A Messenger Bag With New Year's Resolutions

I got a fine-looking messenger bag for my birthday! It's from my soon-to-be wife. I actually need a bag to get organized in what I'm working on right now. Now I can be both organized and stylish! How thoughtful of her. The more reason for me to marry her, isn't it? *wink wink*

------------------------------------------------

I climbed a rambutan tree 2 weeks ago. It felt good. Kinda like a small adventure. Or more like a teeny weeny adventure. I've been craving for some adrenalin rush with a lot of sweating. But I don't have much time to leisure around these days. A lot need to be done. My new year's resolutions are to get married, buy a Passat, and take my parents to one memorable holiday. And of course, to finish my Masters in between those. I'm 27 this year. Going to be 28 next year. There's less time to waste.

I've been thinking a lot lately. What do I have right now? What have I achieved? What have I given to my parent? Nothing. Nothing. And nothing. I'm not married yet. I don't even own a car yet, let alone a property. I can only give a few hundreds a month to my mother. I don't even have much savings. Less than 10k. Even if everything else does not matter, at least I want to be a better son. I'm sorry, but those who feels that they are already doing enough for their parents and so they are not trying to do any better, are pathetic. If they're gone tomorrow, I'm sure you'll have lots of regrets.

Despite my failures, I'm still glad. I'm glad that I'm no longer sitting on my cozy couch. Sometimes you don't realize that you need to change. You are too absorbed with your current surrounding. You think you are comfortable and secure, but it's just a matter of time till you realize that termites are digging their ways under that cozy velvety couch. I got up and look for a better couch. Because I know I deserve more, I deserve better. Until you got your wake-up slap in the face, you may never will realize it.

Working hard to earn extra money on your own is not such a bad thing. In fact, it feels good. The excitement, the satisfaction are beyond words. Especially when you are working together with the people you trust and love. Thank you, friends and family.

Graph of Life

It's amazing how people can change so suddenly. It's also amazing how some people never change. It's even more amazing how people can change for the worse.

Islamic scholars said that there are 3 types of people in this life; The successful one, the failure and the wretch.

The successful person in life practices "today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than today". His or her graph of life is always increasing. It may went down some times, but never fails to rise back up higher than before.

A failure's graph of life is always a plateau. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow will always be the same. Doing the same thing, never improving, never trying something new. Laughing on the same joke, crying over the same thing, complaining on the same thing every single day. His or her life will remain as it is.

A simple example is the routine of working. Getting up early in the morning, having a quick breakfast, rushing to work, yelling in the car coz you're stuck in the traffic jam, worrying about arriving late for work. If you get there on time, you'll immediately forget what you've been through before. Then you get nagged by your boss. You nag him back behind his back. You say to yourself that you hate this job and this place, you want to quit. But after 5pm, you were so happy that you forget everything that has happened. Once again, yelling in your car in the traffic jam. Arrived safely at home. Tired. Sleep. And the cycle repeats on the following days.

Nevertheless, the worst kind of person is someone whose graph of life is decreasing each day till the day he or she dies. Today is worse than yesterday, and tomorrow will be worse than today. Next year is going to be worse. Such a person is an ungrateful wretch. Why? Because Allah is the All Just, and Most Generous, even to the non-muslims. Everybody is given chances everyday, but most people takes it for granted.

Life is mostly about making choices. You can choose to waste your time sleeping or watching TV the entire day, or you can make good use of the 24 hours given to each and everyone of us. Everybody is given 24 hours a day. Why is our graph of life falling while others are making progress?

*The graphics aren't mine. Thank you actual owner, whoever you are.