Namewee wrote a new song “fuck racist”. I am not judging him but just feeling a pity to him. Long long time ago, I already know he will have a hard road ahead due to his ‘strong’ character. He will sure to have more troubles ahead after this song. You will be able to follow the news yourself as the newspaper will magnify it 1,000 times. I am not linking the video here and I wish it will be removed (and will not be uploaded again by others) and hope that the news will cool down.

I hope you can really learn something helpful today. Back to the original post…

It would be better if the article title is “to diu or not to diu”, inspired after listening to NameWee new song, “DIU”! Diu is the Cantonese for fuck while diao is Mandarin.

[For non Chinese reader, the song is a revenge from NameWee to MyFM because they refused to broadcast his ads due to his ‘incorrect’ Chinese slang. He also condemned local Chinese who don’t protect their own local slang but instead pursue China and Taiwan slang]

Listening to the lyrics, this raise a question/dilemma/conflict that almost the 6 billion people on earth have encountered – to diu or not to diu?

Ok, it has nothing related to sex. 

It is about making the “right” choices when we need to decide whether to DEFEND or to COMPLY.

Defend what? Comply what? ANYTHING! From cultures, to values, to slang, to personal taste, to watch Ip Man or Iron Man, Chinese girl friend or Thailand girl friend…

Because when we deal with people, we will have different opinions. Should we defend our stand or should we comply with them? i.e. to diu (defend) or not to diu (comply)? You wan to watch Ip Man but your kids want to watch Iron Man, so which Man to watch?

In this post I am not talking about the big things that we need to defend, such as if your uncle want to borrow money from you to bet legally on world cup, you better not comply. [If I borrow from you, you should comply] Or a stranger ask you for your car key so he can drive it away, you better run away. And if an muscular man want to rape your ass, run!!!

I want to talk about simple things, like “should you follow someone slang?”. If you speak to an Australian angmo, should you use their slang or your Malaysia slang, or should you insist them to use our Malaysia slang? If you speak with an Indian, should you use Indian enge-lish sla-an-gg? If you are in China, should you speak Beijing Mandarin? Or they should speak Malaysian Mandarin?

And when you shake hands with others, should you make a strong grip or a soft grip? Do you feel offended when someone offer you a soft grip and you thought the other guy doesn’t give you a shit? This is very common, I have always heard people telling me that who and who is very lansi simply because that guy/girl (especially girls!) doesn’t shake his hand the way “he” wants it. [lansi = sombong = proud]

Or have you talk to somebody that will never look at you? [I’m one of them] Will you get pissed off.

These problems arise because almost everyone are conditioned to activate the DEFEND MODE without making a conscious choice. Their past conditioning of life taught them that the “right way” for other people to behave is to be the same like us.

When you talk to someone and you like to look into their eyes, because you believe by doing that you are showing respect to him, then if that guy doesn’t look back to you, you will feel like he doesn’t respect you. Because other people must behave the same as me to be called “right”.

Everyone told us that when we shake hands, we must grip hard hard to show our sincerity. But if some one just touches your hand without gripping you, you felt disrespected! Unconsciously, you always want other people to be the same like you, to act the same way you do. You get pissed when they don’t do want you want.

Huang Ming Zhi get pissed when other people are not happy with his slang, when the local are not defending their slang.

We will have a lot of conflicts when both parties activates the DEFEND mode. Ming Zhi insisted on his slang with MyFM while MyFM insisted that his slang is “wrong”, so this song came out as a counter attack.

When they choose “to diu” instead of “not to diu”, the consequence is always, “bei yan diu” again [fucked back]. They will just “diu lei diu hui” [you fuck me I fuck you].

We doesn’t know that there is another mode we can operate in – the “not to diu” mode, the COMPLY MODE.

COMPLY doesn’t mean you are surrendering! COMPLY doesn’t mean you are the loser. Actually if you can see the whole picture after this post, you will know the party who COMPLY is the winner which have the ability to control the final outcome! By complying, you get the most for yourself!

Why is that possible?

The NLP gurus realized that “people like other people who are like themselves”. Which is the problem mentioned earlier, which irony is also the solution.

We get pissed off by small thing like SLANGGGGGG or a handshake because we like other people to be like ourselves. Which means, we dislike other people who are not like ourselves. 

If he doesn’t shake hands my way, I dislike him.

If he doesn’t look into my eyes when talking to me, I dislike him.

If he doesn’t speak my slang, I dislike him.

If I smile to her and she doesn’t smile back, I dislike her.

If he swings his leg non stop creating an OSIM chair effect for me while I sit beside him, I dislike him [because I think swinging legs = no manners].

If someone talk very loud to me, I dislike him [because loud = disrespect].

But these are all mind made stories that we are conditioned to believe ever since we grow up, by our parents, by our teachers, by friends and even strangers. We carry them unconsciously. If our brain is like a computer, we have this software/virus installed in it without knowing about it.

When you realized you have this software installed in you and everyone else around you, you have an edge. A super edge that make you a winner.

[The name of the software is called “People like other people who are like themselves. People dislike other people who are not like themselves”. It is too long, so we call it PLOPWALT-PDOPWANLT. What a cool name!]

The Solution

#1. When you realized you have PLOPWALT-PDOPWANLT installed on you, you now have the ability to shut it off [uninstall it].

#2. When you realized other people have PLOPWALT-PDOPWANLT installed on them, you now know how to make them happy!

I need to clarify our objective when dealing with other people before I continue elaborating the PLOP-DOP shit.

What is our objective when dealing with other people? What is the outcome we want?

We want other people to like us, to love us! People will like us when we can make them happy! If we can do something to make other people happy, we know we are doing the “right” thing! And how to make them happy by doing the “right” thing?! That’s all about PLOP-DOP! People will be happy if we are same like them! 

But if you look around, you will notice that most people objective is not to make other people happy, they only want themselves to be happy. This is not wrong because everyone wants to be happy. But the problem is if you want yourself to be happy, you almost always do it by insisting that you are “right”. You will want everyone to do things your way so you can be happy. The outcome you get is always unhappiness.

