http://www.facebook.com/AhYapDotCom

If you have any questions that you “believe” I can answer you can write it on my wall.

I read the book in October 2007, so it gives me almost 3 years to share my experience after playing with it. I am very sure this will be very very interesting, especially if you have never heard of it before.

Law of attraction is simply saying that you can get want you want, by just thinking.

Cool? Which means, the people who believe in that law believe that everything in this world is manifested (created) by the mind. We think. We create.

It is not, we think, we do, we create. It is we think, we create! There is no “we do”. That is the surprising part. They believe that once you ask, you shall receive. The universe (or God) will take in your “order” and deliver to you, like a drive through McDonald service.

Unbelievable right? More unbelievable than “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”.

It did sounds a bit unbelievable to me at first because it was missing the “we do” part. Previously my thought was at least you need to put in some effort to get something back. Not sitting there and did nothing. Means positive thinking will at least drive us to act which later lead us to results. There are ‘suppose’ to be actions.

But Law of Attraction doesn’t speak about actions. You ask, you will receive.

I try to be open minded so I want to investigate. I bought this book before the day I flew to USA alone. The flight will be around 17 hours if I remember it correctly, long fxxxing boring flight!

Read it the night before the flight and felt very interesting. Continue to read it in the airport and immediately wanted to give it a try.

Then I saw a pretty blonde wearing a whole black dress and a black cold wear in front of me. So I put down “The Secret”, stared at her and keep mumbling, “You sit beside me later… You sit beside me later… You sit beside me later…”

Something like this

Sounds like an idiot but I did that for 15 minutes! Yeah, 15 minutes. 15 minutes is not long if you compare to the 17 hours flight! A leng lui sitting beside you is definitely worth that 15 minutes of investment. [Another classic low risk high return! Head I win. Tail I lose a little.]

After that I forgot about it and kept on reading. Another 15 minutes we were called to queue for departing. I look at her again while she stood up and mumble my magic quotes again for a few times. And I forgot about it again to prepare myself for departure.

There were 300+ people flying that day. It is a huge 747 with 3 sections [3-5-3 seats arrangement]. Because MAS at that time was as lousy as Proton and Maybank, they were not fully booked, not even close to it. So it ended up that generous MAS is doing big charity and gave most people several seats to “sleep”. Means most people will get 3 seats on the left and right section. Some will get 5 seats in the middle!

And when I found my seat, the blonde was sitting right beside me. 1 out of 300 chance for this to happen. 1 out of 300!

Coincidence? Maybe. If this was so interesting, I shall not stop here right? I flew to Los Angeles for a seminar. There was slightly above 100 participants. Each of us was given a ping pong ball so we can wrote our name on it for lucky draw. I wrote my name “Yap”.

There will be 1 to 2 lucky draws a day depending on how “good” our behavior was for the day, an organizer trick to make us all “good boys”. [Boy boy, good ar, I give you sweet sweet]

There were 2 lucky draws the first day. On the 2nd day, when they pull out the ping pong box for lucky draw, I just came back from the toilet and was bouncing on a rebounder at the back of the hall [they provide rebounders and bounder balls at the back for people who felt sleepy to wake up and I was really sleepy!]

So I suddenly remembered the law of attraction thingy, why not give it a try? The speaker was searching for a ball and I mumbled again with full concentration. “Yap! Yap! Yap! Call Yap! Yap! Yap!” while bouncing up and down, up and down…

Next thing I know, the speaker shouted, “Yaaaapppppppppppppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!” I bounce off the bouncer like a Spiderman and flew to the front to claim my prize.

And I am the official 3rd winner of the lucky draw among the 100+ participants. A 1% chance. And I only used ‘law of attraction’ once which is in the draw I won.

But my story didn’t end there! I flew back, immediately called an emergency meeting with my buddies and shared my experience. They were very excited too. So you know my friends are as crazy minded as me, believing in shits like this.

A week later my friend went all the way to KL in car pooling with his friend to his company annual dinner. I didn’t remember how many staffs were attending but probably a few hundreds. Again, there was a lucky draw. And the main prize? 32” LCD TV. Remember that was 2007 where LCD TV were far more expensive than today.

This friend, who is as sohai as me, saw a chance to try out this law of attraction bullshit. There are many prizes (mostly small) given out that day. But all he wanted was the LCD TV.

You know, the problem is, you got to do this sohai thing without letting people know you are doing it because people will really think you are a dai sohai. My friend walked to the TV and kept mumbling quotes like “This TV is mine… I will win this TV… I will go home with this TV…” stuffs like that. Went back to dinner. Lucky draw went on for small items until the grand prize – 32” LCD TV.

Rules was modified and they were not drawing for 1 person but 3 persons! Only one of them will win the TV and the other 2 will have to walk down the stage being eliminated like American Idol.

My friend kept mumbling his name like a monk again. He was called up to the stage among the 3 persons from the few hundreds! A very small chance in “statistic”. Without stopping, he kept looking at the TV and kept mumbling his name and all the magic quotes he could think of. He was already 1 of the 3 out of the few hundreds. There was only 2 competitors ahead!

Unfortunately, my friend was very unlucky. He came here with 3 friends in a small Peroduo Kancil and the poor him had to squeeze himself beside his new 32” LCD TV at the back of the car for the 2+ hours journey back to Ipoh.

The other friend tried that too. He was in another lucky draw in his company too. He didn’t get fancy things like a laptop or an LCD TV since his company is very kiamsiap. But he managed to get a 1 year free subscription to an investing magazine.

So 3 people tried out Law of Attraction within a month and 3 have outstanding results. Coincidence? Up to you.

After knowing this law, I suddenly remember something about my mum. Since I was small, my mum can always get something back from lucky draws. She never got big stuffs like car, TV or bicycle (which was BIG to me when I was a kid) and she always get something like cooking oil, cheap hand phones, etc. while I get nothing from the same draw.

She was a teacher and is now still a representative for the teacher cooperation. Every year there will be meeting at Genting Highlands with hundreds of participants. Every year there will be a lucky draw. She is the only person who has been able to draw a prize for 5 consecutive years! The next best known “performer” got only twice.

