I looked up what I wrote during my last birthday. It seems like yesterday! I still remember very clearly the  phase I was going through at that time. It’s like a “just got bitten by a radioactive spider” kind of phase. See last year’s post here.

Looking back, I am glad I took steps to change things. So things have changed. It really did!

Is it good or bad? Well…

Now my plans are not built around school holidays. It is built around public holidays, and public holidays that fall on weekends. If Saturday is a public holiday, then I get to claim a replacement leave. If it falls on a Sunday, then Monday is an automatic holiday.

You don’t get a full week off for Chinese New Year anymore by default. I’m already thinking of Chinese New Year. And it isn’t even Christmas yet.

Now I leave home for work when it’s dark, and come home when it’s dark. Soon, I will probably forget how the world looks like when the sun is up.

My wife says I don’t have funny jokes to tell anymore. And she feels I have now become “like everyone else.” Nothing special to say, nothing to be proud of.

It’s an upside down world. If your work is one that changes the world for the better, you get paid peanuts. If your work does little to impact the world, you get paid so much more. It is like two sides of the same world, but its value is inverted.

If you switch from one world to the other, you will get no respect in the new world. It works the same, both ways.

* * * * * * * * * *

Running wise, it has been hard to stay on the game like I used to. I don’t have time anymore to hit the roads or go on LSDs. My Standard Chartered maiden full marathon did not happen. A minor ligament tear in my left knee threw it all away. It was a very sad thing.

It was very hard to pick myself up again after a 60-day lay off. But now, I am slowly getting back in shape. I’ve done two 10k races to jump start my engine. I’ve been hitting the treadmill at the gym, while I wait out the jam after office hours. Now, I’ve pulled myself out of the gutter and can manage 50 minutes on the treadmill. It is nothing to shout about, considering what I was able to do before. But it’s a start.

Past disappointments aside, I’d like to think that my Standard Chartered full marathon was not a failure. It just got postponed.

Sure, you may hit the pits every once in a while. But the Miracle Miler’s spirit never dies.

Bangkitlah!

* * * * * * * * * *

I looked up the list of famous people  who died young again. It’s turning into an annual ritual. Here are those who died at 29…

Hank Williams

Percy Shelley

Hmmm… dunno…

* * * * * * * * * *

Other notable people who died this year…

Amy Winehouse. Did you know she was half Jewish and half Russian?

Steve Jobs. He invented something before a need for it existed. Now he will  forever be remembered as a visionary. He worked all his life at something he enjoyed doing. And changed the way the world works along the way.

Muammar Gaddafi. He  had it coming.

* * * * * * * * * *

We were walking about mortality rates in the office. I commented the Bible says man’s days are numbered at three scores and ten. Soon, my boss showed me a picture that he said I will like…

I’m learning one thing very well. Everyone is human.

It is the same in my old world, it is the same in my new world. Both sides, some things don’t change. Things are never what they seem. If it is one thing I am losing, it is my faith in humanity. There is no such thing as “good”. Really. There isn’t.

All this underscores a very old truth. To err is human, to forgive is divine. That is why we all need grace. That is why we all need a Saviour.

All kinds of athletes win all the time, with or without God. Some say, “You have God. I have Gatorade.” And it seems to work the same. Therefore, is faith in God a mere placebo, that can push athletes beyond their physical limits?

I’ll put it this way. Sure, you can win with God. Or you can win without God. That is up to you, whichever way you want to think.

But if God does not want you to win, all he has to do is tweak a muscle. You get an injury that sidelines you for 60 days. End of story.

So one day, you win a race. I reckon you’d better thank God.

Hear what Ryan Hall has to say.

Ryan finished third in the 2009 Boston Marathon.

1.   All work is the same.

It is a curse that started ever since the time of Adam. As John MacArthur mentioned, before the fall, man were florists and did flower arrangement. After the fall, man became farmers.

2.  Work is better than no work.

Although work became cursed, having work is still better than having no work. Consider the curse of Cain. He was made to become a wanderer to roam the earth. People will hunt him down and  kill him. Think for a moment. Why do you think Cain lamented that his punishment is too great to bear? Why will people be after his head?