Everyone wants other people to be like them and most of the time, they won’t get it, so they DEFEND, they diu back. They hope that by diuing them, they will COMPLY. But this is always not the case! The other party get pissed and DEFEND and diu back. So they keep diuing each other, making everyone unhappy.

Who is the winner? Are you the winner when you diu people? If both parties also unhappy, both parties are the losers.

If we are able to make people happy, many magical things will happen. If you like a girl and if you want her to be your girlfriend, do you think making her happy important?

If you want to do business with someone, do you think making him happy important?

The skill to make the other party happy, is to learn how to COMPLY. How to switch off the PLOP-PDOP in your head and how to “take advantage” of the PLOP-DOP virus in the other party, instead of falling into it yourself.

If you are a guy and you saw a girl that you like and when you shake her hands, BE SENSITIVE! There is no fixed answer on whether a hard grip or a soft grip is the “right” grip!!! The RIGHT grip is the grip that she gives you!!! If she hold you tight, you return a tight grip, but you will be surprised that most girls, unlike guys, give soft grip, or even just touching you by the finger! You do exactly the same as they do, based on their “right” way to shake. You comply with their “right way”. You do not insist on your own “right way”. You don’t get pissed off when the girl just touch you with a finger. Don’t get caught up by your own PLOP-DOP! Feed her PLOP-DOP instead!!!

You apply this PLOP-PDOP technique on everything you can apply on! If you notice she like to stare at you when she talk, do so, stare back. If you notice she is shy, you don’t stare like you are watching porn on your computer! If she speak loud, you speak loud. If she like to swing leg, you swing!!! If she like to say “diu”, you also “diu” back!!! Don’t say, “aiyer, why this girl say diu, so rude”. You may not like her to say diu but if you want to make connection with her, want her to like you, you do what she does.

Remember your job is to turn off your own PLOP-DOP and feed their PLOP-PDOP!!! Trick them, take advantage of them, even abuse them. Take full control!!!

The other party will be like having magic moments with you! They will feel like they know you from the past lives! Like instant best friend.

[If you have forgotten, PLOP-DOP is the short form of PLOPWALT-PDOPWANLT and is then the short form for “People like other people who are like themselves. People dislike other people who are not like themselves”]

The term in NLP for describing this kind of magic connection is called building rapport.

The more you practice, the more ways you can apply the technique. If that guy like to drink Tiger but you drink Carlsberg, what do you do? Drink Tiger lar, at least for the first impression (the initial rapport building). 

If somebody has some weakness such as can’t talk smooth like “she.. she… she… go… go… go…” you too need to IN SOME EXTEND try to mimic his style of speaking! Of course you will need to be very careful not to make him feel humiliated. At least you need to talk slow and follow his tone. For a guy who can’t walk smoothly, at least you need to follow his steps and pace.

There are too many things you can mimic. Walking steps, like army, LEFT … LEFT … LEFT RIGHT LEFT … which leg to cross? left leg, right leg? high cross, low cross? Some people like to touch nose when talking, you touch too. Some people like to put one hand scratching his head in 90 degrees! You do too.

Follow the slang, follow the language. If you are dealing with Western people who will hug each other and kiss on the cheek, do that! Do not insist on your own value and your own “right way” to do things! Turn off your PLOP-DOP, feed theirs! I am not asking you to kill people, this is merely greeting. If you are a girl and they want to kiss your hand, let them!

In quantum physics terms, these are explain by energy and frequencies. Things that shared the same frequency resonance together and become one. Both are now connected.

The magic is, when you feed enough to their PLOP-DOP creating the resonance between the two of you, miracle happens. Since both of you share the same frequency now, you can start to control him/her without her even knowing it!

You may say, “Let’s try some Carlsberg now.” And you will be surprise that he will no longer insist on his Tiger!

You may be talking business and you suddenly ask, “So how is my selling price? Cool for you?” and you will be surprise that he will say, “Ah! Consider that done! Let’s get back to your Thai girl story…”. [assuming your build rapport by talking about girls]

“Let’s have dinner tomorrow?” You don’t even need to play the choice trick here since you already built rapport with her, she will be very comfortable saying YES!

Have you seen how powerful this technique is? In ugly terms, like the choice trick, we are trying to take advantage of their weakness that they are unconscious about.

Viewing it in beautiful terms, we can say that we can trying to get what we want by making them happy. And most of the time, what we want is the same like them – happiness. If we can give happiness to other people, we will have it ourselves immediately. 

One of the most easy way to build rapport with a Chinese is the dialect we speak. We have Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, FokChow and a billions of others … If you hear someone speaking Hakka or you know he is a HakkaMan (friend of Ip Man and Iron Man), just go to them and speak Hakka and the rapport will be built almost INSTANLT. Chinese have very strong attachment to their dialect and their root of origin (not the 6” root).

Without challenging the value of remembering our origin, I just want to point out that this can be a weakness because someone with a bad intention can easily make you like him and take advantage of you. I have seen this so often with my dad. When he deals with someone, and they can speak Hakka, hua la!!! They become “instant best friend” can make quick deals. The car mechanics will be able to ask my dad to repair this repair that, change this change that because my father trusts his “bestfriend” so much just because he can speak Hakka! Hokkien says, Kakinang. [Orang sendiri, own people] 

Remember that since it is a technique, it can be used to do good things and bad things. Conmen are powerful user of this technique. By knowing it, it can also protect us from bad people trying to take advantage of us. We won’t be so “shock sendiri” by just because someone is speaking our dialect.

Because culture, language and dialect is the fastest way to build rapport. I believe it will be a good advantage to teach Mandarin in Malay school. By doing this, there won’t be so much misunderstanding between Chinese and Malay. It is very easy for Chinese to “connect” with Malay because Chinese knows a lot about Malay and can comply with them (and as I say, the one who COMPLY will later be able to CONTROL). But it is very difficult for Malay to comply with Chinese because they don’t even know what the Chinese is speaking and thinking or even just to read a business sign board! Chinese have been living here for 100 years and it is really really very shocked that almost all Malay can’t speak simple Mandarin or recognize simple Chinese words! The more the Malay DEFEND, the more they lose. This should be very clear now.