When I was small, I remembered there was a draw with a bicycle as one of the prize and all sort of house hold stuffs like laundry powder, baked beans, etc. and of course cooking oil. So many things. I remembered my mum told me that all she wanted was a cooking oil so she can give to my grandma. What I want is the bicycle. Yeah baby. But at the end, she got the cooking oil [out of so many things and so many people], and I got nothing. I was sad. She was happy.

But I didn’t know why. Maybe she is just “lucky”. Or else why we call these “lucky” draws? Whoever lucky will get the prize. Whoever unlucky like me will get nothing, not even some guli balls.

But once you understand Law of Attraction, it is really not just about luck. You will be able to control luck when you know how to use Law of Attraction, which happen to be that my mum unconsciously know it without the need to read any book. She is always doing the mumble thing when there is a draw. And that’s why she always get something, while most of us will just do nothing, or convince our self that we are not that lucky, or the probability will be very low, or that we are not suppose to be greedy … other than focusing on what we want. She just focus on what she want, the cooking oil. [She should aim for the bicycle for me lar, cooking oil?!]

How to Play Law of Attraction? The Basics

The basic is very simple, you need to believe that it works. If you don’t believe, it won’t work.

After you believe in it, then you need to know what do you want. Maybe you are looking for a parking space? Then you have to say to yourself in your mind or out loud (out loud will be better because it means your conviction is bigger). You say in the car, “Give me a parking space! Give me a parking space!” and focus all your attention on parking space around you. Usually you will get one very quickly.

But does it work all the time? Yes or no. There are still many basic factors in action. You have to believe it, and you got to focus on it and think about it. The next important thing is, you got to feel good about yourself. That means you got to have positive energy and frequency flowing in your body when you make that request. You won’t get it if you say “Give me a parking space mother fucker” while feeling very angry and frustrated.

So it is not easy. Got to believe, got to focus on what you want, got to feel good about it in a very relax way. And the another important criteria, not only you need to feel good about yourself, you need to feel and imagine that you already have it - the parking space. Before you got the parking space, you need to feel like you already got it!

Difficult right? But that probably explain why Datuk Lee Chong Wei always deliver a poor match in the final, e.g. Beijing Olympic 2008 while Lin Dan can always deliver good results. Their skill is irrelevant because they are both world class. It is that Lin Dan will always see himself winning even before he win, while Lee Chong Wei …

You need to feel like this even before you start the match

And that’s not all, another very important factor is that you need to say “Thank You” even before you get it. That’s gratitude. You can thank everyone, be it the Universe if you don’t have a religion, or God, or Allah [can I use this word in Blog?], or Buddha, or your parents, your teacher, your dog, AhYap, Phua Chu Kang, Frankie Foo, anyone… you need to have the feeling of gratitude even before you get what you want.

Complicated? Not really lar. You need to believe that it works, you need to know exactly what you want, you need to feel good about yourself, you need to feel like you already have it even before you have it and you need to start feeling gratitude even before you get it. Where got complicated? One paragraph can say all already.

A possible mistake that newbie make is to focus on what they don’t want. For example, I don’t want stress. You will attract stress. I don’t want to be poor. You will attract poor. I don’t want a bad boyfriend. You will attract a bad boyfriend.

Why? If I say, “Don’t think of a cow” what appear in your mind? Cow right? If I say, “Don’t think of the color blue”, what appear in your mind? Blue right? That’s why the Law don’t recognize whether your want it or you don’t want it, what appear in your mind will be attracted by you, whether you want it or not.

If you start to believe in Law of Attraction, one thing that is very important that you should remember now is never think of the stuffs you don’t want. And try not to have negative thinking, because the negative thinking will attract negative stuffs to your life.

Remember the story of the blonde that sat beside me and my friend LCD TV? If positive thinking can attract positive stuffs, even if you are not greedy and are not interested in attracting these, you need to make sure you don’t send out negative signals and get negative stuffs. That’s why it is very important to keep negative thinking out of your mind! Because it will manifest. It won’t just stay in the brain. It works like a magnet and will attract those things to you.

Law of Attraction is a Double Edge Sword

Unfortunately, Law of Attraction is a double edge sword. After playing it for so long and get burned by it, I have to warn you and share my experience. I no longer play with it but only use the essence of it that can help our spiritual growth.

If you are 1Malaysia student and you do study your sejarah, there is a small short line, just that a small short line that explain what Buddhism is in form 1 or form 2 text book. Please give some face lar, if only 1 line, please remember it, that’s all our education teach about Buddhism.

The teaching of Buddha – one sentence in 12 years of education in primary and secondary school.

Manusia sengsara kerana nafsu.

Human suffer because of desire/greed.

What is desire? What is greed? They are simply “wanting”. Want more, more and more, MORE and MORE! MORE AND MORE!!!

Want bicycle, want motorcycle, want Proton, want BMW, want Ferrari, want sailboat, want private plane …

DESIRE = never ending of wanting.

Buddha teaching is simple – you suffer because you always want more. And you thought that if you get what you want, you will stop suffering. But it didn’t! Why? Because as soon as you got that thing you want, it become worthless, you will want something else, you will target another thing, which means you will need to suffer again.

Once you got a Guess bag you will want a Gucci bag, then got Gucci bag, you want LV bag … so many bags. So many clothing, so many shoes…

Playing with law of attraction simply means more desire, more wanting. You always focus on what you want, keep thinking about it and it will make you suffer more and more. The more you get, the more you suffer because now you need even bigger stuff to fulfill your desire.

Buddha point out that the solution to human suffering, is to stop your wanting, to stop your desire, to stop your greed.

Of course, we are not Buddha, we can’t do what he do but we have to remember that he indeed give us a direction to follow. So it is your choice on which way you want to go.

No matter what, you can’t know exactly what you want. And because of that, you will encounter many surprises and side effects from using Law of Attraction. At the end, you have to make more and more requests just trying to “perfect” your attraction. But it will never get perfect.

