AhYap’s Blog

I am writing about myself. But I want you to see if you can link it to yourself and other people, so you can learn. I hope reading this is better than reading newspaper!

Soufulow described that I have 2 characteristics, which interesting enough, contradict with each other! But both are true at the same time!

#1 - Stubborn! Never Listen and Always Think That I Am Right!

He said that I am stubborn and never listen and that I think I am the smartest people on earth. That I think I am always right, always instruct and teach people what to do and never listen to other people.

#2 - Keep On Changing! Today Say This, Tomorrow Say Another Thing!

Haha. This is fun. First I am said to be stubborn, now I am always changing. Soufulow say today I ask him to invest in real estate, tomorrow I ask him to do options trading, and the next day I ask him to invest in the stock market.

I find this very interesting too, so which is the correct description for me?! The stubborn and never listen one? Or the keep on changing one? Both sounds right and both sounds wrong! I am confused!

After thinking and thinking and thinking, I finally get my answer.

We can ONLY think the BEST we can think using all the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE we have at THAT MOMENT of time.

• You can’t ask a Standard 3 kids to do calculus because at that moment of time, his knowledge and experience only allow him to do basic math.
• You can’t ask Soufulow to describe how does sex feel when he is Standard 6 because his knowledge and experience of sex at that moment of time was just some porn video and magazine (龙虎豹). Of course, he has no problem teaching you how to da fei kei (masturbate) at that time.
• If you have never been to a place that is freaking cold (something like negative 40 Celsius) and the coldest weather you have experience is just the kindergarden-level-cold of Genting Highland, you may never be able to describe or even imagine how to live in negative 40 celcius. You may wonder will your pee become ice immediately when it come out? Will you dick freeze when you pee?

So, I figure out how my brain works.

In my life, especially the pass 5 years, I have been constantly learning, reading over 200 books, accumulated a lot of knowledge and life experience.

At one previous moment of my time, I think I should put all my money in real estate to generate rental income for me. At that moment, I think real estate is the best investment. (keyword - At That Moment) Because at that moment, my knowledge and experience are limited only to real estate. And I have experience from my parents that the stock market is very risky and buying stocks is nothing but gambling.

So at that moment of time if I am blogging, I will tell you how good real estate investing is and why you should put all your money in it.

And if someone come and tell me, at that moment of time, that real estate is not the best and I should invest in the stock market, you will see me in mode #1 - Stubborn and Never Listen. I will probably responded with, “Don’t be Sohai lar, stock market where can play one!”

At that moment of time, my knowledge and experience only allow me to think real estate is the best. Everything else that come contracting with my believe will be rejected.

Fortunately, I am really not that stubborn. I have another important characteristic called OPEN MINDED and a gifted skill known as THE ABILITY TO INVESTIGATE.

If you tell me me the stock market is good, and after scolding you as a sohai, I will actually get curious about the stock market. I am curious because I am open minded. If I am really a stubborn ass hole, I will shut my brain off and reject everything in fully automated mode (you will see lots of people like this).

When I get curious, I will start to investigate and think, “Why the heck he say stock market is good?”, “Why my mum and dad burn their fingers (actually the hands, legs and hairs) in the stock market and he can still say it is good?”

The guy who told me the stock market is good planted a seed into my brain. Then there might be a few more guys come to tell me the same thing! They are watering the seed and it grows in my brain. I became more and more curious and I started to investigate more and more.

I usually learn by reading. So I started to read, 1 book, 2 books, 3 books …. 20+ books!

AT THAT MOMENT OF TIME, after reading 20 books, my knowledge and experience are totally different than that moment that I tell the whole world real estate is the best!

After my investigation on the matter, I change my believe and dump the “real estate is the best” believe and replace it with “stock market is the best”. That’s why what I am blogging now is about stock market and not real estate.

So am I stubborn or constantly changing? You can’t fit me into either one because I am both!