Ok, no more politics and racial issues. Let’s get back to dealing with people around us.

If dialect is a quick way to build rapport, what else?

They are the rude words! The quicker you can use rude words (or vulgar words or whatever) with a stranger, the quicker they like you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [applicable to people who use rude words only which luckily consist of a big portion of our species]

If you know a guy who like to use “Ma Hai!” [Mother’s Hai] You just go and shout it at the same tone and the same slang like him. He will magically like you. Be it “Wah Lan Diii!” or “Chow Cibai” or anything else since you are probably more expert then me in this field. Remember, the “right” thing to say is the thing the other party like to say.

People who are thought that they are “religious” and with “high value” will have problem complying. These are fake people. Because someone who is really religious and with high value will have no problem complying. The real story below illustrates this -

Master Sheng Yan was on a flight and he sat beside a pastor.

The pastor said to him, “What a waste, talent like you should be in the ‘right’ religion!”.

Sheng Yan asked, “What is the ‘right’ religion?”

The pastor said proudly, “Of course it is Christian!”

And Shen Yan answered, “That’s right! You think Christian is the ‘right’ religion, so you are a Christian. I think Buddhism is the ‘right’ religion, so I am a Buddhist!”

The pastor is very impressed with the answer and they continue to have good conversation on the flight.

Master Sheng Yan didn’t DEFEND and say the pastor is wrong. He instead COMPLIED with the pastor and agreed with him that Christian is the ‘right’ religion. And by doing so, he is able to build the rapport and make strong connection. At the end, he can CONTROL and makes the pastor happy to accept that Buddhism is also the ‘right’ religion.

So if you think you are “religious” and your “value” is very high that you can’t hug a western woman, here is another story.

Master Hui Lü went to a family house for Dharma teaching.

The women was new to Buddhism and she didn’t know that monks are vegetarians (I hope you know!).

As an appreciation, the women took a lot of time to prepare the dinner for him for coming by, with LOTS OF MEATS!

At the beginning, Hui Lü was able to just pick the vegetables among the dishes, skipping the meat, but later he was served a bowl of chicken soup!!!

So how? He is not supposed to drink based on the “religious value”. But surprisingly, he drank it! Why? Because he understands PLOP-DOP! If he defends, the lady will be unhappy and he would have hindered a person for following Dharma which is not good for the lady. He COMPLY for the good of the woman and later he can CONTROL by teaching her Dharma since she is happy. You can’t influence someone who dislike you. But when someone like you, he will listen to you. Remember PLOP-DOP!

If you are stubborn and inflexible, you will have to eat a lot of “hard shits” in this life. You think you win when you diu back (defend) but at the end what you get is more people diu you back (attacks). Only by not diu back that you can take control.

Based on what Huang Ming Zhi is doing now and in the past, he will have a tough road ahead. He always wants to defend himself. I hope he won’t wrote a song to diu me just because I say so!

To bring this story to the extreme, let’ see how Liu Yong teaches his own daughter. (Liu Yong is a popular Taiwan author with lots of lots of books)

Liu Yong told her daughter that if she is so unfortunate that she has been caught and will be raped and there is no way she can escape, he begged her daughter to COMPLY! He asked her daughter to just let go and let them finish their “work”.

WHY SUCH ADVICES TO HIS OWN DAUGHTER?!

Because Liu Yong knows it is life that is more precious than anything else. What “value” that you can’t let go that’s more important than your own life? Almost all raped and killed are due to the victim defending and being killed in accident (it is not intended by the rapist!). By shutting down your PLOP-DOP (your ‘right’ about holiness, virginity …) and feeding the rapist PLOP-DOP (they want to feed their dick, not to kill anyone) you have a CONTROL on keeping yourself alive. Being able to still see your parents, being able to still see your husband, being able to still see your children! Isn’t that a greater value then anything you can possibly lost during that misfortune?

Summary

Insisting that you are “right” won’t bring you good outcomes most of the time because what you think is “right” is always not “right” for the other people. It will make the other party unhappy and counter attack you. And most of the “rights and wrongs” we attach to things are very minor things that there is no need to put a magnifier on it, such as a slang or a handshake!

Who say a handshake must be strong? Who say we must look into other people eyes when we talk? Who say we can’t swing our leg when we sit? Why make so much fuss on these small things? Why need to defend such minor things? What can you lose if what they want are just small things like these?

Comply! Comply and make the other party happy! You are the conscious one. They are the unconscious. They can’t do what you do. Only you can do it because you now understand PLOP-DOP. You now know how to make them happy (and how not to make yourself unhappy). Comply first. Build the rapport. Then teach them, inspire them, influence them and affect them!

You will certainly be very happy yourself if you have the power to make other people happy!

War cannot stop war, only peace can.

Darkness cannot stop darkness, only light can.

Other Related Posts:

- How to trick people to do what you want them to do by giving them choices

- What is “Right” and what is “Wrong”?

- Law of Attraction – How to get what you want

- Why the world cannot be “perfect”

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.

Click here to look at the photos that inspire me, that looking at them can make you emotional, that can touch you and make your tears come out. [Btw, the song do contribute a lot]

I saw it on a friends book shelf and borrowed it. I bring it to lecture, sat on the last row and read it… I couldn’t put it off! It is just too interesting and I finish it in 2 days. Then it spark the fire of my reading spree until today. As I understand from that days onwards, 书中自有黄金屋,书中自有颜如玉.[direct translation: books will have gold house, books will have leng lui (pretty girl), not playboy though!]

This is not what I meant!

I read and read and read and read… with so many “gold house” found from books (but unfortunately only one leng lui found) I am very excited and eager to share with people around me… but what seems weird to me is, almost everyone is not interested in all these!!!

I was thinking to myself, “Why these people don’t want to listen? Why these people don’t want to learn?” They all seems very busy with their own life, with their own story… I notice that people refuse to learn and change. And I also notice that people seldom read. So their brain and their thinking are mostly limited to their pass experience (and newspaper maybe).