For example, I got a beautiful blonde to sit beside me. I am able to attract her to sit beside me. But I didn’t ask for a friendly blonde. I ended up having a not-so-friendly blonde who don’t give a shit about me! So maybe to fine tune my “request”, I need to say “Sit beside me later … Must be very friendly … sit beside me … friendly …”

If I do that, maybe she will really sit beside me and is friendly. But maybe then her voice sounds like a man! So you need to fine tune your request to “Sit beside me later … Must be very friendly … Sweet voice … sit beside me … friendly … sweet voice …”

But then the surprises won’t end there. Your wanting will never stop. You just need more and more. You just can’t accept what it is which means more suffering.

Maybe your request will soon become “Sit beside me later … Must be very friendly … Sweet voice … Give me phone number… sleep eat with me…”

I won the lucky draw. I had to spin a fortune wheel to decide my prize. There are big prizes like free seminars or small “prizes” like act like a monkey which is more a “punishment” then a prize. My first spun ended with a “punishment” to pretend as somebody! Luckily I was given a second spin and I got a cook book. Yes, a cook book that remain in my bookshelf for almost 3 years without being read.

To prevent these side effects, I will have to make a lot of requests, one after another to cover all the side effects. But most of the side effects are simply unpredictable! It will just make our mind more busy and tired.

When I asked for a parking space, “parking space… parking space…”. I got one, but with a big hole there. So I changed to “nice flat parking space … nice flat parking space…” and I got a nice parking space and a yellow fire brigade water pipe there. Hmmmm, so next time I needed to say “nice flat legal parking space… nice flat legal parking space…” and it will just get longer and longer and longer and at the end I have to be so greedy and say “give me 2 nice parking space side by side…”

While my friend enjoy his LCD TV, he should have requested a bigger car too before he went to KL.

The other friend who got the subscription never read one issue of the magazine.

Having a busy mind and never ending stream of thoughts in our mind is the opposite direction of our spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is to become mindless, no mind and stop being the slave to our mind. Always focusing on what you want and thinking about it won’t help us in our spiritual growth.

The universe (again God or anything that you believe in) will try to fulfill your request no matter how silly it is.

[Praying is the best example of Law of Attraction, by the way]

A Taiwan best selling writer wrote about her experience with Law of Attraction. She went to a spiritual camp for a week. But after the first day, she regretted it and just wanted to leave. But this camp didn’t allow any camper to leave without a valid reason. So she keep sending signals to the universe that she wanted to leave, wanted to leave, wanted to leave…

The universe made that happened. She got sick with appendicitis and was sent to the hospital.

You never know how creative the universe will be. You never know what side effects and price you need to pay for asking what you want…

So does that means you learn nothing reading my blog post today? No. You will learn something that is very important to your life without the need to fall into the trap.

The Beauty of Law of Attraction

Early, I stated the factors for Law of Attraction to work. They are

- Believe in Law of Attraction
- Know exactly what you want and ask for it
- Feel good about yourself
- Feel like you already have what you want
- Thanks for getting what you want even before you get it

Our goal is for spiritual growth. We want to head at the right direction that will give us the ultimate joy of life instead of more suffering or becoming a salve to our mind. To avoid all the side effects and get all the good stuffs in life, what we need to do is to remove “exactly what you want” from the workflow. So it becomes something like

- Believe in Law of Attraction
- Know exactly what you want and ask for it
- Feel good about yourself
- Feel like you already have what you want the best in the world
- Thanks for getting what you want the best in the world even before you get it

You trust that the universe (or God) will give you the best that you can have. You always try to feel good about yourself because you know that your positive energy will resonance with other good energies and attract all the good stuff you can have in your life. Because you want the best in the world, you make yourself feel like you already have the best in the world. And you are always thankful and felt gratitude to all the things in the world.

What can you complain about life anymore, if you know that you are already getting the best and keep on getting the best? This is the beauty of it.

Remember to keep all the bad stuffs away from your brain and keep only the good stuff. Because you know now that even they are just sitting in the brain, they are affecting your life. Feeling bad will simply attract more bad stuff to you. Just observe people around you, look at the “unlucky” people and see what is their feeling. Then look at the “lucky” people and see what is their mode and feeling.

It is not that you feel bad because you are unlucky. It is that you are unlucky because you feel bad!

It is not that you feel good because you are lucky! It is that you are lucky because you feel good!

If you don’t know what you are attracting, just “feel” your feeling. Are you feeling good? Or feeling bad? And try to make yourself feel good and your luck will come. This is one of the essence of Law of Attraction.

Knowing this so important. You should try to avoid negative influences and information as much as you can. The biggest source of negative signals are from NEWSPAPER! They say smart people read newspaper. This is the common believe most people have. With this new perspective in mind we know that smart people don’t read newspaper.

The same to TV news. The same to horror movies. The same to depressing novel and TVB drama.

My gf and I were supposed to check in a flight 45 minutes before departure but we reached 15 minutes late. The staff told me the counter is closed and I am “supposed” to check in 45 minutes before departure. Instead of feeling bad and get angry or depressed (whatever negative thoughts), I try to calm myself down [I had been doing that long time ago since I already known I will be late long ago]. Instead of debating or arguing with her, I told her I knew I was late and was sorry and I hoped she can at least help me to ask the pilot if he was willing to take us.

So she tried to call the pilot but after 10 minutes of trying, she couldn’t get through. My flight will be flying in another 20 minutes. So she said sorry to me. I decided not to get angry or upset as I still wish my “law of attraction” will play off, I need to obey the law of “feeling good”.

I didn’t ask the Universe to let me enter the flight. All I asked was, “Please give me the best that you think is the best for me”. Who knows? Maybe the plane is going to crash later right? I did walk away from the counter and still giving me a “chance” by staying in sight from the counter staff.

Few minutes later the pilot called back and welcome us abroad. In less than 15 minutes, we had to collect our tickets, went through long immigration queue, went though X-Ray which requested my gf to open her bag for “liquid” checking [we are supposed to check in the luggage so there are plenty of liquid in her cosmetic bag which are forbidden on hand carry luggage] and then ran all the way to the plane while being escort by 2 staffs sent from the airline. The whole plane was waiting for us, I kept saying sorry to everybody. The plane flew away 1 minute after we joined them.

