According to scientific research, happier people follows these two advice:

1) Believe in yourself.

2) Don't believe in yourself too much.

That's the thing about life. It's complicated.

"Everything worth knowing in life comes in a paradox."
- unknown

The wise will tell you that life is about searching for balance. Everything you think is important in life has two sides. You can't just take care of one side and forget the other. In other words, you can't be too extreme and be at only one end of the spectrum. The other end is important too. Consider this other quote:

"The opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth"
- unknown

Your head is probably throbbing by now. I can be really abstract sometimes. But abstract ideas can only be explained in abstract ways. Or maybe that's the only way I know of explaining things ;P

To make things simpler, let's look at an example.

The question of self-belief is probably the most important element pertaining to the success of a person. Simply, you need to believe in yourself and your abilities to be able to function at an exceptional level that people will consider you a success. People with intact self-belief or high self-esteem are generally able to achieve more in life simply because they take more action. Their self-belief provides a basis for a more positive outlook in life and therefore motivates them to do more.

By now, you should realize that self-belief is without doubt an important arsenal to have in the pursue of success in life. So you should have absolute self-belief. Actually, only in certain context.

Just how important are self-beliefs? It makes or breaks you. It defines your life. You should have absolute self-beliefs in these areas:



1) Your self worth.

You are here for a reason. You should know by now you're not some kind of alien experiment or you're not a byproduct (or side effect) of your parent's naughtiness :p
Your self worth is the single most important thing that shapes your life. You must understand that for the single reason that you're born into this earth, your life is worth living, you are a worthy human being, regardless of your current achievement and past experiences.

You're not an accident, the events that have to take place for you to be born is almost impossible. Consider the long line of ancestors that dates back to the beginning of life itself. Each one of your ancestor will have to meet and mate successfully.

That means there are probably hundreds of thousands of people that have to mate with an exact person and not anyone else to be able to lead to the production of you! Of the millions of sperms that was out there, that single sperm that carries half your genetic material have to be the first to reach and fertilize the particular egg that carries the other half to successfully bring you to life. You think that's coincidence?

Believe it!! You're a miracle!

So whatever you encounter in life, you should never doubt your own worthiness. You should love yourself unconditionally. Only then can you love others the same way.



2) Your ability to lead a happy life.


Let's face it, life's tough. You will meet with all sorts of challenges but there is no doubt that if you make an effort and are willing to learn, you will be able to live your life happily. If you're constantly not happy with your life's circumstances or your own achievement in life, you're being too tough on yourself!

If you've changed everything that need to be changed and are still not happy, change your perspective.

This is life's guaranty: There will be difficult times. There will be times so tough you'd wished you've not come out of the womb. Life is about choices that you make, and happiness, like everything else, IS A CHOICE. You can choose to be happy. No matter what. No one can take that decision from you.

Make the most of what you have. This is the best advice anyone can give you about being happy: Be Happy!


End of part one.

Stay tuned for the next part: Don't believe in yourself too much.

This may be the best advice you can get in the area of self development. I'm not kidding.

I'm telling you this because that's what I just did.

Let me get this straight: I'm not teaching you to be a rebel. You're doing fine the way you are already, I know you are. Anyway, I'm way past that 'rebellious age' when everything my parents say seems like the worst advice in the world, where everything seems like just tricks to exert control over me. We're all born good rebels.

What I mean is don't listen to your parents all the time. I assume you have a fair judgment on when your parents are giving REALLY good advice, like we they tell you don't jump in front of that on coming truck. Other than that, it's really up to you, because it's your god damn life, and as long as you're willing and are mature enough to take responsibility for whatever happens, you're entitled to act on your own free will.

Come to think of it, it's ok even if you don't listen to them when they tell you you'll die if you're hit by that truck. You should do it anyway, if you want, cause it's really YOUR god damn life. I'm not the one who goes to hell as a consequence of that. So go ahead. Yes, you just realized it, didn't you? Don't listen to anyone, NOT EVEN ME. Actually, ESPECIALLY me.