I have a very good ability on predicting what a man/woman will do/think by looking at their thinking patterns and habits. That means, say given scenario A to Ah Lee, how Ah Lee will respond. I can get it right most of the time. Why? Because everyone has a pattern, a repeated pattern. I don’t have the mystical power to see their future and who exactly they are going to marry, but predicting their relationship and the type of girl they will hook up with is easy. Because, it is not random, it is patterned.

But on the other hand, I have a big difficulty on trying to help them. Even if I see them playing with fire or are near the cliff, I am quite helpless.

And once I managed to realize something, I no longer try to change people. I do blog for people who are willing to read. But I have sworn to myself that I will not actively trying to change/help people. There are many reasons/realizations on that but one of the most interesting reason is the story of the bee and the fly.

What is the difference between a bee and a fly?

The bee will always eat honey and the fly will always eat shit.

You don’t need to teach the bee what to eat, he will just stick to the honey. On the other hand, the fly will always eat the shit. If you tell the fly, “Hey Mr Fly, here is some good tasty honey, come eat it!” and the fly will tell you, “Fuck off, I just want my shit.”

With one exception…

Now this seems like a good joke and an insult if you think you are a fly. But the truth is, in our world, over 90% people are the flies.

You tell them, “Hey, don’t eat deep fried food, they are damaged food that is fully poisonous.” And they will tell you, “Fuck off! If life cannot eat this and eat that, why live?”

You tell them, “Hey, girls don’t think that way, girls don’t want a solution, you just need to listen to her.” And they will tell you, “Fuck off! If she don’t want a solution, why she keep on complaining.”

Their genes, their patterns, are fixed.

I am not trying to insult flies, as flies play a very important role in the world. It is impossible to have 90% bees and 10% flies. As everyone will always ask, “If everyone is rich, who is going to clean the toilet?” Which is why, the ratio between the bees and the flies will always be the same. We will always need more people to clean the toilet than to sun bath on Maldives doing nothing.

But the reason I tell you this story is, I want to ask you, if you have a choice, do you want to be a bee or a fly? If you have a choice…

Because if you don’t choose yourself, the environment will choose it for you…

And if you didn’t really choose before, how do you know if you are a bee or a fly?

It is true that maybe you are really a fly. But what if, WHAT IF you are actually a bee but in your whole life, your parents, your teacher, your friends are telling you that you are a fly?

I know the probability of that is quite low (sorry for the discouragement but that’s the truth I see), but it will be a total waste, for a bee to eat shit instead of honey. Imagine Bill Gates is washing my car right now instead of creating Microsoft and Tony Fernandes is working for JKR instead of AirAsia…

Bees play their role. Flies play their role. They are both important to the environment. If you are a fly, there is no point for you to suck honey because honey won’t taste good to you. If you are a bee, you should let the fly eat the shit as they can do it better than you. It is none of your business.

The question is, “Is it possible that you are a bee doing the fly job?” If after thinking of this you still think shit is more tasty than honey, congratulation! You are doing what you meant to do. Nothing wrong with you. We all have our own destinies. Remember over 90% of us are flies, nothing to be shameful of.

What if … you are not a fly …

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

but Baja Hitam!!!

We live in a complicated world and it is when we try to simplify things that we make a lot of mistakes.

Sirian wrote this as a comment on his view about calcium and milk.

Well just thought I’d point out that your ability to uptake calcium is dependant on vitamin D which the body produces in its skin when exposed to sunlight. The countries with less sunlight have a higher osteoporosis level because of this not because of the calcium.

Another thing is that the study was skewed by age. People in the high calcium uptake areas have a much higher life expectancy. Old people get osteoporosis because they’re old and do not put much strain on they’re bones. Not because they drink milk.

If drinking milk reduced the calcium in your bones then why does it only seem to affect such a small portion of the population and why only when they’re over 70 years old. I know people who don’t drink anything other than milk and water. Surely they should be dead by now or have bones so week that they break constantly.

Finally as for the acidity in the blood any food, and I really do mean any food, that we eat and can digest is broken down into acids. That’s how our bodies transport fats and proteins. So erm I guess your saying eating is bad for you. Also just to add to this point if you drink semi skimmed or skimmed milk then that will have most of the fatty acids removed.

Finally just incase you were still unconvinced that this was all nonsense. you could test the urine for the calcium containing compounds that would be produced and guess what. There aren’t any. This is unfortunately one of those myths that crept up because of misinterpreted data.

His view sum up almost everything, not just about calcium and milk, but about the fact that “We live in a complicated world and it is when we try to simplify things that we make a lot of mistakes.”

Is it really protein that cause cancer?

Is it true that by adding Omega 3 to babies milk we are able to make our children smarter?

Is it true that eating seafood will increase your cholesterol?

Is it true that oily food are bad for health?

In this world, things are very complicated. But what scientist like to do (what our “brain” like to do), is to simplify things (solving problem). We like to think that the world is a simple as 1 cause to 1 effect.

For example, a scientist who discover about fiber will like to claim that fiber is able to solve all our health problems. 1 cause (fiber) create 1 effect (health).

The same goes to the protein expert, who claim that 1 cause (protein) create 1 effect (cancer).

And the chi-gong master, who claim that 1 cause (chi-gong) create 1 effect (health).

And the list goes on, enzymes, Omega 3, Vitamin C, beta-carotene, yoga, meditation, morning walk, an apple a day …

Even in the complicated economics world, experts do the same thing – trying to nail down a single cause to a single event. For example, even Ten Teng Boo repeatedly saying that the financial crisis is caused by the collapsed of Lehman brothers. Some insist that it is cause by subprime lending. And interesting enough, many Americans like to blame it on China.

But they are all right and wrong at the same time. The world (the economy) is so complicated that how can it be possible that 1 word “Lehman” or “China” cause everything?

Everything that happens consist of multiple causes, probably billions of billion causes.

While trying to figure out that 1 billion causes is impossible, trying to nail down something to just 1 cause is also very foolish.

So if I stop eating protein my cancer will get healed?

So if I eat Vitamin C I will not get sick?

So if I stop drinking milk I will have strong bones?

So if I start to practice chi-gong or yoga I will be very healthy?

