarred relationships, and even loads of tears.

Many relationship experts tells us that we should always opt for a double-win. Of course, that is the most desirable situation. But many times it is very hard because to go for a double-win, you must let the other party win.

You must first lose to double-win

Sounds confusing? To put it simply, you must give up your position, have a deep breathe, take a step back, let the other party have their way and let them “win” first. And when they had “won” the argument, you win too because your tolerance and generosity had gained back their trust.

You’ve won back the relationship. Now, isn’t that a double-win?

Don’t win a broken trophy. It’s not worth it. If you must win, remember you have to lose in order to win. Then you will win a smile on both faces, which is much more valuable than a broken trophy — it’s a real trophy.

Image courtesy of Chris Parry on Flickr.