I’d  like to think that Cain’s punishment is not so much about sending him on an eternal holiday. His punishment was to be forever deprived of cultivating the land, as was his day job. He is forced to become a wanderer, to live off the land wherever he could. And of course, people will kill him whenever they see him. Who likes parasites.

3.  Work does not guarantee happiness.

My theory is, we work for food. If we do not need food, then we no longer need to work. Anyway, that is another story.

Work brings money, money buys food, hence we are happy. But work in itself cannot make you happy, unless the following conditions are met:

a) Your work has a clear correlation between effort and reward. The more you work, the better your reward.

b) Your work gives you some level of autonomy. You feel like you are in control of things, be it of its  success or its peril.

c) Your work has just the right amount of complexity. Too complex – you’ll get stressed and feel like an idiot. Too easy – you’ll get bored and feel depressed.

Malcolm Gladwell was right on all three counts. (a) is true if you work in a job that has no correlation whatsoever between effort and reward, such as jobs that reward you based on seniority alone. (b) is true, as everyone likes to be their own boss. (c) is true, because if I pay you RM10,000 a month to become a toll booth operator, you’ll go crazy and still be miserable.

4.  Make one wrong career choice during your young and impressionable years, and it becomes almost irrevocable.

If only I had made a different career choice 9 years ago, things would  have been very much different. I could  have been anything I wanted to. But now, there can only be acceptance as to “how big” I can ever be.

But that’s alright. It’s ok with me.

How is the new life? Here’s a short summary.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: Must wake up early.

After: Must wake up earlier.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: Don’t know what I’m here for.

After: Still don’t know what I’m here for.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: FYP = Fail? You Pergilah!

After: FYP = First Year Premium.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: Dress like old man, hairstyle is “free flow”.

After: Dress like old man, hairstyle is “free flow”.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: Kena kutuk by one female about my sense of fashion.

After: Kena kutuk by two females about my sense of fashion.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Before: Jam is what you have for breakfast with bread.

After: Jam is what you have before breakfast.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: Never really happy about anything at work.

After: Never really happy about anything at work.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: A lot of time, very little money.

After: More money, no time.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: Make less money, spend less money. Problem.

After: Make more money, spend more money. Problem.

* * * * * * * * * *

Before: When feeling bored, develop a sense of humour.

After: When feeling pressured, develop a sense of humour.

* * * * * * * * * *

If I can offer a piece of advise to all my former students…

Get yourself a professional degree, no matter what people tell you (or don’t tell you). Some parents tell their children, “Do whatever you want. But before that, get a professional degree. After that, yes, do whatever you want. Join the Peace Corp. Take up sculpting. Become a musician. Whatever.”

There is much wisdom in that.

Because one day, when you find out that your ideal little world is not working, you still have a paper qualification to fall back on. If you have that piece of paper, you can do what any average idiot can do, and fetch a lot more money than what the average genius can do without that piece of paper.

Wherever you work or whatever job you do, you will eventually come to one realization: Work is work. All work is the same. There is nothing new under the sun. And this is a great evil.

So do not be deceived. If you don’t have the paper, you will work, and get very little money. If you have the paper, you will still work, and get a lot more money. Same #@&%, more pay.

Oh well…

Here’s a comic strip I’m working on. Just in case I get retrenched, the Dilbert way.

* * * * * * * * * *

First box

A: What will you do if your boss asked you to work around the clock?

B: No problem!

Second box

(B happily drags a big clock and puts it on top if his round table)

Third box

C: What is B doing?

A: He says he is working around the clock. He changes his seat every 10 minutes.

(B is whistling to himself, sitting on a chair, at a round table with 6 chairs around it.)

“Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it”

I totally know how that is like. You work like mad, put in all your time and energy to solve your problems. But the harvest never comes. You eat, and you get hungry again. You make your money, but you have so many leakages.

Why is that so? If the fault does not lie on your own self, (e.g. failure to plan, inability to manage, lack of brain, physically challenged, no discipline, laziness, lack of drive, etc), then there remains only one other explanation:

” ‘You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labour of your hands.”