If I encounter new things and after investigation, I think my old believe is better, then I will stick with the old believe and reject the new knowledge. Not only that it never becomes part of me but it also helps strengthened what I am believing right now!

On the other hand, if after investigation, I think the new knowledge is actually better than my existing one, I will not hesitate to dump my old believe and replace it with the new one!

I am ready to change any second if I find something better to replace my old believe. And I will be stubborn enough to reject everything that after my investigation, didn’t sounds better than what I have already known.

This is the correct description of me. My ability to investigate determine whether I should be stubborn or changing.

If you come to me today and tell me value investing sucks and I should trade like playing in BursaPursuit because the #1 winner grow his RM250,000 to RM1 million in less than 2 months (400%!) and I sucks because I can only compound my money 20% per year, do you think I will be stubborn or changing?

People Who Doesn’t Have The Ability To Investigate and Change Frequently

If you look at most aunties, you will notice that they change very frequently. Today she listen to this aunty says tomato is good, tonight she cook all-tomato-dinner for her husband and children - tomato rice, tomato soup, tomato dessert, tomato juice … yucks …

They are too open minded! They don’t investigate much before they accept new things. And these group of people will easily fall into SCAM and the hand of the marketing guys.

• He believes that Maxis is really giving him 500 free SMS is he forwards the message to 10 of his friends!
• He believes that Friendster and Hotmail is really too crowded and will delete his account if he didn’t forward that message to 15 of his friends!
• He believes that someone really want to borrow his bank account to transfer 5 million US Dollar and in return give him 5% commission!

While you may be laughing on these and tell me that only sohai will fall for these and you are not one of them, what about these -

• Do you believe that drinking milk will give you more calcium? Do you believe on what Anlene says, “2 cups of Anlene will give you the calcium you need a day”? (两杯Anlene给你一天所需要的钙质) What if I tell you that the more milk you drink, the more calcium you will lose! Wow!
• Do you believe that cancer is a disease that kill? What if I tell you cancer is a CURE that heal instead of kill and cancer patients should thank God that thay have cancer? Wow!
• Do you think eating fruits after your dinner is good for your digestion? What if I tell you eating fruits after your FOOD is actually bad for your digestion? Wow!

Are you open minded enough? Do you have the ability to investigate? At this moment of time, your knowledge and experience may be telling you that drinking milk will give you more calcium (so you drink more), cancer is something that kill (so you should hate it), fruit is good for digestion (so you should eat more papayas after your dinner).

At this moment of time, you may think milk is the best source of calcium, so you drink it yourself. You also force your innocent child to drink it and you force your old mum to drink it! You are not wrong, because at this moment of time, your knowledge and experience tell you that it is right and that’s the best.

In the next few posts, when I start to plant a seed on your brain and tell you the other way, you will have more knowledge to allows you to think differently. And that, will depends on whether you are open minded and have the ability to investigate, and the conclusion of your investigations.

People Who Is Not Open Minded

If the first group of people is the people who don’t have the ability to investigate and thus keep on changing (and keep on being conned and fall into marketing gimmicks), who is the second group?

The second group are those who are stubborn ass hole who are not willing to change and always think that they are right. They don’t need to investigate because they don’t even open up their mind! Instead of accepting everything, they accept nothing. They think they already know everything they need to know. They are very ego-type. They probably think they are the God or the Prophet. They always want to teach people what to do and how to do and will never listen. Terrorist is the extreme example, they kill with the name of God.

Worst! Sometimes even when everything prove that they are wrong, they still refuse to admit it and still want to say that they are right and others are wrong! Politicians do that all the time! Hishammuddin and Nazri do that all the time! Most of the time they realized that what they have said should not have been said, but because they have said it, they will need to stubbornly keep their old stand.

Referring back to the phase “We can ONLY think the BEST we can think using all the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE we have at THAT MOMENT of time”, if one is not open minded, his thinking will always be limited to his limited knowledge and experience at that time. Since he never learn new things, he never growth. That moment of time will be a long moment of time because he is almost the same all the time.