This experience allows me to appreciate the power of feeling good a lot more than ever.

Main Points Summarized

To make sure you get the main points of this post, they are

1. Negative thoughts will manifest, keep it away from us.

2. Just make sure you feel good all the time and you will attract all the good stuffs to your life.

3. Be thankful and gratitude to everything and everybody every minute and every second of your life.

The Universe/God will do the rest for you.

For Chinese reader who like to learn more about this, I recommend this very good book <遇见心想事成的自己> by 张德芬. There are several English books written for this topic buy I didn’t read them except the original book “The Secret” and the documentary movie. While the book does contain all the main points summarized above, many readers will end up focusing on “asking for what they want” (house, car, women…) which I think is a big trap. The Chinese book did explain a lot more on the trap so it is good. And better, the book is a “novel”. It teaches by telling story.

Good luck and have fun!

The story is quite simple, I am getting my hands dirty on photography. Like everything I have learned, I learn from reading (books, internet…). But reading can make you that good only on theory! I need more practical opportunities and I hope to have more guidance from experienced photographer.

There are many outings that I can find but most of them are in KL (some in Penang). Ipoh? We do have some where 300 photographers trying to shoot 4 models. What can you learn?

Then I found a guy who is in the business (a ‘pro’) for a very long time in Ipoh. So I went to see him and offered to be a FREE mobile-light-stand and bell-boy for him in exchange for his guidance. This is the first time I did this kind of thing so it is very fresh to me. I didn’t know what is going to happen.

Usually I can easily grasp the character of somebody after some chat, especially 2 hours. But this guy, I am unable to do so at all. Proud? Don’t look like. Humble? Don’t look like? Ego? Sometimes can see sometimes cannot. Do I like him? No. Do I hate him? No. It’s quite hard to understand and connect. A feeling of ‘so near yet so far’. [we will know why at the ending]

He invited me over, so I jumped out of joy and went straight to his office. He welcomed me too and we started to chat. Remember I am a stranger and he didn’t need to layan me at all but he ended layan me for 2 hours.

The first question was what camera body I am using. I told him I got a 7d before but have sold it. He was very shocked and asked me why. I told him I want to upgrade to 5d mark ii, a full frame camera. He kept showing his “unable to take it” look and make me so uncomfortable. He asked me why I need to upgrade since 7d is already a very good body. [In canon terms, 7d is a prosumer body, between consumer and professional. 5d mark ii is a professional body. Lower series are ‘consumer’ and higher are ‘flagships’ or simple ‘high end’]

Since I have done lot of homework and my “theory” in extremely good. I can basically write an essay on why. I can of course answer and tell him my reason but based on his “unable to take it” look earlier, you know that the point is not to be able to explain and make myself right. I don’t win by being right. Because I am the “student” here and he is the “teacher”, you want to challenge him? Especially you want to learn from him? So my explanation will be useless and I didn’t really say anything, just pretend to be an idiot.

He asked me, “Do you know what camera I am using?”. How do I know right? But I think everyone is smart enough to guess that he is going to tell you that he uses some low end gear, to create a big contrast about my choice and his. I said I don’t know.

He said he is using Nikon D70 to shoot all his works. He never uses “professional” cameras even he is a “professional”. D70 is more low end than I expected. It is the first consumer level digital camera from Nikon launched in 2004 (!!). We are in 2010.

He even told me that he can shoot his work using kit lens [cheap lens that comes with the body]. But luckily he did admit that lens is more important than camera body. Luckily.

He then asked me why I want to learn photography and what I want to shoot. Again, I am not a gugujiao who don’t know the answer. I already know what I want to shoot and I can write the exact list out, 1, 2, 3 and 4. And also the list of things I don’t want to shoot. So I am clear. [I won’t explain what is the meaning of gugujiao to you so if you don’t know, ask a 1Malaysia friend to make us closer to each other, but ask a guy not a girl]

Luckily he seems to be happy. My first answer is people. So he asked me why I choose Canon if I want to shoot people. My brain was like (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????????????).

The reason why my brain looked like that is not because I don’t have an answer, but I thought isn’t the answer is very obvious to everyone? Why this question from him?

I told him the exact answer and also the main reason why I like Canon so much. I said, “I choose canon because of the skin tones. It looks better to me. Nikon skin tones look too orange to me”.

He answered me, “So you like the plastic skin of Canon?” He said that until today [very big conviction from his voice and physiology], Canon cannot produce the correct skin color of the people. He said if you print a photo out and put it side by side on the real skin, Canon cannot match the color but Nikon can.

The attack of Nikonian that said Canon skin look like plastic and the Canonista said Nikon people look like “orange man” is not rare. I do agree to a certain extend of it BUT there are many variables to it other than just the camera – white balance, color of light source, JPEG profile settings, etc.

I started to learn about photography March this year. There is a time where I get totally confused about what photography is all about? Is it trying to capture the “correct” and “real” image? Will Photoshop or changing color saturation make a photo “incorrect” and “fake”? Struggle for sometime… and later I wrote an article in my diary with the title – “Photography is a deception” which is stolen from a popular phase “Art is a deception” [mainly refer to drawing].

The article is not a good read so I am not wasting your time here. Mainly what I realized is, everything you see in a photo is fake, is a deception, no matter how you take it. No matter if you photoshop it or not photoshop it. Once you bring this 3d world into a 2d picture with 4 borders, it can no longer be real no matter what. Think about drawing. If you draw the Twin Towers, are the twin towers real? If you draw my face, is me real? So photography is also art. Its purpose is not about right or wrong, real or fake. It’s purpose, is about getting beautiful pictures. Exactly like drawing.

Just to extend my shit philosophy a little bit. Just look at black and white photographs. Are our world in black and white only? NO! Black and white itself is a deception. Because the “correct” world got color. But who cares? As long as it looks beautiful! Photography is an art. Understand this make me even more interested in photography.

