Some lessons in life I have learned

I'm sorry I haven't updated my main blog in a while but I have finally had some thoughts and found some time to write about some of life's lessons that I have learnt. 

Also I am happy that I will soon be starting my long awaited career in Electrical Engineering projects. 

As life is always a learning process I will be constantly updating my lessons learnt in life.

Life lessons

• Never be afraid of a new environment as one person's slum may well be someone else’s castle.
• Never be afraid to be rejected or take no as an answer as this is often poor excuse for not trying to pursue opportunities.
• Never be afraid to pursue opportunities outside your comfort zone as there are many opportunities abroad and borders are only arbitrary.
•  Never be afraid to ask for help as we live in a modern age where we can easily ask for help via face to face, phone, email, social networks etc...
• Never be afraid to have a try as we are often more concerned of the negative consequences rather than the positive outcomes.
• Always look after your health and fitness as a fit and healthy person is likely to achieve more.
• “Not enough time” is not an excuse for not doing something as there is often time that is spent procrastinating which could be used to be productive or achieve tasks.
• As the old saying goes “patience is a virtue”. We should not try and rush things too quickly as we often give up when we don’t quickly reach our goals!
• You can’t change the past but you can use the lessons learnt to improve yourself to change the present and steer towards a better future. 
• Never let anyone bring you down as you are the best judge of yourself and only you can make the steps to make things better.
• Never give up! however hard things seem.
• Always value the company of family and friends.
•  If you feel someone is in distress or needs help, don’t turn a blind eye, comfort them and see how you may be able to help them.
• Help society as often as you could as you never know if and when you would be the one asking for help.
• No one is perfect, so don’t be distressed if certain goals aren’t achieved as there are always other avenues you can pursue.
• Always try and constantly self improve whether it is through an informal or formal course or just to expand or improve what you already know. As you never know when you may need to use this knowledge and what opportunities this may create.
• Don’t be envious of others; just value your OWN achievements.
• Never be afraid to take well calculated risks as the failure to do so just leads to missed opportunities.
• Most successful people have failed at least one stage in their life. Therefore just take the failure to self improve yourself and succeed. As a famous internet viral video says “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived”.
• Some people are late bloomers and achieve success at a later stage of their life such as Colonel Sanders and Ang Lee, so continue to be patient and persistent as you may eventually get there however long and hard the road is.

Happy Chinese New Year 2011 - The Year of the Rabbit

恭喜发财　
新年快乐

Kung Hei Fat Choi
Gōngxǐ fācái
Happy Chinese New Year

This year is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit (兔） or for the Vietnamese the Year of the Cat.
Unfortunately I'm not a Chinese astrologist so I can't tell you what the Year of the Rabbit means for your zodiac sign or how to improve it with feng shui.

Instead in this blog, I will be writing about my family's tradition in welcoming in the New Year. Although I am not strongly religious, we generally we start the day praying to my ancestors and the Chinese gods to welcome in the new year. The prayers includes offerings of food including fruit especially oranges or mandarin (represents gold or fortune), vegetarian dishes, rice, wine, tea and fried dough balls called Jin Deui (煎堆) which has a filling of sweet red beans but can also include a savoury filling with pork, Chinese sausage, water chestnuts, beans, dried shrimps and shiitake mushrooms (but we generally avoid it until least the afternoon when we tried to avoid meat as a custom).

After that we eat a vegetarian breakfast called zhai (斋)which contains thin seaweed, shiitake mushrooms, bean curd, lotus roots, woodear fungus, jujubes and various other vegetables accompanied with some rice. As a tradition we also eat an extra bowl of rice to represent continuous prosperity in the new year. We also drink a tea made with pe'er tea with dried and sweetened lotus seeds, lotus roots, winter melons and jujubes called New Years tea and again we pour some extra tea to represent prosperity.