It was a matter of priorities. It is true. After I shut out all interest in His house, I never got success. I used up every resource I have, material and immaterial. But yet, I never prospered.

If the course of pursuit is changed, will things change?

God seems to be eager to show the “before and after” effect – how it is like before He effects change, and how it is like after He effects change.

See how He marks the starting point.

” ‘Now give careful thought to this from this day on – consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple. When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty. I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me,’ declares the Lord.”

True. My blight, my mildew and my hail came in very distinct forms.

At the moment you decide to change course, He wants to mark the “before” point again. To make it perfectly clear:

“From this day on… give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. Give careful thought: Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit.”

When the building of God’s house begins, He marks the “after” point:

“From this day on I will bless you.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Dear God,

Clearly, You want to make the “God factor” very obvious. You want to eliminate every “man” factor. So that everything that happens after this leaves no doubt for the “God factor”.

I am a believer. I’ve put a marker on Your “before” point. From this day on, bless me. Let me hear what You have said to those who built Your house during the time of Haggai.

Amen.

Miss HSBC went on leave. She will be back from leave today. Too late!

Maybank never entered the race. They DNS-ed (Did Not Start).

UOB was a very strong contender. However, their offer letter needed amendments in the tenure (which they didn’t ask me earlier but did their own assumption). They offered to lower the interest rate by another 0.1% too. But that will take more time, and it is still subject to approval anyway. I felt that I’ve done enough waiting.

Public Bank fought the good fight. But they did not finish the race. They tried very hard and was very persistent in their follow up. Unfortunately, they hit all kinds of snags.

1.  They made me take a picture of my place and send it over to them (which should have been their evaluator’s job, not mine). So I took pictures, and sent it to them.

2.  They asked me to clear my name with Bank Negara, for a mistake that Citibank did. So I got a clearance letter from Citibank and gave it to them.

3.  After that, they made me find a guarantor, just because I had a “history” with Bank Negara (which, even after repeated confirmation, is clearly not my fault). So I found a guarantor, and sent all the relevant documents to them.

4.  Then, they told me that the guarantor has some problem with Bank Negara as well. The guarantor has no idea how that happened. The guarantor suspects that the culprit is Citibank again.

5.  So, Public Bank asked me to wait until 15th April. By then, Bank Negara will have updated my clearance in their database, and I don’t need a guarantor anymore.

You know what I think? I don’t think Bank Negara nor Public Bank can give me any real assurance anyway. Who knows what else will pop up. Bottom line is, even though they can offer -2.3%, I’m done waiting.

And so, the winner that came up on top is…

-2.2%, fully flexible payment, daily rest, no lock down period.

Congratulations. First to issue offer letter. Also, the first to satisfy my needs.

As for Citibank…

They came back from the dead… AGAIN… despite the clearance letter I received from them. Now I have a new outstanding balance from another credit card account. I have no idea how that amount came about, or from where it came from. Yes, it may be just 11 bucks. But it is super irritating. That kind of thing will get you into trouble with Bank Negara all over again.

"You still owe me moneeeeey..."

Citibank should share their secret of multiple resurrections with the medical practice.

Where is the sting, tell me where is the bite

When the Grave Robber comes like a thief in the night

Where is the victory, where is the prize?

When the Grave Robber comes, and death finally dies.

When the last enemy is gone

From the dust will come a song

Those asleep will be awakened

Not one will be forsaken

He shall wipe away our tears

He will steal away our fears

There will be no sad tomorrow

There will be no pain or sorrow.

In loving memory of those who have gone before us, and those who will go after us.

Me and my fans friends.

Habakkuk asks God why there is so much injustice and wrongdoing in his land. He asks God how come He can tolerate so much evil. “What are you doing in my land?” Habakkuk cries out to God.

God says:

“Look at the nations and watch – and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.”

The Babylonians are like Ahmedinejad, Kim Jong-Il, Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein and Hitler rolled into one. They are coming to your land. They are coming to whack you properly. And they are coming during your time.