So for the skin tone debate, there is no right or wrong skin color for me. It is a personal preference. I want good looking skin color, not the “correct” color.

He told me he used to use Canon but has switched to Nikon because of the skin color. Switching a system because of the skin color, you got to know how big is his conviction!

The main reason why this part of the conversation him is so important is because last month, I also spoke with another professional photographer who also make a lot of money taking pictures. He told me exactly the opposite thing!

He told me he is a Canon guy for a long time. Later get itchy because everyone told him how good Nikon is. So he switched to Nikon but later switched back to Canon. I asked him why. He told me that Nikon cannot get him the skin color he want no matter what!

2 professional photographers! 2 talking about the same thing! 2 different convictions! My God!

Because of this, it makes it clearer that photography is an art and is very subjective. It is your camera. It is your photo. Just make it the way you like it disregarding what other people is going to say about it! It is our choice! Our art! Our “master-piss”!

Suddenly remind me of religion too. I am Buddhist, you are Muslim, he is Hindu. All of us are doing what we think are right. None of us are wrong. What the best we can do is to stop telling other people that they are wrong and start respecting their choices!

When somebody tell you your decision is “wrong” and he is “right”, just tell him, “I respect your choice and I hope you will respect mine”.

That’s useful when debating in writing (such as internet forum) but I didn’t use it in real life. I do tell him the story of the other photographer I met, but I still let him have most of the ‘winning’.

Then later he told me the hierarchy system of his photographers team. I can’t remember the exact naming but it is roughly like this – newbie, assistant, standard, junior, senior and professional.

Newbie can only sit in classroom, doing lecture. Assistant can carry lights and bags only [which I am trying to interview for]. Standard can carry camera but can only be 2nd shooter and shoot non important stuffs like cakes and bridal shoes. Junior onwards can represent company to go out and take photograph. He himself is the ‘professional’ of course. Differences between them is the ‘quality standard’ and pricing.

He is very proud and satisfy with his team, so he shown me the sample of a junior work. Sample that is also shown to all potential customers when they come to the office. He keep saying things like, “We always maintain our quality”, “Customers like our work”, “If you can get this kind of quality, you say not good enough?” blar blar blar. What I want to say is that he is very confident with his works and standard.

I carefully opened the album and looked at the photos. This is the most struggling part in the whole conversation. God want to test my acting ability? I am totally unimpressed with the photos. If I am a potential customer, I will not want this photographer to take my pictures (he is not the photographer of this album, it is one of his junior, the lowest standard, and the cheapest).

There are photos that are blur/missed focus, all photos look yellowish and orange, they shoot a lot of white overexposed sky and there are telephone poles in the background and the wires crossing over bride and bridal head. For me, they are ordinary, like those photos we took with compact camera and print 3R and put in the free album the photo shop gave us.

I was so struggling. I wanted to comment but I feel difficult. He kept on repeating, “Like this not enough ar? Customers very happy lor”, “See our standard, see our standard”. For me is very clear, if I can only learn to shoot this kind of photos, I don’t want to learn photography. This is not want inspire me to become a photographer.

Then I beh tahan a bit and started to comment. I asked him why the photos so orange and yellowish. He is shocked a bit. He didn’t expect me to comment since he is so confident with the ‘standard’. He looked at the photos and said it is because of the clothing and wall. Then I asked him why so many blur photos. He said that is acceptable because the guy was using Nikon D90 and kit lens. He said that it is a trade off between kit lens and good lens. So this was not the photographer skill problem. I then talked about the white sky and telephone wire. He said these photos are used straight out of the camera without processing. If go through processing they can remove them or even make sky blue. He said again, “Customer like it”.

Since I am not impressed with the photos. I was feeling that if I were “pain in the ass” going there to get lectured. But I am very confused. He said he has shot for 20+ years and he has 3 generations of customers. Most customers are from mouth to mouth introduction!

I thought, maybe this speak for himself? Something wrong with me? He is still in business with lots of photographers and he always has new business. Maybe I have missed something. Maybe he is really very good. Maybe if I really follow him I can learn real things…

It was a 2 hours conversation, there are still many more similar sub stories. Like he told me that a photo on his wall win a competition. I asked him is that skin color correct [is it Nikon color] because it didn’t look good to me [composing is good, color is not]. He said no, it is already greenish. Hmmm, a picture that win competition with greenish skin. Many many more sub stories which I don’t want to bore you with …

I went home very depressed. Look like small matter but very depress to me. Very confuse. Very angry some more. Lots of mixed emotions. It is like suddenly I am no longer interested in photography and want to quit it for all.

At night I chat with my old course mate aka housemate in University, who is a good photographer shooting wedding days part time every weekend! He is a Canonista. We began our conversation with “Why you choose Canon over Nikon, especially you admire people like Joe McNally and Louis Pang so much?” [both are super heavyweight pro Nikon shooters. Pang charged more than 10k per shot!]

Our conversation went into my story of the day and I show him some of the photographs he has taken. I want to know if there is really something wrong with me. Fortunately I am not. His comment is that his photographs is so so only and he is “old style”. I immediately agreed with the “old style” description, thanks to his 20+ years repetition works?

And it reminds me that he is so confident with himself that he said he already gotten bored with taking photographs. He said he will not travel with an SLR anymore. Remind me of a Friends TV episode where Rachel met a gynecologist [doctor who deliver babies] who don’t want to have sex. He said, “You know, it is like drinking coffee every day for so long until you saw that coffee and felt, ‘what? coffee again?’” [got the humor? ]

So this guy seems to lose his interest and passion in photography. For him it is more on business and work. ‘Maybe’ he is already full and no longer interested in exploring new things as he always like to say, “Every time go there, so familiar, close one eye can shoot already”. Familiar might be a curse word for creativity and passion.

But I am still confuse about whether I should follow him to learn. Maybe the opportunity is worth it, especially in Ipoh? Especially I am a good ass kisser and can easily pretend that I am OK with everything while in my heart is not? Because my level so newbie, any teacher will be a good teacher? Is there something for me?