Our parents can really become the greatest source of encouragement and motivation for us or the greatest obstacle, can't they? You see, your parents will always try to 'protect' you. They will try to show you the best course of living your life based on their experience. It's all good, if you want to life a life exactly like theirs.

I personally believe we can be so much more than our parents. I'm not being arrogant or disrespectful. I'd like to think that I'm a filial son. A lot of people say I am ;P

The thing is, however successful your parents are, you can always strive to do better. You can take whatever great life experiences of your parents and learn from it. You can also learn from all their mistakes, and then you can learn to do better than them. Our parents are our greatest teacher. They are willing to teach and most of the time WILL FORCE YOU TO LEARN FROM THEM.

You know they do it for your own good (in their opinion). But what they think is good is not always the best for you, right. They have their limiting beliefs. What you should do is identify what those are and be able to make your own decisions.

In conclusion:

1) Identify some of your parents limiting beliefs that prevents them from achieving much more than they should have. (Yes, even people like Lim Goh Tong has them, I believe, and Lim Kok Thay should know them, to be more successful than his dad.)

2) You don't have to start a shouting match to make your point. Well, nothing wrong with that if the occasion calls for it, but there are always more positive ways to get your point across.

I believe standing up to your parents is not really an issue to a lot of you reading this. Especially the younger generation nowadays. I guess the trick is to do it in a way that do not drive them up the wall and yet, you get your way. Yes, it is possible. If you can't seem be able to do it yet, it means you have much much more to learn. Actually, don't we all?

Have you watched the winning videos of YouTube Video Awards 2007 yet? It's kinda like the Oscars for YouTube.

Apparently, it's a biggie to a lot of people. Even CNN mentioned the awards. YouTube has really become so much more influential than we care to admit. I mean, if you think about how often people upload videos to YouTube, coupled with how easy it is to record a video clip on your handphone nowadays, you get a little scared. I know I do.



It makes you feel like you're under surveillance almost 100% of the time once you're out of the house.
It means that everything you do or say has a possibility of being recorded by someone who owns a camera phone, which is practically everyone! So be mindful of the stupid things you say or do when you're in public places lest it becomes entertainment for millions of people one day.

Of course, this doesn't stop people from acting crazy in public (unfortunately). But I've always wondered just how much it will affect you in how you carry yourself in public? Do you notice that sometimes, when there is a car accident, there will be scores of handphones pointing towards the scene to capture or record whatever it is so interesting about the accident. Some to get the car number involved for TOTO or Magnum maybe ;P

What do you think? Do you think about this when you're about to engage in an argument with someone on your way to work on the subway?




Anyway, one particular YouTube award winning video caught my attention. It's titled "Stop the clash of civilization".



The political situation in the our country is not so different from everywhere else in the world or even on a global scale, where race and religion takes center stage in the clash of idealism and the way different people think the world should be run. It's funny when you consider that wars are fought just because we think differently. I mean, aren't we supposed to be different? What starts wars is when one party feel the need to impose their opinion on how things should be to another group of people, who normally are in a situation and context very different from the initial party. Opinions can be a powerful thing.

One particular experience struck my mind on this issue. On Christmas last year, I was stuck in Dubai Airport for a 10 hours transit to come back to Malaysia from an oversea trip. Spending 10 hours in Dubai airport is a unique experience.

Just walking around the airport, I'm surrounded by so many people of so diverse origins. The thing is I don't really feel any different from these people. Really, when you look past the face, color of the skin, even with different religious and cultural background, you can see that we don't act and behave that differently. We all can be courteous to each other (most of the time, anyway). We have the same basic needs, we can learn pretty much to behave the same way like most other people do. All men go in the loo with the "male" sign and we pee standing up, next to each other. We're like the most adaptable beings on earth, and yet sometimes we find it hard to live with each other. I mean, we can learn so complicated a maneuver as peeing at the right place, the correct position and with correct manners and hygienic habit to wash our hands (most of us, anyway) afterwards, yet we feel the need to bomb each other into pieces occasionally.

Just when will we realize that despite having different opinions, we're not so different from each other. Sometimes, it made me think that we're born with an innate need to argue and be in conflict.