Good Timber By Douglas Malloch 

The tree that never had to fight
     For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
     And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
     But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
     To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
     Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
     But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,
     The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
     The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
     In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth
     We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
     Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
     This is the common law of life. 

nowadays i'm circling back to the topics of.. why am I doing the things that i'm doing? am I happy where I am right now? why is there a sense of discontentment? what is my drive? what does it mean to live such a life? what is earning money about? how much is enuf? do we even need so much? what do I want to achieve in life?

it seems like a lot of people are lost in the pursuit of more money.. more status.. quick fix.. instant gratification.. we are consuming at a rate that is unprecedented.. nature is suffering the consequences.. and soon or maybe even now humans are already being affected..

do I want to go down the road of overconsumption? do I need a house? what is all these money for?

it seems like i'm well on my way to a secured retirement with cpf, investments and insurance.. maybe a little more investments in shares to put some money in diff pots for just in case..

then what? I ask myself.. then what? is this all there is to life? to get out of the rat race?

I want to think that there is more.. that life has more meaning than this.. so what is it? how do I find what it is?

is money the blinkers? is family the restrictions imposed on you? what about society's interpretations?

what if money is no issue.. what would I want to do? where would I want to go? who would I want to be with?

it feels like life right now is a mirage.. all the planning and the chasing is for an expected future which may or may not appear..

we would not know what the future holds.. what is our insight for the future?

01 Jan 2019

The first day of the new year.

2018 had been an eventful year.. lots of highs and lows.. there were a lot of learning points..

I look ahead at 2019 with trepidation. It stems from the multitude of tasks that needs to be accomplished at work, the new role that I'm still growing into and the uncertainty of what will be happening in the coming months.

It seems like I have somewhat neglected my health and I hope that 2019 is the time where I can address it.

My mind is disjointed right now, most likely due to the stress and the lack of sleep that I have been experiencing in the recent months. It is a warning sign that I am burning out and it would be in my best interest to heed the warning before it is too late. I really do want to recover my full mental faculties, nothing is worth losing any clarity of mind.

Recently, I have been thinking more and more about what is worthwhile in life, to pursue or to put effort in, to the extent of possibly harming one's well being in order to accomplish something. I also wonder about whether the way I have been throwing myself at work is sustainable or not. Moreover, what is the purpose or fulfilment of it all? What did I gain? What did I lose? These are the questions that revolve around my mind quite frequently in the past month or so. Is there meaning to live like this?

What else is out there for me? Where should I go? What should I do? Can I ignore/let go of the responsibilities that others put on me and those that I put on myself? Why do we trap ourselves with never ending liabilities? What does it mean to truly be free?

Free of social constructs.. such as a career.. a stable income.. owning a house.. moving up in life.. betterment of self.. the should dos... the should haves..

If we strip ourselves to the bone and rebuild it up.. what would we be? what could we be?

There is no way of sugar coating it..


The past two months had been tough. it had been hell. It had been almost as bad as how I imagined it to be. The only saving grace was the help that was given/offered by our colleagues and the support of the bosses that we could survive till now.


I do not believe that nobody is irreplaceable. Everyone has a place, everyone has at least a strength, a skill or a knowledge that is integral to the success of a company. Anyone who leaves will leave a gap that takes time to be re-filled.


It's been tough working with not much knowledge and resources at hand. It made me appreciate the effort and the care that it took for my ex-manager to ensure the team was running smoothly. We miss her so much~.


There is still a last lap to all these craziness and we are all in dire need for rest. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that we do not have to deal with any more last minute crises.

01 01 2018

A brand new year..

I wonder what the new year would bring..

It's already feeling very different from the years before..

I hope that I can rise up to the challenges that will be presented to me..

I hope I gain the courage to approach some things and some people that I have always wanted to..

I hope that I am worthy of the trust, care and concern that other give me freely..

I hope I have the strength to pull through the tough times ahead..

I hope I have grown enough to be able to handle what comes my way..

I hope that by the end of the year, I am a wiser and better person.

I do know that nothing falls from the skies and onto our laps so I'm gonna work hard when I can, rest when I need to and hope for the best.

Taipei Solo Trip - Day 1

Technically day zero was also sort of overlapping into day one but we r not in Taipei yet so.. hahaha.

Taoyuan airport is surprisingly empty. Two observations here.. One thing i did realise was that the wifi is cheaper to be bought here than back home. Another is that.. though the high speed rail is super fast.. waiting for the bus to the rail station and the journey there was not worth the whole effort of cutting time. It's definitely better to travel by the metro.

 After almost an hour (see! totally not worth the money spent) i finally reached taipei main station. It is a super huge n complex underground system that connects to a lot of different places.

 I finally managed to check in at my hotel at 8am but that means that i had like almost 7 hours to burn before i could be given a room. Gah.. no more red eye. 7 hours is freaking long when you have no slept the previous night. I dragged my cold sorry ass in search of good food to comfort my weary body.