• A smoker will smoke until maybe he has lung cancer. His knowledge and experience tell him smoking is OK for decades. But when he got lung cancer, his experience change dramatically and so he can change almost immediately now. If he is open minded and start investigating at the good and bad about smoking, he may have more chances to quit smoking earlier. (Smoking not only burn holes in your lung but also burn holes in your wallet and make Barisan Nasional rich!)
• Do you think homosexual is a sin and bad? This is what his knowledge and experience at that moment of time tell him so. (Religion? School education?) If he is really open minded and investigate into the matter, he may find out that homosexual is not even a choice! If you are a guy and you feel ’something’ when you look at a sexy woman, it is not a choice! it is your body reaction because of your genetics and hormones. Whether you want to do something (sex, rape …) is a choice but the initial feeling is not a choice! For a gay man, he don’t feel that ’something’ when he see a sexy woman BUT he feel that ’something’ when he see a sexy man! It is not a choice! He can choose not to engage in homosexual acts BUT he can never choose to feel ’something’ when he see a woman instead of a man. He is born like that.
• Do you think prostitution should be banned? Read my post on Prostitution. Read the comments as well for examples of people that is not open minded enough and want to kick my ass without any supporting facts other than some bible clause or telling me ‘Malaysia is a Muslim country’.

Understand the phase “We can ONLY think the BEST we can think using all the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE we have at THAT MOMENT of time” can gives us 2 different ways to look at the differences of religions.

#1. A religion fanatic (someone crazy with his own religion) may grow up his whole life knowing and practicing only 1 religion. All his knowledge and experience are limited to 1 religion and he might not be open minded enough to learn about other religions. Not only that he think his religion is the best but he also think that his religion is the ONLY ONE that is right. Other religions are just wrong, wrong, wrong. With this kind of thinking, how much room can he gives to other religion?

#2. If he knows that everyone can only think the best they can think with all the knowledge and experience they have at that moment of time, EVEN if his religion is REALLY the best and the true one in the world, he should be able to understand and accept that someone else might also think that their religion is the best and not his. Because for that man, his knowledge and experience limited him to think that his religion is the best and not yours! You are able to pick the right religion because your knowledge and experience are better than him. You will be more open minded and can accepts other religions to co-exist with yours.

If you are not open minded, you will not even want to investigate on things, which means you will never grow and never learn new things. Finance, health, relationship, spirituality … we all have our best at any moment of time with all our accumulated knowledge and experience and we can only do our best using what we know at that moment of time.

As we are still living, we will be constantly growing and we will encounter more knowledge everyday and gain new experience everyday. And you, have to decide if you want to be like the aunties who keep on changing frequently without investigating, or the politicians who are stubborn and never listen, or you want to be an open minded person who has the ability to investigate on new knowledge and decide whether you want to keep your old believes or replace it with the better one.

You should also be able to understand why some other people are so different than you because that’s what the best they can do, with their knowledge and experience at that moment of time.

Disclaimer

Today when I look at myself yesterday, I laugh at myself as being so stupid yesterday. I can’t believe I can be so stupid thinking that way just a day before. And tomorrow, I will laugh at myself being so stupid today!

I am constantly learning and growing everyday. Today what I write is the best I can think of Today (using my limited knowledge and experience accumulated up to today), tomorrow I will have new knowledge and experience that I will decide which one to take in as part of me and which one to reject stubbornly. So funny enough, my blog should have a disclaimer!

Take your own RISK if you read AhYap’s blog because he changes so fast that he may not think the same tomorrow! You understand that you might run the RISK of Brain Damage if you read on this blog. Read at your own RISK! Be open minded and investigate all the information yourself before you accept anything AND please don’t kick my ass just because I write something that contradict with your religion, because I am still not as smart as you leh!