Striping Away the Noise

We are surrounded by so much damn noise. Everyday, everywhere. Whether it’s literal noise, or people asking us to do stuff, or chores to get done or even our own thoughts bumping into each other in our heads. There’s just so much going on and so many of us live life in this state of mess and confusion because we’re just going with it. We don’t take the time to stand back and look what’s going on, we just do. And yes doing is good, but make sure what you’re doing is in line with what you want from life, that it is in line with who you are and that you’re not just doing something because it’s there, or because you’re just too confused from the noise that surrounds us.

As Peter Drucker once said;

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Are you doing things and have no idea why?
Are you busy being busy?
Are you too busy doing things that you don’t even know where you’re heading?
How do we know that we are making the right choices if we aren’t aware of what we want?

Take the time to Strip Away the Noise that surrounds you, that plagues your mind. Filter it and then you will be able to see where you’re going, what you need to do and what you can toss.

The noise around us can seem so daunting that before we even try to strip it apart, we give up. You don’t want to be so busy climbing up the mountain only to realise at the summit that you climbed the wrong on. That may seem like a joke, but it does happen. Remember, there is nothing so useless as doing something efficiently that should not be done at all.

Take it a step at a time, as Confucius said, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Make an attempt everyday to get clear the noise, take an hour to yourself everyday to do this, when is up to you, but I usually do it when I wake up because it sets me in a great mood for the rest of the day. How can we achieve that which we desire if we sent even clear on what it is we want? How do we know we’re on the right track if we don’t take the time to regularly clear our vision. We need to get clear of what we want if we want to achieve it.

Robin Sharma said it so well, “Awareness precedes choice and choice precedes results.”

Sometimes we are too busy having fun or working or doing things that we forget to look forward.

Get clear of what you want so that the choices you make will be in line with it, and then, since we’re making better choices we will see better results.

I hope this helped spur you towards getting clear on life and taking control of it.

Straight From The Heart

Are you one of the Walking Dead?

Good Afternoon dear readers,

It’s been a while since I’ve written something, and during the short hiatus, aside from the weekend, I felt quite unproductive.. Lost at times, like i was sleep walking. I guess my writing helps me keep focused on where I wanna go, plus it gives me a sense of satisfaction, if that makes sense.

So today i’m back at Starbucks Monash, Café Mocha next to me and a Nazrin in front of me testing out the Bose QuietComfort 15. Feels good to be back here, in the very environment where I wrote more of my best pieces, there’s just something about this place, this is by far my favourite Starbucks. Yesterday the Fibromyalgia beat me, but today I’m back. It’s an on going fight, and I ain’t giving up anytime soon.

On to today’s topic, over the weekend my sister & I went down to Singapore and had a great time with Harveen, Komal & Gayatri. It was a well spent weekend, Universal Studios Singapore , Harry Potter exhibition, lots of beer, good food and bonding. The last time I went to Universal Studios Singapore I tried out the Transformers ride which was a bug step for someone who never goes on roller coasters and such, and this time around I took another step forward by going on The Mummy ride, it was scary but it was also a lot of fun, one of the highlights of the trip. So anyway, the last weekend has spurred me to try and do something new/adventurous/fun/memorable every weekend, essentially to out more living in my life, whether it’s a road trip, or a family day playing board games, or trying new food or watching the sunrise/sunset with loved ones.

Have you ever sat down and asked yourself, what the hell did I do last week? How did I spend the last month? What have I been doing with my life?

There have been to many times when I’ve felt like i was sleep walking through life, that I was in a coma, that I was one of the Walking Dead.

There are just too many times I’ve let the weekend slip away, i have quite a bit of free time and there are so many things I could be doing that I am not.

Life is meant to be lived and explored, it’s not meant to be a series of repeated actions day-in day-out.

Life is about creating moments that you will cherish, moments that will enrich you life.

Yes we all have obligations and responsibilities, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t live.

For those who work really hard over the week, take one day of the weekend to refuel and get to that much needed rest you so desire and spend the other day living life. This is an essential part of being productive and not having regrets as you lay on your death bed. There are so many things we can do, and if you say, well money is an issue, I never said anything about doing expensive things, living life doesn’t exclusively mean flying sound the world, it can be doing simple things with the people you love, enjoying your time on this planet, going to the beach, watching the sunset, enjoying a bottle of wine in the garden with family and friends, or even even spending some time on your own by going for a walk, hike, road trip by yourself. A lot of the time, the best ways to spend our time is right under our noses.

When’s the last time you got the family together and played charades or taboo? When’s the last time you tried out a new restaurant? When’s the last time you went on a road trip?