In the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, Benjamin (Brad Pitt) told a story on how Daisy was hit by a taxi and crushed her leg.

Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it.

A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat – went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she’d stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes.

While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who’d stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab.

The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn’t been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot.

When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater.

And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn’t broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would’ve crossed the street, and the taxi would’ve driven by. But life being what it is – a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control – that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.

[bolded by me]

This story consist of so much wisdom that reading it myself make me want to cry.

Don’t try to nail down a single cause to a single event. It is complicated. We have to accept that there are many things that we couldn’t grasp with our mind. And by “accepting”, we can be more humble, more open and more willing to see things in more ways. We can start to aspire the wonders of the universe, the wonders or every thing around us, the wonders of our body, the wonders of every cells working so well with each other.

I will never dare to say that I have gotten the answer, or I have got the “secret code” to heath. Because no matter what, I am going to miss something, which is guaranteed. And no matter what, we all are going to die. So instead of insisting we are right, I think it will be smarter if we learn to see things in more ways. And then we can decide what we want to do.

The Dragon Boat Tragedy

When something like this happen, you will see everyone blaming everyone else. Even Penang Barisan National can use it to blame Pakatan Rakyat. Then we have all sorts of comments and criticizes, “they are not suppose to … do this … do that”, “they should … do this … do that”, everyone becomes expert, they want someone to be responsible. For them, it happened because someone is “wrong”.

Student Kuah Zi Xun, who was sitting at the rear of the boat, said the rowers were doing their final lap when the boat was hit by strong waves.

The boat then rammed into a tugboat moored nearby.

"A second strong wave then hit us and our boat overturned."

"All of us were thrown into the sea and a strong undercurrent pulled all of us underwater, he said when met at the scene.

Kuah said only 12 of them, who wore life jackets, managed to swim to the surface and stayed afloat.

Some of them managed to swim some 400 metres to the shore while others were rescued by two passing fishing boats.

Three of them were admitted at the Penang Hospital for minor injuries while another was discharged after receiving outpatient treatment.

Eyewitnesses said some of the rowers had shouted for help while floating in the sea.

Devastated parents of the missing boys were seen weeping uncontrollably near the scene.

There is no single reason or cause for this tragedy but billions of them. So many things had to happen together to make it happen! A slight changes to these “conditions” will make the event totally different. Remember the story of Benjamin Button?

And if one thing had happened differently: If they practice 1 less lap and went home earlier; if the strong wave doesn’t hit them on the final lap;if the tugboat is not “waiting” there; if there is no under-current, if they are nearer to the shore  …

Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it.

We don’t know why. No one need to be responsible for it and NO ONE CAN be responsible for it! None of the comments and critics and advices can change anything. The only thing you can do is to accept it.

I watched TV yesterday, and I am very touched by a victim’s mum. When interviewed in her son funeral, she said,

I accept… I accept… I know the world is full of uncertainties… I do learn Buddhism… I accept… I accept… He came to this world happily … and he is leaving this world happily… I accept… I accept …

It is very hard to do what she do. But she is definitely doing the right thing that is good for herself, good for her son, good for her family and good for everyone else. No blaming. No one need to be responsible. What happened is already happened. No one can change the past. I accept.

— — —

— —

—

East means nothing if there is no West. Woman means nothing if there is no man. Tall means nothing when there is no short.

When you say something is cold, it is because you compare it with something that is hotter.

[If you hold a snake or lizard, yucks, it is cold to you but it is hot to them!]

When you say it is on the east, it is because you are standing on the west. You are comparing it to where you are standing.

[If you ride a rocket up to the space where you can’t see the earth anymore, where is EAST? Where is WEST? Where is UP and where is DOWN?]

You say “this is woman” and “that is man” because we compare their … … type of fruits?

— —

Since now we know everything is about comparing (the old Chinese masters caledl it yin yang) we can now use it to derive our rule of happiness and hope that we can be “happily ever after”. First we start with 2 observations.

Observation #1

If we compare ourselves to someone richer, we feel poorer and thus unhappy. On the other hand if we compare ourselves to someone poorer, we feel richer and thus more happy!

De deeeeeeeeennnnnnggggggggggggg!

And then,

Observation #2

If “what we want” is more than “what we have”, we feel unfulfilled and unhappy. On the other hand if “what we have” is more than “what we want”, we feel very fulfilled and happy!

De de de deeeeeeeeennnnnnggggggggggggg!

So using this 2 basic observations, we can derive the formula/rule of happiness.

Rule #1

To feel rich and happy, always compare yourself with someone poorer than you! (~don’t laugh!~)

Rule #2

Always make sure “what you want” is so little that “what you have” looks like a lot!

— —

Is this a joke? Isn’t this sounds like cheating yourself?

No it is not a joke. And Yes, it is cheating! It is a mind trick. Since we know how the mind works, we try to trick it. Just like how we trick people do to what we want by offering them choices.

And who cares if it is cheating or a trick? All we need to know is that it works! The ancient Indians and ancient Chinese has been using this philosophy since a few thousand years ago! [Unfortunately, “smart” people today who are supposed to be “smarter” than ancient people seems to forgot about this ancient wisdom]

If you score 99 in you test, you can be unhappy if you compare yourself to those scoring 100. Even if there is no one scoring 100, you can still be unhappy focusing on the 1 mark you didn’t get.

If you are second in the whole school, you can be unhappy if you compare yourself to the first, even if that is Harvard or Oxford.

If you are Warren Buffett (the second richest man on earth), you can still be unhappy because you compare yourself to Bill Gates (the richest man on earth)

On the other hand, you can be happier than Bill Gates if all you want is to watch 8TV and eat strawberry.

You see, why we are suffering today is because we set different rules based on the same observations. Thanks to all the bestselling motivation and “You can be rich” type of books. Thanks to the instant idol reality programs. Thanks to the few instant internet millionaire story that we heard from Google, Facebook and now Twitter (which get rich faster and faster)!

Unfortunately, we all (including the “motivators”) set the wrong rules. What rules?

