Month: December 2020

What you see is what you get?

In hindsight, things begin to reveal their true selves and only then do we see the bigger picture better.

What is it supposed to mean? There’s more to a situation than meets the eye!

Since the early December, I’ve written two posts about the unlucky events that happened to me around that time.

If you haven’t read them yet, here’s a quick recap:

Back luck number 1. I got a flat tyre while driving my way to The Northern Beaches. As a result, I didn’t end up going.

Back luck number 2. A few days later, my car hit the front gate of the tyre store while I was bringing it to the service area. As a result, I couldn’t go again.

Both incidents have left a bad taste in my mouth. They ruined my Sunday plans. Not only my time was wasted, my money also went out the window.

Well, that was then, What about now? I count myself lucky. It turns out they were in fact a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t have known in the first place.

Due to a cluster of coronavirus cases in The Norther Beaches, the government has declared it to be a high-risk area and imposed a lockdown there since last weekend. The health authority says that anyone who was in around the area in the past 3 weeks, should go and do a swab test and self isolate at home for 14 days.

Lucky me!

I won’t bore you with all other details here. But I guess the moral of the story is: We sometimes describe something as terrible, bad or negative, but later when new developments start to come out, they completely rewrite history. Vice versa.

If anything that’s bothering, annoying or upsetting you at the present time, hold your breath. Don’t write it off just yet. You may be surprised that in the ensuing days, weeks or even months, you no longer see it the same way as it was a while ago.

Time will tell. As life evolves, so do you. You’ll gain new knowledge, new perspectives and new understanding of what went on. Perhaps by then, you may see it was a blessing in disguise…

Bad luck. The bad news is: It happens to everyone. It’s part of life. The good news is: It has an expiry date. It doesn’t last.

I recently had a talk with my mentor Steve about a string of unfortunate events that’d happened to me. I attributed them all to one thing: Bad luck. Instead of going along with it, he simply said: No, I don’t think it’s bad luck, that’s life!

It got it.

Generally we describe bad luck as something happens in a wrong place at a wrong time. For the sake of argument, any place can be a wrong place and any time can be a wrong time. Bad luck is so random that no one can say conclusively it follows a particular format or formula.

Some say everything happens for a reason. But more often than not we have doubts about what constitutes a good reason. Even we have a good reason to believe it, it doesn’t necessarily take away or lessen the pain.

2020 it sucks, big time. As the year draws to a close, let’s hope we all finish on a good note. The other day I felt a bit hopeless when I was having flashbacks to those sagas in my life. You can’t help but wonder: OK, bad luck comes in threes, now one out of way, what’s next?

Perhaps it’s not all the doom and gloom. Everyone has that fighting spirit they can call on. The moment I started to feel hopeful is when I faced up to the reality and did something about it. Actually, there’s a bunch of people who will lend you a helping hand if you ask. I must also stress: Don’t use shortcuts to solve your problem. Do it properly. Even if it means going the extra mile, you do it once and for all. You’ll thank yourself for it later.

Friends and family can give us a sympathetic ear in our hour of need, but they can only take so much. For matters that are trickier or more technical, it’s better if we consult with professionals for their expertise and pay them for their services.

Bad luck isn’t the be-all and end-all. When you take the bad with the good and when you take a bold step to deal with a mess it leaves behind, you’ll discover strengths and patience that you didn’t know you had. And that’s your secret weapon…

Your voice may have a far-reaching effect than you realize.

Should I or shouldn’t I? When we can’t make up our minds, we normally turn to our family or friends for advice. Sometimes they express their views based on own preferences or biases, which may not serve our best interest. Other times they’re just like us, have no clue themselves. Wat do you do in this instance? Where would you seek a second opinion? Well, that’s when Google search engine comes in.

One day last week I woke up having this compulsion. I felt an overwhelming urge to buy one of those Samsung new tablets on the market. I’d done my research, I’d watched those product reviews on YouTube, I’d been thinking about it for days and I could afford it. What am I waiting for? Well, I only had one last hurdle to cross – To convince myself that I really need one.