These are the times you should be saying You Only Live Once (YOLO) to encourage you to expand your life, not diminish it. I find that too many people abuse YOLO to do stupid things, but I guess that may just be my opinion.

You Only Live Once, So Put More Living in Your Life. Even the littlest of things can Put More Living in Your Day.

Straight From The Heart

Sunday Morning Reflections

Good Afternoon guys, got anything planned for today?

I got up at 5:30′ had my holy hour, had a few (actually more than a few) laughs watching Friends, took a 2 hour nap, did some errands, had lunch (which my sister cooked), cleaned up and now I’m here at Starbucks with my, you guess it right, my Café Mocha.

It’s been a good week, a week of picking up the pace, a week of recollecting my focus & a week of realisation, realising that I was going off track.

Restarting the practice of waking up early was not easy, it took a lot of will to beat the desire to just jump back under the covers, but when i did, I found a sense of satisfaction in my ability to do it. It made me feel a lot better, made me feel like my days were more productive. There’s just something about getting up early that makes me feel like I’ve started the day like a champion.

“leadership is shown by the human being who fights the urge to stay under the covers on cold day and throws on his/her running shoes to pound the pavement. Not because running miles on a forty morning is fun. But because it’s wise.” Robin Sharma

Over the next week I’m going to need to add more reading to my days, as well as injecting some exercise into my days.

Going back to the week that is just ending, there was fun involved but more importantly, there was the need to step up and start helping around the house. It’s not easy, not something I could just get used to instantly after having never to worry about this sort of thing to needing to do wash my own clothes and all that jazz, but you know what, i like it. It’s giving me a better sense of independence. I like being more in control of life, from the cleanliness of my room to the washing of my clothes to looking after the dogs. To just get this out of the way, yes I have lived a very comfortable life, chores were never part of my life, judge me if you will, All said and done, I think I’ve turn out pretty alright, so far.

So, on a whole, this week has not only been about taking back control and responsibility that I was letting slip out of my hand, but also taking on more. It’s giving me a bigger sense personal growth.

So on to the next week, getting back to class this week and also keeping my part time job. I’ve set a certain number of hours of work I’d like to reach each week and also a certain number of hours to review my uni work, so let’s see whether I achieve it this week. Alongside waking up early, exercising & reading daily. By achieving these goals over the next week, I’ll be on track to reliving the 6 great weeks I had at the beginning of my second coming and hopefully, take it to 8-10 weeks.

Straight From The Heart

Enjoy the Journey

Good Afternoon readers, The weekend is here, have a break, refuel, you know you need it, but also, don’t waste the weekend. The weekend is a time where you can create new moments & memories to add colour to your life. For most the work week was probably dull and full of well, work, is that how you want to remember your life when you look back? Yes we have to work, but they doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create spectacular memories with the people you love. Hilary Cooper said it well when she said, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away”.

Would you rather live a longer, duller life or a shorter, more memorable one? There really is no overall correct answer, just the correct answer to you.

But go out and do something this weekend, it doesn’t have to be something like sky diving or parasailing. Go meet loved ones and play some board games (check out Meeples Cafe in SS15 Subang Jaya), take your kids to the park this evening, gather the family and cuddle in front of the tv, take a short road trip to Melaka or Port Dickson, or maybe even a weekend away somewhere else. The Journey of Life is going to be full of potholes, so enjoy & experience as many Moments, without losing focus of what you want to achieve. Find they slender balance between work & play, otherwise known as the Work-Life Balance. It won’t always be in balance but keep trying, over time you can “average” it out.

So don’t waste this weekend, I understand that you need to rest the body, trust me I do, but also make sure you enjoy your Journey with the people you Love.

Straight From The Heart

Of Holy Hours & Bed Time Musings

Good Afternoon dear readers,

I’m chilling at Starbucks Jaya One, my Café Mocha wasn’t very good and the Baristas corrected that, they made me a fresh Café Mocha and now I’m enjoying it. As I write this, I’m not running at my normal levels, I’ve caught the bug that was distressing my mum and sister, felt it creeping up on me yesterday but no way was I going to miss The Dark Knight Rises. I took some panadol and went forth to enjoy 2 hours and 44 minutes of brilliance.