My lovely girl friend came to look for me. Again, she is the type of girl that is 100% opposite of me. While I need to worry about everything, she is not worry even if the sky fall down tomorrow.

I told him the story and why I am so depressed. I asked him should I learn from him. This is the kicker! She didn’t even need to comment on Nikon or Canon, plastic man or orange man, new style or old style, blur or not blur, telephone wire or no telephone wire … [she know nothing about these and she has 0 interest and problem holding an SLR].

She just said, “Your frequency and his frequency not the same lar, you better don’t stick with him”. Again, whether he shoot good or bad photos, use Nikon or Canon, is not a matter of consideration to her. For her, it is so simple, the frequency not good, both not matching, don’t stick together, sure won’t end up nice.

She then mentioned the other photographer that I chat with [the one who switched from Canon to Nikon then back to Canon]. She reminds me of how great my experience is when with him. The feeling is so good and I learn so much from him in 1 short day. Now I understand that is because we have matching frequency. She said I should learn from people like him.

This is absolutely brilliant to me, just a simple opinion from a few words and make my decision so much easier and feel so good about it.

Trust your feeling more. Feeling is hard to lie. Logical debating and rational thinking make no sense sometimes and can be totally useless [like my debate earlier]. It is the feeling that count ultimately. The most important is to be able to “feel good” [which means you got the right frequency].

To bring it a level higher, even if I am very impressed with his photos and that is exactly what I like to learn and shot, the decision should still be the same, if frequency not same, stay away. Have really nothing to do with who is right or who is wrong.

Feel more, think less.

Use wisdom, not knowledge.

Use heart, not mind.

My Favourite Photographers

Hassas

Hoffer

Ooi Eng Wah

Manny Librodo

Time: Saturday evening
Place: My House @ Ipoh

My friend and I was at my garden and suddenly 4 Indians driving a blue van stopped in front of my house. That was scary because I really wonder if they are bad guys! Then 1 of them came down, point to my grass and start talking about my grass. He told me the name of my grass, different types of grasses, problems with my grass, etc. etc.  Then he said that he work as the gardener for a golf course for 25 years and he do gardening for people at part time. He knows what he speaks. He talk for a very long time outside the gate until at one moment he requested to come in to explain in more details the ‘problem’ of my grass. [I Broke Rule #1 - Never let stranger come into your house]

As precaution I only let him in and have others waited outside. He pointed to some yellow patch of the grass and some holes and told me that there are ‘worms’ eating the root below and digging the hole up. The hole indeed look like being dug by some insects, and I have also heard of such worm that eat the roots of grass. So I didn’t doubt about that. But till now, I still don’t expect myself to pay him anything.

He then started to promote 2 products. The first one is bat’s shit. Yep, the fertilizer made with the shit of Batman by Joker and Two Face. Actually I google it and find out that the correct term is bat guano. It is indeed a very expensive type of fertilizer that is high in phosphorus which is good for roots growing (Nitrogen is good for leaves, Potassium is good for flowers).

The 2nd product is a ‘liquid’ that he said his golf course imported overseas specially for use in their golf course. Until now I also don’t know its real purpose. Something like preventing the grass to grow tall but make them grow to the side, thus making your grass more ‘carpet’ and at the same time killing the weeds because they no longer can ’stand up’. I have never heard of such product but I am very curious on it.

This Indian guy is very skillful in talking. He can speaks Indian, English, Malay and Hokkien! (I don’t know Hokkien!) And he knows almost everything about plants and gardening. He talked for a very long time and the goal of the whole process is to convince me that he is ‘genuine’ and ‘trustable’.

How he broke pattern (breaking pattern in NLP means make someone suddenly dumb and stupid and can’t think normally like he did before. For example if you are talking very excited about something to your friend and suddenly he asked you a question that is totally unrelated, your thought pattern was broken and you respond by asking, “WHAT?!” and then you forget until where you talk until just now) -

He told me that you can’t buy this craps (bat craps) anywhere else because he ’steal’ it out from his gold course! The greed in me kicks in. And I didn’t doubt this fact at all. He said he had to steal a little bit a day from the golf course (including the ‘liquid’) so no one notice. He say he wants to cari makan a bit.

He keeps talking and talking (for a very long time) to convince me to put those shits and urine (the ‘liquid’ lar) to my grass. So I asked about the price and he said the urine cost RM95 per bottle and the shit cost RM65 per packet. Sounds expensive to me. So I didn’t agreed.

He kept on talking and talking. He asked his teammates outside to bring in sample of the liquid which is filled up in old 7up and Sarsi bottles! And he showed me some of the bat shit and let me touch it. He is trying very hard to convince me. I later asked him how many bags and bottles I need. He said 3 bottles and 3 packs is more than enough.

You see, I indeed love my grass very much and if the products can really deliver what it promised, I am willing to pay. My parents said this is the reason I fall for it – I can afford the money.

2nd event that break my pattern came in. My friend wanted to say bye bye and leave my house, so I opened the gate for him and then the Indian guy immediately order all his friends to come in and bring in all the urines and shits. He opened up the shit and ask me to see (see shit!). Then what he did is too surprising for me. He started pouring the bat shit to my lawn. I thought he was just giving me a demo on a small area but hell not, he is pouring a lot! Then he instructed his partners to continue pouring the shit while asking another one to spray the liquid to my glass.

Since my pattern was broken, I thought I can afford a try of that since it is around RM400 for 3 bottles of 7up and 3 packs of shit. So I didn’t stop them but let them finished.

It was scary. They keep pouring and pouring and pouring until my whole lawn is full of black shit. Fortunately they are not ’smelly’ like fertilizer made with chicken shit. End up they have used 5 bottles of liquid and 6 packs of shits!!!

This is a very common sales technique. If you tell somebody in advance the whole thing will cost RM815, they won’t want the deal, but if you tell them one pack is RM65 and mostly you will need 3 packs, they have higher chances of agreeing, which is my case! The problem is that they will quietly add up the number of packs without asking you and when you know about it, it is too late. Shit is already on the floor! It is very hard to argue, unless you know it is really a con case and reject it. But I don’t know yet!

