Entrapment

Tags

Personal, Stories, Writing

The house that i’m currently staying in is a second-hand house, meaning that I bought it off from the seller previously. Like any second-hand house, there are some area or sections or places or anything that just doesn’t really suit your preferences — especially when one is concerned about the feng shui. In order to put the pieces together, we needed to do a minor remodelling which I wouldn’t consider minor actually. Stairs were re-built to the deepest corner of the house, the kitchen re-designed, produced  additional bedrooms, etc. Before your mind started to wonder where I am going with this, I can assure you it’s not about what you think. Trust me.

Mind Control

Tags

Advice, Consequence, Control, life, Mind, Writing

Every human being is governed by its own mind. True, our bodies do show signs about what they want, but in the end it’s up to us to decide so or otherwise. There were times where I let my mind took control by tag teaming with my emotion. You see, our minds play tricks all the time. They will always try to convince you to do what you don’t want or the other way around.

So, I tried to find ways to contain myself and control my own mind. Here are three advice that I always remember to do when it is trying to take over.

1. Remind yourself of the consequences

We are a product of consequences. Everything that happens, happens for a reason — be it good or bad. We are here today because of our past, because our actions in the past or the paths we took. If that was a left turn instead of right, things might have turned out differently — I probably wouldn’t write this instead.

Breaks are good for you!

By focusing on the consequences, we are focusing about the outcome, the result we wanted to achieve. And let it become the fire to burn our motivation. It’s easier to imagine the result rather than actually having the result instantly right?

2. Give your head a chance to cool down

Everything has it’s optimal operating temperature. Go too high and it will melt. Go too low and it will no longer work. It applies to almost everything. All those stress either from work, home, kids, bosses, solving problems, you name it, is going to put a toll on your body — especially your mind. You will easily get irritated over small stuff, you smile less and will be happy to pick a fight with the first person who annoys you. Pushing yourself too hard isn’t going to help as well.

Tea anyone?

A cool head solves problems while a hot head finds problems. A hot headed person is like a walking dynamite with a very short fuse where everyone is holding a match. It’s just a matter of time before somebody accidentally explodes it. Cool it down by taking breaks, go on holiday or even submerging oneself into ice-cold water but it’s a convenient not applicable to every situation. Whenever I get caught up in a distress, I would take a break, breathe a lot of air and remember point number 1. Most of the time it works, but what if it doesn’t? Then it brings us to point number 3 below.

3. Accept the fact that there are things beyond your control

Let’s face it, we are not capable of doing everything by ourselves. Yes, we may try our best, but what if after all the agony of finding out what’s wrong with the car turns out to make the matter worse? Are you gonna spend more hours tinkering under the blazing sun without knowing whether it will or will not work? No amount of poking, kicking, swearing or even taunting will start a broken car. If it’s dead, it’s dead. Just give a tow car service a call and let it deliver it to a professional mechanic.

Which one is for high notes? Hmm..

So next time, when after all those vigorous effort trying to find what’s wrong with something, say, your phone. Don’t just throw it out from the window — someone may be able to help. But if you really really want to know how your phone will look like when it breaks, go ahead.

Have you ever let yourself lose control?

— A.N.

Don’t borrow my pen!

Tags

Journal, Modernization, Pen, Writing

Modernization is placing traditional methods into the history book. Now everything is about efficiency. Remember when we still have to post our mails at the post office? Remember when we were taught how to write properly at school when we could barely hold a pen/pencil properly? Now everybody just marionette-ing their fingers across their keyboard to type anything. Move the cursor, click ‘send’ and within seconds, the new email is delivered to the recipient’s inbox. Or in my case, hit ‘Publish’ and Voilá! A new post is published. Efficiency at its best, right?

As a writer, ideas and thoughts could come up at just about anytime and anywhere. And they are any writer’s inspiration. Circumstances then dictates the next course of action which will determine whether that particular idea will be a material for hundreds or maybe thousands pairs of eyes to visualize or slumbering in the vast ocean of one’s memory waiting silently to be awaken. I tried typing them down on my smartphone as notes — one or two short sentences on a topic which serve as an ‘ignition’ later on. Most of the time they won’t come to fruition.

When I read them again, usually only a small fragment of the original idea persisted. It feels like the spark is gone, even though I can remember what it was about. But this is less likely to happen when I write them down with the old method and I’m not really sure why. Probably because in this case of typing, there is less ’emotion’ involved and only few sentences were saved — not long enough to describe the whole idea. This is also the reason I started writing a journal, not only to be ready for that spur of the moment but also keeping tabs of what might be interesting enough to be published in my blog. The goal is to keep the ‘ideas’ alive. One way or another.

I’m not sure if it’s a pen

Pertaining to above idea, have you ever find yourself struggling to write properly after weeks or maybe months from the last time you grabbed a pen? How about the signature that doesn’t look like yours after forgetting that pens still exist? There were times where I find it funny that I couldn’t even understand what I wrote because my handwriting was nothing more like scribbles, similar to the one you see on a prescriptions. Only sometimes worse, missing or deformed characters, or even numbers look like characters and vice versa. Now imagine if I was the doctor.

I finally decided to buy a better pen that is comfortable enough to keep me writing for a long duration. Because it tends to keep my thoughts flowing and my hand moving once a few scratches are initiated. So my pen is now ranked to be the third most carried stuff I have with me all the time, just after my cellphone and wallet. I know it sounds ridiculous but I don’t want to lose this pen. So don’t bother ask me to borrow MY pen, I know I won’t see it again if I did. I might buy you one if you ask nicely though.

 

–A.N.