Based on Observation #1, if we compare ourselves to someone richer, we feel poor and unhappy. So they set their Rule #1 (their solution to observation #1) as

Their Rule #1 (probably yours too)

To avoid feeling poor and unhappy, make yourself richer and richer so everyone else is poorer than you!

And then to tackle observation #2, they set their Rule #2.

Their Rule #2 (probably yours too)

In order to get “what we want”, we must increase “what we have” (double/triple/1 million dollar/4 wives…)!

Yep, it works too. Same observations, same problems but different solutions/rules/mindset.

But the problem?!?

Why so many celebrities who seems to have everything in the world, take drugs or even suicide (or die of drug overdosed)? Remember Ko Ko Alan Cheung? Remember Michael Jackson? Remember the Joker in Batman? Why do people like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, which is supposed to be our role models, are always linked to drugs?

The problem is that when we set the wrong rules and go the opposite direction, what we get is not happily-ever-after but never-ending-suffering.

You see, at the moment you thought you need to be richer than somebody, or to have x amount of money before you can be happy, you can’t be happy right now. Then you thought you need to change that. Instead of using the “dirty” trick by comparing to someone poorer or reduce the x amount to y so you have more “what you have” than “what you want” that can happened right now, you decided to put your happiness into the future.

You do what you are “taught” by the books/society/parents/teacher. You try to tackle it with the “normal” ways that other people do. You want to make more money than the person that is richer than you. And you set your financial goal to x amount of money “you want” in the future that you don’t have right now.

Whether you reach your goal or not, you have made a decision. You have made a decision to put your happiness into the future in exchange with suffering, unfulfillment and unhappiness right now. You work hard for the “future,” hope that one day you can be happy in the “future”. You suffer now.

But then 2 things can happen. The future never comes and you live your entire live in full regrets. Or the future came and you hit your “ultimate” goal. But what’s next? After 30 years of fighting and struggling, you finally made it. You open up a RM48,888 champagne to celebrate with your wife (or mistress since your wife might be too old for you at that time), buy a big bungalow with 20 rooms and 40 maids and park 20 Porsches in front of your house to show the guy that used-to-be richer than you that have “motivated” you the last 30 years.

Then what? Because of 30 years of hard root conditioning to your brain, it is now WIRED (or a better word “FUCKED”!)! Your “mind” is “set”! You now have a “mindset” that can be driven only by unhappiness and goal, you won’t be able to stop that! You won’t be able to get happy!

A trained muscle is very hard to be untrained if you do it wrongly! A kid who is a virgin has no experience in badminton can easily be trained to be a world champion rather than an OK-OK player who has been practicing and playing with the wrong tactics! The same goes to the conditioning of your brain and all the wiring of your brain neurons (Once it is fucked, DHA and EPA can’t help anymore,they call it “Fucked up brain”)!

After so many years of “practicing”, it becomes a habit. You can’t just stop after you reach your goal and be happily-ever-after! You have been living in the “suffering now for the future mode” for so long and when the “future” really comes, you can’t experience it because of your poor habit, there is no “now” but only “future”!

So maybe after 2 weeks of fulfillment and satisfaction, your will get uncomfortable and unhappy again (like Robert Kiyosaki having a vacation in Fiji Island after he is “free” but can’t even finish his planned vacation and have to return earlier!). For the last 30 years, you never really learn how to be happy. Your “happy” software is not installed in your “brain”. The software you installed, based on the 2 rules you set earlier, is to always compare with someone better than you!

De deeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnggggggggggggg!

So after 2 weeks, you will start back your old routine, your old habit. You simply can’t stop. The momentum is so big, the brain is so fucked up. So now, you find someone even richer and compare yourself to him. You “enjoy” being “unhappy” again. You increase your “what you want” from x to 1,000 times x so you need a higher “what you have” to make yourself happy. You set new goals only to curse yourself more, to a never ending stream of suffering. You live again in the “future”, expecting one day you will be happy. Unfortunately,

To be HAPPY, it is not in the future. It is RIGHT NOW.

— —

Homework #1

Find 6 people (friends/relatives/neighbors/enemies…) that are poorer than you and remind yourself everyday that you are richer than them!

[If you end up being 1 of the 6 that is selected by your friends, be proud because you just make someone happy! Bill Gates will even envy you because he can’t serve that role, no one can put him in their list!]

Homework #2

Take out your bank account book, divide the balance by 2 and set it as the amount “you need” to be happy. And remind yourself that anytime you have that amount, you are happy.

[If you account balance drop, divide it again by 2 to get a new  “what you need” but on the other hand, don’t increase it when you have more money so your “what you need” is always kept at a low base, making you “richer and richer” in the future]

— —

It sounds very “ugly” and “unethical” but it is definitely a better alternative than to set up painful goals such as “I want to be richer than you” or “I want to make more money .”

Of course, we do have more “beautiful” spiritual ways to attain even better results, which is the “no comparing” method which should be our ultimate goal in the future. If you don’t need to compare, how do you know if you are rich or poor?! It is even more powerful and effective because you don’t even need to “think”!

But since our mind still like to think a lot and compare a lot, it is a difficult to stop comparing right now, but it is easier to change the object of our comparison right now. So we try to cheat by changing the object of our comparison, by selecting something “better” to compare with! And “mind” you, cheating the “mind” works! Even this method is “lower standard” like Proton, it is still a car dude!

Mummy Dog and her Bibi Doggie

Bibi doggie keep chasing its own tail but no matter how fast he “spin”, bibi doggie still can’t reach his tail!. The mummy dog tells her bibi, “You don’t need to chase your tail because you will never get it! But it’s already with you RIGHT NOW, no matter where you go, it will follow you”.

Oh, by the way, your last homework -

Homework #3

Leave me a comment if you like, dislike or even ‘no comment’ about this post. Do you really have a choice?

— —

Recommended Reading:

• The Power Of Now (當下的力量：找回每時每刻的自己)
• A New Earth
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

*Malaysian can buy books online with 1 day delivery and RM8 shipping from Kinokuniya!