Last night before I went to bed, I pulled out my iPad and did some personal writing, what I’m calling Bed Time Musings, not exactly like the Holy Hour, but similar. I focus on the day itself and what I can do to make the following day better. That’s when I formulated my Hibernation Plan to fight the bug, I would sleep from 1-6am then wake up for my Holy Hour, then sleep again till noon then wake up to blog etc and then go back to sleep at about 3:30/4 and then wake up at about 7 have dinner and read for an hour, and go back to bed at 10pm. This was my plan to fight the bug, but also feel productive, that even as I was getting much needed rest, I was still being productive. (and so far the plan is on track). But anyway, after I formulated this plan during my BTMs I realised how important my Holy Hours (and now also BTM) were to me. They keep me on track, and since they became less regular, I’ve been less productive, fighting the Fibromyalgia less and sleepwalking through most of my days… Hence, my new priority is to make sure I wake up everyday at 6am, no matter what time in sleep, just for my Holy Hour, and if I need to go back to sleep after and to do my BTM every night, i already feel so much more productive after one day of this, even though I slept from 1am-6am & 7am-1130am. This morning during my Holy Hour I thought about so many things that I’ve been neglecting, so many things that I can improve on and so on, I’ve woken up again from my sleepwalk and am taking control again.

The post-it above speaks volumes. Clarity breeds success,and how to we achieve clarity? By being aware of what we want, and how do we become aware of what we want, what we need? By thinking. Too many of us are sleepwalking through our life’s, not thinking about the path we are taking, or how we can do better. We just go with the flow, just letting life act on us, instead to us acting on life. And why? Because we are unaware of the fact that we are wasting our potential, because we distract ourselves we trivial matters. It’s sort of like being stuck in The Matrix. It’s easier to just go with the flow, sometimes it painful to think about what we should be doing instead of just doing we want to do. Sometimes we just lack the discipline to keep a set time, daily to Think, (A Room of One’s Own). You don’t need to think about the complexities of life, just focus on you, focus on what you need to do to Keep Moving Forward, focus on getting Aware so that you can make the better Choices so that you can see better Results. Take control of your life. Act on life.

I’ve had a lot of fun over the last 2-3 weeks but it could have also had the fun and been productive if I didn’t neglect my thinking time, my Holy Hours. In order to ensure they I don’t go back to sleepwalking, I need to be consistent with my Thinking Times.

My new mission, get my body accustomed to waking up at 6am, make Holy Hours and Bed Time Musings a daily habit.

Straight From The Heart

Sunday Morning Reflections

The Third Place. The place between home and work. Surrounded by the buzz of humanity, alone yet not alone, with just the right music in the air. A nice working environment that doesn’t entirely make you feel that you’re at work. The meeting point of work and play. The casualness of home but the formality of work when needed. And of course, a nice hot beverage to keep the gears spinning.

Good Morning everyone! It’s a nice looking Sunday in PJ as I type this to you on my iPad at Starbucks, my Café Mocha just waiting. Feeling a little tired and brain a little foggy, so please pardon me of this piece isn’t up to par.

The week was quite a fun one, but it flew by, just one more week before classes start again. It was a mix of family, a little pinch of Game of Thrones strategy, a little alcohol on the side (ok maybe not a little), heart to hearts, childishness, roaming around & per hour wages.

Life is a journey, and of course along the way we grow… never do I become as aware of how much I have grown as when I am with my cousin. Whenever we are back together, we are kids again, for most of the time. Our relationship was full of idiocies, fun and other things like that, but over the past year it has matured. Our relationship has taken on a new level, one that is partially fuelled by flammable substances. We made a joke that we were now 8 year olds with access to alcohol, which does explain a part of the new dynamic, and the other part is one of mutual respect & growth. The dynamic is no longer exclusively owned by the minds of two children, but by two maturing minds trying to find a balance between childish behaviour and growing up.

In a way, I guess this exemplifies another more widespread dilemma, the fight between saving ones inner child in a world of continuous hurdles, pessimism and seriousness. Can one enjoy the little pleasures and fun as a child would as one grows up? Well, I will certainly try to. I’ve seen people who have done it, and I want to live like them. I don’t want to be a grumpy old man, or a person that is too serious. I want my journey to be fun (yes I know it won’t be all fun, I learnt that a while back), I want the fun times to be epic so that when I look back, I look at them instead of the all the hurdles. Yes I want to learn from all the falls, but I don’t want to look back at my life when I’m old and remember the hard times, sure the hard times are vital for growth but they aren’t the first things you want to rethink about when you reminisce. But maybe, that’s just me.

The week has been good, could have been more productive but overall I’m happy with it. Just want the coming week to be filled with earlier mornings, less fatigue, more swimming, better sleep, about 16 hours at Machines, laughter, fun & more awesome memories…. maybe a road trip?

