Tang Sanctuary

Life is strangely muted these couple of weeks. Normally I would be so busy and time passed by so fast that I would lose touch of dates and time. I found myself unable to connect with a lot of things in my life such is my busy schedule. Sometimes, I missed having a bit of fun in my life and missed those carefree times when life is so much simpler.

A couple of events make me realized that I should spent more time with my loved ones and learn to appreciate them more.

First, the recent death of my wife’s grandma brings back memories of my dad who passed away a couple of years back. Although I’m not that familiar with my wife’s grandma, her death did touch a raw nerve in me and make me lapse into a period of self reflection.

Next event that arouse such strong emotions in me is the death of my uncle a couple of days back. I stayed with my aunt and uncle for a couple of years in the past and was very close to them. The news on the death of my uncle was harder to take this time round. Even though my uncle was suffering from prostrate cancer for the last few years and his passing was imminent, his death still shocks us.

Today, we just sent him off. It was a solemn affair at the Mandai Columbarium with everyone in attendance looking somber. Even though my aunt and cousins seem to be able to take things in strides, their teary and swollen red eyes betrayed the grief and sadness they are experiencing especially when my uncle’s coffin was pushed out for the final time.

Looking back, I realized that kinships and friendships are so important to us yet we rarely take the time to appreciate and enjoy the company of family and friends until it’s too late. While the pursuit for successes and achievements are inevitable, sometimes I wonder whether we should find time to enjoy the little things in life. Maybe, we should pursue happyness instead.

The basics of setting a goal is an open secret known by top-caliber athletes, successful businessmen and businesswomen and all types of achievers in all the different fields. The basics of setting goals give you short-term and long-term motivation and focus. They help you set focus on the acquisition of required knowledge and help you to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.

Setting clearly defined short term and long term goals will enable you to measure your progress and achieve personal satisfaction once you have successfully met your goals. Charting your progress will also enable you to actually see the stages of completion leading to the actual realization of your goals. This eliminates the feeling of a long and pointless grind towards achieving your goal. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you will be more aware of your capabilities as you complete or achieve your goals.
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The path to personal and professional development is different for everyone. Depending on what your interests, dreams, and goals have become, your path to personal and professional development will be different than anyone else. Personal development and professional development are undoubtedly linked. Without professional development and success, you cannot achieve personal development and your personal dream. Because of this, there are some typical similarities on the path to personal and professional development.

The first step on the path to personal and professional development is to decide what exactly you want to do with your life and your career. To do this, you must examine your strengths, weaknesses, interests, skills, and talents. Discovering more about yourself and what you want from life will help you to find your way to a rewarding and fulfilling career that will take you where you most want to go.
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There are many people in our society today that are very unhappy with their lives for one reason or another. Whatever reason they have for being unhappy, there is undoubtedly a way to change it. Sometimes it requires a change in career, or situation. Other times it is simply a change in the way that people think. Sometimes, it is both. This is what personal development is all about.

Personal development is a path that you take to better your family situation, career, spirituality, emotional health, and every other aspect of your life. Essentially, personal development is about making conscious decisions about everything that you do, the way that you think, and the way that you react to situations. Personal development can help you obtain everything that you always dreamed of, and more, with the simple application of a few simple mind sets and tools.

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Nothing is worse than having a dream for yourself and entities getting in the way to keep you from it. The sad truth is those barriers to your dreams are usually self-created. Personal development is hindered by four main areas operating on a daily basis within your life.

Everything you do is a choice. With you choices is always an outcome. On another level, you could call it taking a personal responsibility for yourself. If your life isn’t flowing in the direction you wish, then perhaps it is time to dissect these four areas in a self-evaluation.

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Well, I’m a big fan of Rafa ever since he was back in Valencia and took them to 2 Spanish Liga Championship but after yesterday disappointing draw with Spurs, I begin to doubt his wisdom in sticking to his rotation policy. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe he will be the manager to deliver the 19th premiership title back to Liverpool and he’s one of the the best manager around, but his stubbornness in sticking to the rotation policy is starting to get into me.