[In Ipoh got a very popular Hakka mee store. They use this tactic to ALL their customers. When you order the fishballs and fu-pei, you might say, "I want 20 mix mix." Then come a big bowl of fish balls and fu-pei and you eat happily with your family. After you finished and you wanted to pay, they charge you very expensive and you ask, "WTF! How much is your fishball and your fu-pei, I only order 20!" And then he will answer, "Oh, we give you 30 fishballs and fu-pei mar, that's why." @*&$$%(% How do you argue? Fishballs are already in your stomach! Pay lor.]

He is so good. He put all the empty bags and bottles on the floor and asked me to calculate how much to pay him! This is funny, now I feel like what he is saying is, “Now I want to cheat you, you calculate how much you should let me cheat. Since you calculate it yourself, that means you agree to be cheated by me. I didn’t force you at all.”

So I calculated with my Sony Ericsson and the amount is scary, RM815 (double the RM400 I expected). He said RM800 is OK, RM15 no need to count. He also promised me that tomorrow he will bring me a lot of nice pebbles to put beside my plants and bring me ‘uri powder’ (powder made from urine?) for FREE! [actually he means he will steal the pebbles and uri powder for me] The powder according to him is used to prevent grasshoppers and other insects eating the leaves of the plants.

So I try to act smart and wanna fished him back to make sure he will come back tomorrow to give me those stuffs (greed again!). What I don’t know is I am actually trying to fish this shark back to bite me again tomorrow. I gave them only RM700 and ask them to collect the RM100 tomorrow after they bring me the pebbles and uri powder. (greed! greed! greed!) Sometimes when you think you are acting very smart, you are actually acting very stupid. That’s me.

Although I have paid them RM700, I felt quite happy with the shits and is eagerly waiting for my lawn to turn green and nice. (I love my lawn a lot, my girl friend sometimes said I love my lawn more than I love her) It is always easier to sell someone things that they want and need, like selling weight loss program to women, selling Yunnan hair care to Yap Kim Hock and other bald mans, selling ‘healing’ pills to cancer patient, etc.

At night I told my parents my story of the “encounters of the 4 Indians”. As expected, parents always worried that their children get conned. So they said things like, “Where got shit that is so expensive!”, “You trusted people too easily already lor”, blar blar blar. And that make me very angry because they still talk to me like a kid and THIS, drive up my ego and I want to proof that I am right.

I also googled for bat shit at night from the internet and notice that the price is indeed very expensive! 1 kilo cost around RM40 to RM50! So the little-greedy man feel very proud of himself on the day. But I can’t find anything about the liquid because I don’t even know the name of it.

— — — — —

Time: Sunday evening
Place: My Same House @ Ipoh, now with bat shits.

They came back!

(...)
Read the rest of This Is The Story Of How Sohai Yap Being Conned RM1,680 And How You And Your Friends Can Avoid It (2,804 words)

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!

I am a guy who like to eliminate things. I don’t keep a lot of things. 

I used to be like my mum, who will hold on to everything. For example, I used to keep all my primary scholl textbooks, PMR and SPM reference books many many years. I used to keep all of my old cloths, all my exam papers, all exercise books, etc. I refused to thow any away or give to anyone. I felt like ‘They are mine’. I always thought that ‘Someday’ I will need them.

My mum even better. She keeps lots of old shoes and cloths that she no longer wear. She doesn’t allow me to throw away my faulty 14″ CRT monitor that I used with my 486. She keeps a lot of new bowls, forks and kitchenware in the cupboard for years and only use the 2nd grade one because she wants to keep the ‘new’ one for use later. The later is always become never.  And the new always become old.

My grandmother (my mother’s mother) even better, she keeps chicken cages until today although she has not been raring chickens for decades. My mother is definitely her daughter.

I once want to throw away a table that I have disembled long time ago but lost all the screws. So it cannot be assembled back. She, on her own, carried all the table boards from upstairs to her car when I was not at home and fetched all of them to my grandmother house. She did that again with my old 486 computer table.

My behaviour, used to be exactly like my mother and my grandmother. I even used to keep a lot of my childhood toys!

…

Last few years, I begin to change. Instead of hanging to things, I have learned to let go. I feel guilty that I have not given my PMR and SPM books to someone because I never touched them at all after all these years. I were hanging on these books because I feel like they are my properties. I thought that ‘one day’ I might need to read them again. But when I realized I no longer need them anymore, it was too late as the books were obsolete and the only meaningful thing to do is to sell them to old newspaper collector.

I bought a lot of original books in Universities because I realize if I have a new book that smell good, I am more willing to study it then a photocopied 2-page-shink-to-1-page book. I donated all of them to my library 1 year after I left my University.

Realizing that I had a lot of old cloths that were in mint condition but I never wore anymore, I packed and donated all of them in the last 2 years. I also had a lot of shoes and in the recent Chinese New Year, I donated 8 pairs of shoes that I were keeping for years but never wore! One pair of the shoes is a RM200+ Dr. Cardin. It is the most expensive shoes that I ever bought when I were Form 5. I am guilty that I only wore it a few times. I bought it because I used to have the mindset, “I need to follow others people style and fashion”. I got a pair of jeans that I have donated as well because again, I bought it because someone say it is the fashion but I didn’t like it at all. I just wore it a few times.

Now, I only have 3 pairs of shoes and 2 pairs of Jeans.

I have given my favorite remote control car to my newphew after keeping it untouched for more than 10 years!

I also have the tendency to keep things very neatly. My room doesn’t look ‘pretty’ but it is extremely neat. If you rate a guy’s room, mine will be in top 1% in terms of tidyness. I can always find something easily because I simply don’t keep a lot of things.

All my important documents are kept nicely in a few files.

All my books are keep nicely in a few book shelves.

All my cloths are keep semi-nicely in my cupboard. (I don’t have much cloths)

Even my computer! I have all my filed arranged very nicely and I will delete everything that is not important. I delete emails after I read them too. My important data, is less than 2GB and I can migrate them back and forth from my laptop in 2 minutes.