Before I got too carried away, I thought I’d better check on Google to see if anyone had written anything about it. So, on the search box I typed in a sentence: Do I need to buy a tablet? Within seconds, a whole range of related sites popped up in front of me. As I was scrolling, I found a post written in 2018 to be very helpful.

Even though it was published a while ago, the information in the article is still relevant to today. The writer presented both sides of the argument for and against with the bold headings: Reasons to buy and Reasons not to buy.

After reading through some key points, I decided: I don’t need one, I’m not going to buy one.

The writer of this post is what I call a real influencer. I bet he wouldn’t have thought of that.

Let’s face it, what we’ve written on social media or in our blogs are short-lived. Because it comes and goes, it’s easy to think that it may not have an impact on others in any way, shape or form. Think again! Two weeks or two months or two years from now, some random readers out there may come across your writing and find it super useful and valuable.

Want to become a real influencer? A real influencer is here for the long-haul. The curve will certainly go up and down but you never know how far your writing will travel to and how many lives it’ll touch…

A couple of recent incidents got me thinking about The Law of Attraction.

While we all want to attract good fortunes to our lives, sometimes we inadvertently “invite” opposites to ourselves, too.

To write a post about this topic while I’m still living through the aftermath of the events is not easy. But as I found out many times in the past, writing is healing. So, I’m going to hold on one more time.

How did it all begin? Let me set the scene first. Last Sunday was a scorching hot day reaching 40 degrees ℃. On top of that, the wild gusty winds only intensified and made it worse.

It’d be no fun to engage in any outdoor activities under these conditions. Given the soaring heat might do some damage to the wheels of my car, I decided to postpone my beach day till Tuesday when the forecast said it was going to be mild.

When Tuesday came, I did exactly that – driving to a beach! After only 5 minutes on the road, I noticed a driver in the next lane wanting to tell me something. I opened the window and heard him saying: You’ve got a flat tyre at the back. At first, I thought he was joking as I hadn’t felt any difference. But later I started to feel a bit funny, so I decided to turn back and check what was going on. And? Yes, he was right. I’ve got a flat tyre! The last thing I needed. First things first, I quickly called roadside assistance for help.

OK, it was bad luck. But I should also factor in another thing – I took a different route, instead of an usual route to avoid a traffic jam.

The whole thing led me to think: Do we attract to what we try to avoid?

The incident ruined my plan, it was inconvenient and annoying. But later that day I asked myself this question: Can I take the bad with the good?

Yes, I was grateful for the driver in the next lane, I almost ignored him. If not for him, I could’ve been in a worse situation – a car accident or something. I was also thankful for the guy from roadside assistance who came to my aid. He changed the flat tyre and replaced it with a spare tyre I had in the back of my car. While waiting for him to do the job, there was a raging storm happening. I remember he said at least we are inside the car park, not outside getting wet!

I finished the day on a positive note.

Just when I thought I’d got my fair share of bad luck, another incident soon followed two days later. It was spooky but a long story short. To comply with a scheduled clean of the garage area, I needed to remove my car from the parking lot and leave it on the street unattended. I thought I was already out, why not stopping by a tyre shop to get the flat tyre repaired.

For the sake of easy parking and some better Google reviews, I picked this tyre shop in a less busier street, instead of the one next to the highway.

While there, I was told to park my car in the designated service area. To do that, I’d have to reverse a little and then make a left turn towards it. Within seconds, I heard a big bang. My heart sank when I realized my car had hit their front gate.

It was way more than I’d bargained for. I was meant to go there to solve a small problem – a flat tyre, now I got myself a bigger problem – a smashed car. More money will go out the window. I was in disbelief.

What can I say? Or more importantly, what can I learn from these? Don’t tempt fate? Don’t try to get things done in a rush or at your convenience? Don’t open the floodgates to mishaps? Better leave nothing to chance?

Things I tried to avoid, ended up happening in succession. Perhaps avoidance is another form of reinforcement.

I’m still upset over the latest episode. Part of me wants to figure everything out, but another part me wants to let it go. At the end of the day, it’s only a car. As time goes by, I feel I’m leaning more towards to forgiving myself. And I will not try to avoid it this time…