In fact ever since the start of EPL, every team that had won the premiership title used a settled first team, only rotating players when they are injured, suspended or tired and definitely not at the start of the season when everyone is still fresh.

Rafa’s rational is that he wants his players to be fresh for all competition and especially at the later stages of the season when the fixtures start piling up. His explanation is understandable and I do agree with him except for the part that it’s still early in the season and we should have start with our strongest players instead of rotating them and disrupting the rhythm of the team.

Yesterday’s match is a prime example of what’s wrong for not having a settled first team! No fluency in attack and a unsettled defense led to 2 point lost rather than a point gained.

I hope the sooner Rafa realized that his rotation policy is not working, the better it would be but then who am I to argue with one of the best manager around! Seems like I better stick back to my football manger game.

I’m a big aquarium fan and most of you probably never knew that as I never post about it before. I’m more into planted tanks and freshwater fishes. Before I got my 4 feet tank, I have a hard time convincing my wife to let me have one. I think the guys here can sympathize with me on that.

My wife’s only concern is that I would not have the time to take care of the fish tank and thus neglecting the basic maintenance required. It’s tough trying to juggle a family, a fledging business and a career and she wonder whether I have the time and energy to maintain the tank. According to her, unkempt fish tank is bad feng shui for the house.

Well, I can agree with her on that. And I make a pact with her to remind me to maintain the tank regularly. Through to her words, whenever I slack off in my maintenance, she will be there to nag me.

Ha! Now thatâ’s my wife for you! Any guys here have similar predicament?

Do you find yourself striving to move forward, but getting nowhere? You likely have barriers to personal growth and development that you may not even be aware of. Many people have barriers to personal growth and development that hold them back from achieving their personal or career goals in life. However, regardless of the nature of your barriers to personal growth and development, you can overcome the obstacles and achieve your goals with a few lifestyle and mindset adjustments.

The most common barrier to personal growth and development is your own imagination. How much a person can accomplish is only limited by the vision and determination of the person. If you think that you cannot accomplish something, then you will fail. If you think that you can accomplish something, and you put in the effort, you will succeed. Often, personal growth and development is often that simple.

Another common barrier to personal growth and development is past failures or events. Often our past failures or bad events in our lives get in the way of personal growth and development. It is natural for our minds to dwell on such events, but only by moving past them can we truly grow as people and in our careers. These incidents must be put aside so that we can accomplish our goals.

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Even the best behaved child has an occasional temper tantrum. A tantrum can range from whining and crying to screaming, kicking, hitting, and breath holding. They’re equally widespread in boys and girls and usually occur from age 1 to age 3. Some children may experience regular tantrums, whereas for other children, tantrums may be rare. Some kids are more prone to throwing a temper tantrum than others.

Children are trying to learn the world around them and when they are not able to accomplish a task, they often resort to using the only tool at their disposal for venting frustration – a tantrum. There are several basic causes of tantrums that are familiar to parents everywhere:

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Have you ever have this thought “I wish I was somebody else.” Many times at the back of our mind, we think and believe that someone or rather, most people are far superior to us. – When in actual fact, most people are thinking the same thing and they are more scared than us.

Isn’t it laughable? We look at other people, envy them for looking so outrageously perfect and wish we are them, while they look at us and think of the exact same thing. We are insecure of other people who themselves are insecure of us. We suffer from low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lose hope in self improvement because we are cloak in quiet desperation.

That’s why it’s imperative that we always strive for self improvement. By making ourselves better people, we can then inspire other people, and then the rest of the world will follow.

Stop thinking of yourselves as second-rate beings. Forget the repetitive thought of “If only I was richer, if only I was thinner” and so on. Accepting your true self is the first step to self improvement. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others. Not only is that counter productive to your self development, it also make you feeling far less happy in your life.

We all have our insecurities. No one is perfect. We always wish we had better things, better features, better body parts, etc. But life needs not to be perfect for people to be happy about themselves. Self improvement and loving yourself is not a matter letting the whole world know that you are perfect and you are the best. It’s the virtue of acceptance and contentment. Only when we begin to make an effort to improve ourselves, we then begin to feel contented and happy.