Straight From The Heart

The Silver Lining

Good evening people, the above quote has nothing to do with today’s piece, but I thought I’d just share it with you anyway. I’m at Starbucks with my sis, cousin and friend, just enjoying the buzz of humanity during the Starbucks Happy Hour. I was cracking my head as to what to write today until recalled a conversation I had yesterday. Haven’t really put that much thought into it, so i think it’ll be short. Here it goes.

Life isn’t pretty, bad things happen, but ironically these events may eventually lead you to something better. If I never had to take my intermission from Monash, I would not have developed my blog and my writing, which has now become so very important to me. In a way, I’m actually glad that my symptoms flared up because they lead me to this… Arkay’s Thoughts.

Actually, if I take a look at the last 3 years, or actually my whole life, I really don’t think I would change much because each fall, mistake or stumble either taught me or lead me to something better in the long run. They’ve made me more patient, more appreciative to the life I have and the people that are in it. I’m learning how to handle defeat gracefully and how to not let it stop me. I’ve become a whole lot stronger. I won’t lie, there was many a time that I just wanted to give up, but there was always a voice in my head telling me to Keep Moving Forward, that I could do it. I haven’t been able to jump all the hurdles, but I’ve made it over a lot, some barely, but I made it over. I picked myself up and when back to class after I dropped out of MUWCI. I graduated a Merit Scholar from CPU and got the business award even after all the absences (thanks to fibro), I did well in my first sem, I fought back against the slump early this year, I sorted things with Monash and I’m going back to class again. None of it was easy, but you know what… All the work was worth it. My family and friends were there to help me up when I was down and didn’t want to get up, they believed in me, when I didn’t believe in myself, and they played a huge part in my life, not just over the past 6 months, but over the past 22 years. I wouldn’t have made it even half this distance without them, especially my parents.

Every fall, every knock, every wrong turn, every mistake… They have lead me here, and I will continue to learn from them, for now they are no longer mistakes, but experiences. Lessons learnt. Memories.

Look for the silver lining, please. Because if you don’t, you’ll end up looking at life through dark tinted glass. I’m not saying that you should be that absolute optimist, but if you want to be happy, look for the sliver lining, it’ll make a big difference to the way your live life. Sort of like the glass half-full versus the glass half empty.

Look for the silver lining, it won’t always be easy, but mot of the time, it’s worth it.

Straight From The Heart

Sunday Morning Reflections

Good Morning readers, How are you feeling today? Sunday is day of such mixed feelings. You’re happy to have the day off yet, you know that tomorrow is the start of another work week. I guess all you can really do is enjoy this beautiful Sunday and worry about work tomorrow.

And this is partly why i have moved the Reflections blog from Saturday to Sunday, because Sunday it the the baton is passed from the week before to the week to come, it is the transition day into a new week, hence why I thought Sunday would be a better day to reflect, not just on the week before, not just on the week to come, but also to reflect in general, because I just don’t do enough of that.

So coming to you live from Starbucks Jaya One, (which was coincidently
launched on my birthday a few years back) I bring you the debut of Sunday Morning Reflections. Enjoy.

It’s quite ironic (not sure if I’m using the word correctly) that as I write this, I’m actually staring at my own reflection in the iPad. The one thing we all know is that life isn’t easy, it isn’t straight forward. There are plenty of ups and downs and your outlook on life really depends on how you want to look at it, it’s really quite up to you.
I spent a huge chunk of last week recovering from the festivities of my cousins wedding, as I mentioned in a previous post, it was tiring, dramatic, stressful, a helluva lot of fun and worth it. Even as I woke up the first few mornings of the week in pain, muscles aching and tired as hell, I never once regretted doing what I did at the wedding, which was dancing like a god damn mad man. Nothing in life is free, and I knew that all that fun and dancing would have its price. Yea sure,the wedding took 3/4 days away from me, but at the end of the day:

On that note, what I realised a while back, that it’s not about the number of friends you have but the quality of the friends you have. Now I’m not saying to stop making friends or close yourself of from the social world, but too make sure you know who your best friends are, because these will be the guys and girls who will have your back and love you for who you are despite our flaws. Go ahead and make friends, don’t stop making friends but don’t neglect your Team, your Crew. And along the journey of life your Team may grow, who knows. Over the past 2 weeks I’ve made some new friends and I want to get to know them better, but there were also friendship that were strained and unfortunately, some that we’re lost. But that is life, there are friends who come for a reason, others for a season and the most important ones for life.

Life is going to have plenty of moments that will test you, whether it revolves around your family, your friends, your health or your work, you must have the self-belief that you can fight it, cause if you don’t, the battle has been lot even before it has started. And whether you win or lose, moving on is essential.