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)

[And that also explain why I can't teach people computing and how to talk cock]

Today, I am going to teach you a trick that I use ALL THE TIME to trick people on doing what you want them to do. Wahahahah. Bad! Bad! Bad AhYap! Even if you don’t want to use it, knowing it help you to figure out why you always get tricked by somebody else to do things that you don’t want to do! And the next time your insurance agent and MLM friends do that to you, you will know, and smile, and give him your middle finger, and tell him, ‘Don’t use that trick one me, mother fucker!’ :p

Let’s begin.

Hypnosis is playing with the brain. You first understand how the brain works and then you play with it (trick it/manipulate it).

Read this sentence 3 times - ‘Output’ of our brain must be logically linked to the ‘Input’. I am sure if you read it 300 times you also don’t know what does it mean. Examples will help.

Example #1

If I ask you in English, "What is your name Sir?" (the input), your answer will most likely be, "I am Mr Yap". (the output)

But if I ask you in Malay, "Siapa nama encik?" (the input), your brain will need to logically answer in Malay, "Nama saya Encik Yap". (the output)

So if I ask you in Chinese, "先生贵姓？" [What is your sur name] You will logically answer "姓叶。" [Yap]

It is not logical to answer somebody who asked you in English, "What is your name Sir?" and you answer in Malay, "Nama saya Adbullah Badawi".

Example #2

Chinese has their original Chinese name but because of the influence from the west, we have ‘English’ names too like David, Steven, Patrick, Sohai, etc.

If someone come to me and introduce to me, "I am Mr Wong." Then my brain will logically answer, "I am Mr Yap."

If he come to me and introduce to me, "I am David Wong." Then my brain will logically answer, "I am Sohai Yap" [Given that if I have an English name and it is 'Sohai' in this example]

Example #3

If somebody ask you, "What is your name." You can’t answer, "I like to eat KFC." because the output didn’t linked logically to the output!

If somebody ask you, "How to spell Hishammuddin?" You can’t answer, "Streamyx Sucks!". They don’t link.

The 3 examples above show that ‘Output’ of our brain must be logically linked to the ‘Input’. And our game starts from here.

How To Trick People To Do What You Want Them To Do By Giving Them ‘Choices’

Have you ever wonder why your insurance agent and network marketing friends can always ask you to meet up, even though you really don’t want to go because you know he is going to sell you something?

Because they don’t ask you, "Are you free for supper tonight?" If they do so, your answer can be either – "Yeah, I am free tonight for supper so you can steal my money from my wallet" or 99% of the chance, you will answer, "Oh, I am not free… [I have to wake up early tomorrow] [I have assignments/reports to do] [I have to buy durian for my mother-in-law] [I have period pain] [My gold fish is sick]  …" Most people (including you) are very talented liar.

Power salesman don’t ask you "When are you free for supper"! Power salesman ask, "Are we having supper tonight or tomorrow night?"

—Ka-Chiinnngggg—

Now your brain has to answer logically to the question, unless you are really not free tonight or tomorrow night, your brain will just be figuring out if you are free tonight or tomorrow night. Most of the time, you will just choose the ‘better’ choice out of the 2 given choices, tomorrow night. After answering unwillingly, "I think tomorrow night lar." and hang up. You still wondering why you want to see this guy, whose objective is to take money from you.

The trick here is, if you want someone to do something that you want them to do, give them 2 choices where either one is also what you want!

-Examples-

Your mother may say to you, "Do you want to help sweep the floor or you want to clear the rubbish?" Ka-Chinghhhh, either one is what your mother want you to do. Pick anyone and you fall into her trick.

The Osim salesman who want to sell you uZap asks, "Do you want to pay with credit cards or cash?" or "Do you want the white one or the black one?" [real life examples used by soufulow 10 years ago when he is a poor Osim salesman]

Your discipline teacher looking at your Beatles hair, "Do you want me to cut it for you or you want to cut it yourself?"

The ‘choices’ that you give to the victim is very important. In our previous examples, we give them 2 choices where both are what we want. They pick either one, they fall into our trap.

Instead of giving them A or B where both are what you want, you can give them A or B where A is what you want them to choose while B is an extremely ridiculous and awkward choice that doesn’t make any sense to be chosen, or B as a choice that simply look more terrible and worst than A.

-Examples-

You scare that your son will ask you for RM100 ang pow in the coming Chinese New Year, but you only want to give RM20 so you can save the money for Casino De Genting. You can ask, "Son, do you want RM20 for your ang pow this year or you want RM2?" Kekekeke. RM2 look worst that RM20, or course he will choose RM20!

You go to eat fried mee and the guy ask you, "Do you want 1 egg or 2 eggs?" Then your brain think, "Wow, one egg enough lar, where got people eat 2 one." Then you say one. But you fall into his trap already because what he want is to make sure you include egg to your fried mee so he can charge you 50 cents more. If he has asked you, "Do you want egg?", you may have said no and he will not be able to charge you 50 cents more. This is a ridiculous choice example.

Let’s say a coffin seller want to sell a coffin at a certain price, he will show the buyer 3 coffins. The 1st coffin will be the coffin that the seller want the buyer to buy. The 2nd coffin is same price as the 1st coffin but it looks extremely terrible (made with recycle newspaper by Proton Malaysia). The 3rd coffin is a very expensive coffin but look just the same as the 1st one (Made by Louis Vuitton). The coffin buyer will pick the 1st one because the Proton made coffin is terrible in quality while the Louis Vuitton coffin is scary at price. Both choices look worst then the 1st coffin and don’t make sense to be chosen.

-More Examples-

- Your boss, "Can you finish this for me today or tomorrow?"
(actually you can request to finish by next week)

- Your wife, "Are you going to buy me LV or Prada?"
(actually you can request to buy a cheaper Guess bag or a pasar malam pirated LV)

- Your husband, "Do you want to do it on the sofa or the kitchen?"
(actually you can choose not to do it, or do it in the car)

(...)
Read the rest of How To Trick People To Do What You Want Them To Do By Giving Them ‘Choices’ (421 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!

For an example, I am a non smoker and my ‘perfect world’ is that NO ONE ever smoke!