Habakkuk stress, he terus jadi botak.

That is what you get when you ask why the evil are prospering. (Don’t ask me why he looks like that. If you do an image search on Habakkuk, you will get a geli looking botak guy. The one above is by Donatello.)

Habakkuk asks God the next question. Why? Why does God tolerate the wickedness of the Babylonians? Why does He let the Babylonians swallow up those who are more righteous than themselves?

God replied:

“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets. so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.”

God is still going on with the plan. It is non-negotiable.

But after that, Babylonians themselves will be punished. That is what God said. The nations that the Babylonians have plundered will rise up against them, and whack them back, kao kao lat.

God punishes those who deserve to be punished, and as well as the punisher.

Cool quote eh? Don’t cetak rompak. Later I whack you back, kao kao lat.

Habakkuk must be hoping that all those terrible things will come after he is long gone. But no. God is very clear about it. It is going to happen during his time.

“Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Gee. That’s bad. It makes Job sound like a whining sissy.

Job suffered a lot. For reasons that he does not know of. But in the end, God gave him back twice as much as he had before.

Habakkuk is going to suffer. For a reason that he knows of, which is entirely not his fault. And there is no condolence, nor compensation. You don’t need a commentary to tell you this: In times of war, all will perish – both the good and the bad. I’m guessing that Habakkuk got it real bad.

And what did Habakkuk say at the end?

“I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no fruit, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.”

And that is why I think Habakkuk can beat up Job, anytime.

I want… umm… to get rich.

Sounds so shallow, right? Makes you feel guilty for wanting something that makes you look shallow, doesn’t it?

“The wise have eyes in their heads, while to fool walks in darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.”

Ok lor… You are smart, I am stupid. You very deep, I very shallow. You die, I also die.

So?

* * * * * * * * * *

“I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. For a person may labour with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.”

I wonder what Solomon thinks about insurance policies and endowment plans. Could those things have existed during his time? I dunno… But he says:

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun… It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”

So what shall we do?

“I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God.”

Got it. But why is “doing good” in the equation? Won’t that mess up the eating, drinking and being happy part?

“A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.”

Ok, makes a lot of sense.

* * * * * * * * * *

A mother of two asked me this question before. She says her two sons want to play Pokemon cards. But pastor say cannot, because it’s satanic. Then they want to go to pubs to listen to music. She also say cannot, because they will drink. They say they will not drink, because they don’t have the money anyway. She says but once they have the money, they will start drinking. So they said, “Can we just be non Christians first? This cannot do, that cannot do, what’s the point?”

They got a point there. One they, they will grow old, and they won’t get to enjoy those things anymore. What’s the point, right? What say you, Solomon?

“Do not be overrighteous, neither be otherwise – why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool – why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.”

Nicely put. So, boys, if you really have to do something so badly, so very very badly… that you start to get sleepless nights, or spasm, or weep uncontrollably, or get wet dreams over it… just go and do it lah! Get it out of your system, and get on with your life.

Whoever said it is wise to follow the way of the Franciscan monks? Don’t be so extremist. The wisest man in the world said so.

“You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.”

If you want ice cream, just buy that ice cream. If you want to go swimming, just go swimming. Want to go Bangkok? Just go lah to Bangkok. You should do whatever you like, as long as you can still do it. Just don’t do drugs. Don’t steal. Don’t kill. Don’t sleep around. It’s that simple, really.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.”

It’s settled then. Workaholic-ism is justified.

“The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.”

Tell me again. Who said there is no such thing as luck? There is no such thing as merit, that’s for sure.

“A feast is made for laughter, wine makes life merry, and money is the answer for everything.”

Does the last line shock you?

But if you think hard about it, it really makes a lot of sense. Come on, you are not Miss Universe! I am not the President of the United States! Sometimes, we think too highly of ourselves. We are no better than the average Joe. We are just normal people. And for normal people like us… Money is the answer for everything.

Think about it. Eat a bit first. Drink a little. Then think about it again.

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”

Ok. Clear as a bell.