Straight From The Heart

Being Grateful

Good Morning dear readers, I’m at my usual spot with my Café Mocha, thinking of gratitude and life, but before all that…

It’s the end of the workweek, time to look forward to the weekend! Hope you guys had a good week, if you did, enjoy the weekend, if you didn’t, enjoy the weekend. Take a break, crack open a Kit Kat, go get a massage and on Sunday night get a good nights sleep to prep yourself for the following week.

So back to the point, today’s post is about gratitude, about being grateful for my life. There are two ways you can live life, be grateful for what you have, appreciate it and if you want, work for more, or you can compare your life to others, complain about what you don’t have and be miserable. Above all else, happiness is a state of mind.

Why am I writing about this? Well last week I was in Penang and my dad got us great rooms at G Hotel, and once we were inside, I looked at my sister and told her, “we live damn good life’s.” I am grateful to my parents for all they have done, for providing me with whatever they can manage, for always taking care of us, for giving us a very comfortable life. When I was down and out, they were all over the place, looking for anything that could help me. I have a great family, i have a fantastic team of friends, I’m blessed with a pretty decent mind and so many other things.

However, I could go the other way and say that my health has been a problem from before I cod remember, I could say that in terms of education I’m behind my peers, I could say that my love life hasn’t been great, I could say so many things… In the end, it’s all about whether you see the glass as half-empty or half-full. I choose to look at the things I have going for me and appreciate them, and no, I’m not going to ignore the ‘not-so-good’ stuff, I will keep them in mind simply because I would like to work on them. I want to one day live a life, pain, fog and fatigue free, live a life where my peers look up to me in my field, live a life with someone special, live as good a life as I can.

We all have problems, our problems are relative to our own life’s. Some may be bigger than others, but to our own eyes, it is still a problem. But don’t let your problems and difficulties cloud the good in your life, I let that happen for a long time and you know what, I was not a very happy person then. All you can do in life, is your best, watch the piece fall in place and either celebrate & Keep Moving Forward or move on and Keep Moving Forward. (Onward Ho! as the pirates would have said)

Life will be filled with moments, some good and some bad, it’s entirely up to you which you want to make matter more in your life.

My health has been a pain for as long as I can remember, it hasn’t been easy but it doesn’t mean that my life isn’t awesome. Read the quit below by W. Mitchell and I think you’ll get a better picture of what I’m trying to say.

Before I was paralyzed, there were 10,000 things I could do. Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1000 I lost or on the 9000 I have left.” W. Mitchell

Be grateful for the life you live, cause it could be a lot worse.

Straight From The Heart

Deep Work

Good Morning/Good Afternoon guys,

Thanks for joining me today. My plan of waking up early crashed and burnt, but I’ll try again tomorrow. The body aches were quite bad this morning, but hey, life’s like that, ups and downs. I had a helluva weekend and now it’s time to pay the piper. I am at Starbucks Monash, just sitting, thinking and sipping. My phone is on silent in a corner as I focus on the task at hand, as I focus on thinking and writing. I have initiated Ghost Protocol so that I may concentrate and do some ‘Deep Work’ as Robin Sharma calls it.

Too many of us get distracted whilst we are trying to focus on the task at hand, and though many would like to blame technology and social media for this, they are not to blame, we are. If we cannot concentrate on a task, if we get distracted by a message or a FB notification or a tweet, it’s not your phones fault, or Facebook’s fault or Twitter’s fault, it’s yours. Turn on airplane mode if you have too, put your phone on silent and tuck it under a pillow. Have some discipline.

Put aside a chunk of time to do some deep work or thinking, go Ghost Protocol. We all need A Room of One’s Own. Set some time aside, put your phone away and just get to work, do some deep, quality work, and when your done, you’ll be happy that you did it. You won’t regret not replying the message from a friend asking you to hangout, as long as you’ve made full use of that 1 or 2 or 3 hour chuck to do some deep work full of quality. And hey, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t make it a full session without getting distracted, you don’t get to genius without first being a beginner and making mistakes. Just make sure you Keep Moving Forward , small daily improvements will lead to stunning results over time.

So what are you waiting for, go forth and do some deep work. Start small and Keep Moving Forward. Go start with 30 minutes without distractions and when you succeed in keeping 100% concentrated for that chunk of time, increase it, keep improving. And then one day, you’ll be able to put in 3/4 hours of full force deep work and then, you’ll realise that your productivity and quality has reached a whole new level of genius, simply because you got rid of distractions for a chunk of time and kept making small daily improvements.

We all make mistakes in this journey we call life, don’t let it stop you.

So Keep Moving Forward, go Ghost Protocol when you need to and most importantly, make sure you take responsibility and accountability for your life.

Straight From The Heart

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