Other foods we may have on the day include New Years cake aka nian gao (年糕)which is a sweet steamed cake made with glutinous rice flour and brown sugar, Gok Jai (角仔)which is a steamed glutinous rice pastry with a filling similar to the Jin Deui, Turnip cake aka Lou Baak Gou (萝卜糕)made with shredded daikon radish, mushrooms, dried shrimps, shiitake mushrooms and Chinese sausage as well as a candy box which may include dried and sweetened lotus seeds, lotus roots, winter melon, sweet potato, coconut, carrots, jujubes as well melon seeds and red pocket candy called lei shi tang (利是糖) which is known as that as they resemble the red pockets elders give to children and unmarried adults for luck in the new year．

Generally me and my family also visit the temple at Bonnyrigg opposite Mounties for prays to welcome in the Chinese New Year. They also serve a vegetarian lunch on the day and have some stalls selling lucky charms such as jade amulets, zodiac figurines, wind charms etc. Which I sometimes buy hoping it will bring me some good luck over the year.

We then finish the day having a feast with the family which may include foods such as shiitake mushrooms, fish, chicken, Chinese roast pork and vegetarian dishes. 

If you are interested in knowing more about some customs including the decorations, lucky red pockets, meaning of visiting elder relatives, the Chinese calendar and zodiac and how others celebrate the Chinese New Year around the world then you could visit Wikipedia's Page on the Chinese New Year and About's Page on the Chinese New Year.

Moments of Inspiration

To help with my New Year's Resolution of achieving the goals from my previous post and for anyone who finds it hard to achieve their goals and always feels down because they can not achieve their dreams.
I have labelled this blog 'Moments of Inspiration’ where I have included a small of list of moments such as music and movies that like to watch that can help inspire when I am feeling down.

Songs


Firework by Katy Perry
Although I am not fan of Katy Perry, I find this to be one of the most beautifully written lyrics in a song.  To me this song inspires people that the dream is not over and that you do not have to be perfect and something beautiful can come your way if can ignite the spark of inspiration in yourself that motivates yourself do something and to think positive.

I love the quote from the song "Maybe your reason why all the doors are closed so you could open one that leads you to the perfect road" and that makes me think that the reason for all the many rejections especially in my case job applications is that the perfect one may be just around the corner (Fingers crossed).  




Firework cover by Boyce Avenue/David Choi
After hearing it a couple of days ago. I have also included the cover by Boyce Avenue and David Choi who is one of my favourite youtube artists. This cover version is slower but I find is much more pleasant if you are not into modern pop songs.



Tong Hua 童话(Fairytales）Cover by Jason Chen/J Rice
This song is originally in Mandarin by Malaysian Chinese artist Michael Wong (光良) but I find that the original video clip is one of the most depressing Music Videos but the words to the song (if you can understand them) are one the most beautiful written. In short it is about someone who think that they fail in their dreams and that it is all an unreal fairytale but then someone comes to lend a hand to help to make the fairytale real.
I have chosen to link the beautiful cover by Youtube artist Jason Chen and J Rice who do both a Mandarin/Chinese hybrid version and a full Mandarin version which is quite amazing as J Rice can not speak Mandarin but somehow learnt to sing it phonetically close to the mark.
The cover of the song is beautiful and the words to the song is quite inspiring if you read through it or the translated version for those who can't read Chinese (me included) and do not have Bing/Google Translate.


English/Chinese Hybrid Version




Chinese Version

Youtube

Shaytards
I like watching the Shaytards channel on youtube where ShayCarl and his wife Katilette vlogs their lives with the 4 children and often their family. What makes it inspiring to watch is that in every video, they live a very happy family life for which I feel is missing generally missing in society where you treat every family member as a friend and that as a family you go out and have fun together.

Their channel can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/shaytards?blend=1&ob=4

I addition I have chosen 2 videos which show some examples of their happy family life. The first video 'Stop Being Depressed' has the Shaytards hanging up the beautiful artwork 'Happiness is a Choice'. Towards the end of the video Shay explains some of the reasoning behind the artwork and in life in general. That is you live a happy life and stay positive even with all the negativity around you. That is the happy yellow ball surrounded by all the sad blue balls. 