But for a smoker, his ‘perfect world’ would be something like

1. He can smoke anytime and anywhere in the world and not just the GSC and KLCC toilets (and Parliament House if he is a Malaysia politician).

2. Government will not tax on cigarettes but instead subsidizes them like they subsidize our petrol.

3. Smoking will never cause Lung Cancer but will actually enhance his health and sex power (plus some penis enlargement effect).

How the world can be ‘perfect’ when non-smokers perfect world is a world with no one smoking while smokers perfect world would be to able to smoke anywhere? Both of them will keep on fighting for their own ‘perfect’ world, according to their own definition!

Both sides will sing the same song ” … We will … keep on FIGHTiiinnng till the end… We are the Champion! … We are the Champion! …”

Each religion in this world has their own definition of ‘perfect’. Muslims say that there is only 1 God who created the world and His name is Allah. Christians say that there is also 1 God who created the world but His name IS NOT Allah. Then Hinduism say that there are a lot of Gods who created the world together. But Buddhists say that there in No God who created this world.

Muslims perfect world would be everyone’s a Muslim and follows Islam’s teachings. Christian’s perfect world would be everyone’s Christian and follows Christian’s teachings. So as Hinduism and Buddhists. How the fuck can the world be ‘perfect’ when everyone has different definition for ‘perfect’? [And also definition of 'sin' when it comes to religion]

More examples -

When you want to buy something, you want to buy at the cheapest price. But the guy who sell you want to sell you the HIGHEST price!

When you are driving down the traffic light, you wish that the light is GREEN for you. Put it another way, you selfish little bastard wish the other sides got RED! But the drivers at the other sides wish that you got the RED instead so he can have the GREEN! (The other side are also selfish bastards)

51% of Americans voted for George Bush so he is now the President of America. 49% voted against him! See how contradict they think regarding the ‘perfect’ America.

A chicken (real chicken, not the fake chicken) perfect world would be a world that human don’t eat chicken BUT the human perfect world be more KFCs and Ramlee Burgers.

Wow! I never thought of that until now. If chickens and animals also have their own definitions of perfect world, there will be 6 billion people + XXX billion animals that all have different definitions for a perfect world. See how fucked up it can be.

Cow perfect world would be that no human drink cow’s milk and girls don’t like cheese cake while human perfect world would be a cow with unlimited milk.

Girls perfect world is a lot of shoes and handbags. Guys perfect world is no need to go shopping with his girlfriend and suffocate inside the extremely crowded Vinci Shop.

I hope that my mum will take care of her health by taking control of her diet. But she prefer her curry mee and nasi lemak than her health.

I wish that “Lost” (the movie series) will have Lost Season 4, Season 5 and Season 6 Finale right now so I don’t need to wait for 16 episodes in 2008, 16 in 2009 and 16 in 2010! But the producers prefer to do it the slow way to make more money.

Going more sarcastic (but very true). A Johor girl hopes that there are no rapist in Johor but a Johor rapist hopes that he can rape anyone he wants without being caught by the police! [Note: 'rape anyone he wants' not 'rape everyone' because even rapists has their own definition of 'perfect' victims. Different rapists have different taste. Some like girls wearing nurse uniform because he watches too many Japanese AV while some like smaller size girls because he consciously or subconsciously knows that he can control her easier than a BIG one. It is very shameful if you try to rape someone and end up being 'raped' back with a stick on your back hole and your balls broken.]

Americans hope that all terrorists are dead while terrorists hope that all Americans are dead.

Everyone wants to be the richest man in the world but there is only 1 richest man in the world at anytime out of the 6 billion people in this world.

Streamyx users want fast torrents download but TM Net hopes their customers don’t know how to use torrent so they can save a lot of money in bandwidth.

People hope that they can go to Heaven but no one wants to die. [off topic]

—

Every single “want” that we want, there will always be someone in this world that don’t want it. And for every single “don’t want” that we don’t want, there will always be someone in this world that want it. How the fuck can be world be perfect?

So how do we make this world a ‘better’ world when what I want is not want you want? How to live in this world that everyone has a different definition of ‘perfect’?

Important Question: “How can we live happily in this world?”

Since you know someone can be 180 degrees different that you. Don’t INSIST on things to be the way you want it to be. Flexible with the things you don’t like. Flexible with the things that contradict with your perfect definition.

We need to enlarge our heart so BIG that it RESPECTS everything and ACCEPTS everything. It respects everything that we don’t like and it accepts everything that is contradict with our perfect definition.

It is OK if the guy in front of you drive slow. It is OK if your neighbor is a Muslim while you are a Christian (or anyway round). It is OK if someone says you are stupid or talk bad about you. More sarcastically, it is OK if someone wants to kill you. Although not logical, but imagine you really allow people to kill you and you won’t feel angry, how happy can you be while you are living? The point is to see how much space you are going to give to people that are different than you. How much can you tolerate. [If you are a Muslim, can you tolerate people burning Al-Quran in front of you? If you are a Christian, can you tolerate someone burning Jesus picture in front of you? Wars always started because they can't tolerate these. If you really stick to your religion, why do you need to feel angry with those. You should have known very clearly that they will go to Hell when they die. God will do his job.]

I am not telling you to let a rapist rape you tomorrow and let a terrorist kill you tomorrow. I am telling you that if you can accept those things, your happiness in this world will be the maximum. People at this level can be happy even other people make them suffer. Maybe we don’t need to get to the extreme, maybe half? Many of us live far from it. Can’t even tolerate little thing like a ‘look’ from a stranger or a horn from the back driver. News like the Korean student got beaten to death by 2 Malaysians is a good example.

The less definitions you have on how the perfect world should be and the less you INSIST on things to be some way, the more happy you will be living in this never-can-be-perfect world.

When one day your definition of perfect become nil (zero), that’s the day you live in the perfect world. By then you will be happy and satisfy with everything. No one can ever pissed you off even if they cut off your legs and hands and put into the refrigerator. This is going too far, but that’s the correct direction. If you can reach half way, you are doing extremely well.

Your happiness doesn’t require any requirements and criteria. You no longer need things and people to be the way you want them to be. You don’t need the world to change a thing before you can be happy!

Enjoy your life!