Why suddenly I like to elimate things and keep things nicely?

The reason, is weird.

If I die tomorrow, my parents don’t need to be bothered with all my stuffs. I don’t want to leave a mess after I die. I want to give them the minimum troubles. Almost all my stuffs are in my room. I have

1. A few shelves of books
2. Cloths in the cupboard
3. My computer
4. Files that contain important documents arranged nicely (my will, insurance policy, financial info, etc).

So, if I die tomorrow, they can just donate my books and cloths. Keep my computer for their own use, and open my files to get all my important documents. They don’t need to waste a lot of time looking for things, figuring where I put my stuffs, and going through a lorry of stuffs and documents one by one just to know what they are.

At 27, AhYap has prepared to die.

So I went to Renie office at about 4pm in the evening and for the very first time, I meet the girl of my life. My first impression is, she is very sweet. And my first conversation with her is, “Your mummy not in ar?” and I forgot how she answered. But I remembered it is a very short sentence and she just sat there doing nothing (I thought she would at least call for Renie. Actually Renie already know I have came).

I didn’t talk directly to this girl for quite a long time because I am having long conversation with Renie. Just for some moments I will stare at her and she just keep smiling all the time like a doll and reading her newspaper. Sometimes, she will stand up and walk to another table to change another section of newspaper. She wear a slipper with her stocks on and she seems to walk in slow mode.

Later Renie went away for another Anthony Robbins preview and she let us alone. So this is the first time we are alone. We start to know each other, starts from our name, school and some background. I learned how to write her name.

Later it started to rain (rains is a very important phenomena in our love story because it gives chances all the time). I remembered her cute face when she is shocked with the rain. She will need to take a bus to tuition later. Of course, as a gentlemen, I offer to fetch her (see, I take full grip of my chances and how the rain helps). So we chat until 7.00 and I took her to tuition with my ADA4868. This is the first time I fetch a girl in Ipoh.

The conversation in the car are not that special but I remember at a moment she get excited and says, ‘haiiii lo’ (agree on what I say) and that push the button on my heart more. Before we say bye bye, I say I will look for her one day.

But finally I realized got wisdom teeth early doesn’t mean you are having wisdom earlier, it only means you can have holes in your wisdom teeth earlier!

Fixed 2 holes in my upper 2 wisdom teeth few days ago. If wisdom teeth really means wisdom, then I really I hope I don’t have any wisdom. Celaka punya wisdom teeth.

So I bet with him that this site will not be as popular as Kennysia’s blog. So we check on the Alexa ranking.

Cibai, my first ‘gambling’ in 2007 lost to soufu (Yesterday a ‘chinese feng-shui oracle’ in TV said people who is born in the Monkey year shouldn’t gamble in 2007, seems like he is right. But I still think he is a sin-kar-lan because soufu is also born in the Monkey year. So if Monkey bet with Monkey, who will win?). Steve Pavlina site is ranked the 2,549th most popular site in the internet! While Kennysia is around 21,491th! Losing by 18,000 spots.

[sin-kar-lan: cantonis, people who talk cock like ahyap]
This ‘Steve’ guy immediately get my attention. I read his About Page and here is an interesting excerpt.

… he started over in college and graduated in three semesters with a double-major in Computer Science and Mathematics. Steve has run the L.A. Marathon, trained in martial arts, and maintained a 100% vegan diet. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, …

[juggle: To keep (two or more objects) in the air at one time by alternately tossing and catching them.]

Now, this man is what I call, people who have the GENETIC. Do you have it? I am not as smart as him, if I am to write my about page, it will go like this

… AhYap started over in college and graduated in NINE semesters, extending one extra semester as he is unable to complete his required credits within 8 semesters. He completed the 1.5km run in school for 8 minutes and 48 seconds, awarded the grade of ‘E’ (most people complete the run below 5 minutes), trained in tae-kwan-do for 1 year but still unable to kick above waist level, and maintained a 80% vegan diet (finally something similar, yeah). He can’t remember his girl friend house phone number, can’t differentiate between stalagmites and stalactites when studying geography, can’t even win noobs in Dota after playing for so many hours … (BTW, soufu also cannot win the noobs, wahahaha)

Do you see? I don’t have the genetic!

… …

But Wait! Don’t pity (可怜，同情）me! People who always like to be pitied will always be a loser. People who like to pity others are usually losers as well.

- You screw up in something, someone (mother, wife, teacher, friend, colleague, dai-yi-ma…) come and pity you and tell you, “Honey, it is ok …” You immediately feel the love and connection. Screwing up doesn’t seems so bad now! Then the next time you screw up again, they come to pity you again… again and again… and you are now trained that whenever you need love and connection, you will subconsciously try to screw up. Don’t agree with me? What if you are successful? People around get jealous. They stay away from you or even talk bad about you. You don’t get the love and connection. So subconsciously you learn that being successful is bad and screwing up is good.

- People like to pity losers and jealous on winners. When they saw losers, they are happy! They feel like their life is not that screw up as somebody else is more screw up then them! They feel significant (重要性）. So they like to pity. If someone is better than them, they feel like a loser (insignificant). They hate to feel like a loser, so they prefer to pity losers instead of praising winners. So subconsciously, people are trained to pity losers and jealous on winners.

- Since people like to pity (to feel significant) and be pitied (to get love and connection), losers always stick together to reaffirm each other. When I screw up, another loser can come to pity me. Both of us are happy. When another loser screw up, I can go and pity him. Both of us are happy.

This is why cibailang says, “We live in a Cibai world!”.

So if you want to be a loser, go pity someone, or enjoy being pitied.

Lyric:

My Money Live Over The Ocean!

My Money Live Over The Sea!

My Money Live Over The Ocean!

Oh Bring Back My Money To Me!

Bring Back! Bring Back!

Oh Bring Back My Money To Me! To Me!

Bring Back! Bring Back!

Oh Bring Back My Money To Me!

(click the play button to play dude)

This incredible WordPress audio plugin is provided by 1 Pixel Out for FREE!