I recently purchased a 11" x 17" print of the artwork 'Happiness is a Choice' by Darren Rae to help inspire myself which can be purchase at http://www.freewebstore.org/RAEART-PAINTINGS/1122X1722+Happiness+is+a+Choice+-+PRINT/index.aspx?pageid=510816&prodid=1872969&rw=1

Stop Being Depressed



The second video entitled 'We're Debt Free' is where Shay calls American talk show host Dave Ramsey to tell his story of how he changed his life from doing many dead-end jobs, barely struggling and getting into debt to substantially increasing his income and doing what he loves as a Youtuber and getting out of debt.  

We're Debt Free

Famous Failures
This video entitled 'Famous Failures' is about famous and successful people who in their early life had failed in life but turned their lives around and turned failure into success. 




Movies

The list below are some of my favourite movies although not extensive which are inspirational. Although the theme is all the same where the antagonist starts the film as being down and out and has to overcome many difficult challenges thrown upon them but they turn their lives around by pure effort and thinking positively and with a little bit of luck. This is a theme that I think someone can take into real life. 

• It's a Wonderful Life (1946) starring James Stewart
• The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) starring Will Smith
• Rocky (1976) starring Sylvester Stallone
• The Karate Kid (1984) starring Ralph Macchio
• Dead Poets Society (1989) starring Robin Williams
• Forrest Gump (1994) starring Tom Hanks
• Remember the Titans (2000) starring Denzel Washington

New Years Resolutions 2011

Finally, after setting up this blog for nearly a year I have decided to stop procrastinating and start writing some blogs about my thoughts and broad interests. For example, my interests include but are not limited to food and travel, philosophy and politics, science and technology, sports, entertainment and world cultures.

To get the ball rolling for my first post I have decided to post my New Year Resolutions for 2011. My first resolution is to stop procrastinating and stop thinking of the negative consequences and instead focus on the positive rewards gained. Although this sound like it is from a late night Anthony Robbins motivation commercial, it is quite true for me.

I have felt I have wasted a lot of my life and potential from just procrastinating (for at least the last 10 years), and thinking about negative consequences rather let whatever maybe be. I find that this just makes my goals, dreams and aspirations a lot harder.

So from this year on, I am going to just have a go and let whatever happen happen as there is a better chance of reaching goals by having a go and thinking positive. I will understand that failure is not the end of the world but just another lesson to be learnt in life and a step closer to reaching my goals.
Therefore, I have devised a list of procrastinated tasks although not exhaustive that I should aim to complete by this year.

This includes:-

1. Learn to be conversational in several languages since I have several Lonely Planet phrasebooks and that I live in a multicultural Australia and therefore should have many opportunities to practice even if I say it wrong.
2. Complete my New Zealand trip video from nearly a year ago and post it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/SiRock8 (so far my Canyon Swing video made by the operators is the only video there) as well as regularly post something on it.
3. Try new foods; learn to cook new dishes and then blog about them.
4. Build and do experiment with technology especially since I have studied Electrical Engineering and should be using my skills learnt to help society especially Climate Change and the productivity of Australia.
5. Learn to play a song on my guitars.
6. Try to do more for the environment and society.
7. Buy my first home.
8. Research on Australian-Chinese history including my great grandfather's time in Darwin.
9. Regularly blog here.
10. Take one big overseas trip to somewhere I have never been.
11. Take one big domestic trip to somewhere I have never been.
12. Enjoy the outdoors more especially go fishing regularly.
13. Learn economics and/or further Engineering studies.
14. Make new friends with people from all over the world.
15. Take any opportunity given to me with two hands.
16. MOST IMPORTANTLY don’t say it. JUST DO IT!

Although my to do list is quite big and ambitious, I may also update this blog later in the year to include more tasks and that I must understand I may not be able complete all the tasks which is not the end of the world. I feel that by aiming for a goal and having a go, it can make my goals a lot easier to complete and be of greater motivation for completing them.

Finally at the end of this, the satisfaction of having completed something or having learnt a new skill is the enjoyable reward.