However, it was not meant to be.. after 15 mins of walking and passing by the famous doujiang place which was packed with ppl.. i could not find my jinfeng braised meat place at ximen. Sigh.. i was so disappointed that i went in search on huayin and lungshan temple.

Funny that i kept walking pass food places and refusing to eat cos it does not look appealing or smells nice.. i was so bloody hungry that i could eat a cow. I ended up somewhere near lungshan temple and ate at a roadside store.. it was ok.. quite cheap too.

Thankfully i managed to get a good reading at the temple and it warmed my soul. Despite the rain thru out the day and the mishap with what happened before reaching the temple and the constant rain.. it was looking to be a good day.

After the temple, i went in search for ximending. It was quite quiet since it was still very early. Not much shops were open, and not many people were walking around. Tried to burn as much time as i could there.

Went to view an old mansion cos it was still early to check in. Best decision ever as i chance upon a braised meat shop that smelled super mouth watering. Of course it was decided that my lunch would be there.

After lunch.. finally went back to my hotel n got a room.. bathed and slept till 8pm.. hahhaahah..

Woke up, went back to xmd and ate the famed ah zong and also rose salt beef cube that my cousin raved about.. yumz. Though the night time xmd atmosphere was good.. the mood was dampened by the rain that came out of no where n got heavier.. no shopping for me....

Finally went back to the hotel after a failed shopping attempt. Shall call it a day.

____________________________________________________________________

Day 2 to 5

There is a lot to write about.. but I guess the most impt thing was that I enjoyed my trip.. it was eye opening.. it was carefree..  it was peaceful.. and it was something that i needed.

I'm gonna go back there again! so many place that I have yet to visit nor fully explored..

yeliu... jingguashi.. hualien.. and many other places..

maybe I will try a dorm or a minshu next time~

Taipei Solo Trip - Day 0

3 hours early for my flight and I burned some of it eating macs.. macs is almost like a tradition of sorts for predeparture at T2.. and talking about this.. I'm reminded of you again when i think about T2 macs..


I'm super glad that I no longer am as guai as I was cos otherwise I would have wasted my time waiting to collect my wifi device at the scheduled timing. It pays to ask and to check out the details.


I thot I would have a smooth trip from there on but alas.. it was not to be. I was stopped by the scoot employee before i could enter departure gates. It went down hill from there.. cos I knew that my bags were more than 10kg despite having packed super light and the only heavy thing was my office laptop and its charger. I really should have left the laptop at home.. sigh.. it caused me quite a bit of grief. Anyways, I attempted to lighten my load by removing liquids from my bag and putting portable stuff on me cos I sure as hell won't pay 40 bucks for 3kg of weight. I guess the scoot employee saw my determination and gave up trying to squeeze some money out of me and he let me through.

The flight itself was... challenging.. trapped in the window seat with a fidgety coughing kid, cold, hungry and unable to fall asleep.. remind me not to ever get on a red eye ever again. And maybe it's time to buy a jacket that is warm enuf..

I was so glad when the plane finally landed and I could get out.

What would you do, if you knew you couldn't fail?
How big would you play, if you knew that you could survive any heartbreak, any breakdown, any betrayal?
What would you do if the things that you were afraid of, were absolutely nothing but the opportunity to get stronger in your faith, stronger in your resiliency?
What would you do? Who would you love? How big would you play? Where would you leap?
How would the world benefit differently? How would the world benefit differently because of who you decided to be?
How would the world be a better place to live because fear didn't have you standing on the edge?
What would you do if you were told that you get to do it afraid, that you don't have to wait for the fear to leave, that you get an action, the fear gets to dissipate into the nothingness that it always was?
What would you do? How would life be different? How would the world be a better place to live?


You will have to reprogram the fibers of your being. You will have to become someone that you have never been before.
You want to go somewhere that you have never gone before? You'll have got to do something you have never done, you've got to say something that you have never said, you've got to go to a place in you that you have never even been.


I stand here in my greatness. I own my light! I own my brilliance! I am Bold, I am Courageous, I am Perfect in my imperfection. This is my time. This is my time! I'm Bright enough, I'm old enough, I'm experienced enough, I'm wise enough, I understand that I. Am. Enough!

I accept that my fear will be in the car with me, but it will not be in the driver seat!

I am ready for my next best season because I know that I am the author of my autobiography. I am the designer of my own destiny. I am writing my life story and I'm writing a life story that I'm gonna love reading, and others will be inspired by. On one page, they will read my fears and on the next page, they will know I did it anyway. I commit to hold fear in one hand and passion in the other and leap. And leap. And leap! Every time. Every time! i ask that each of you hold me accountable for my contribution on this planet. Don't let me off the hook.


~ all by Lisa Nichols

i need more focus..

i need more drive..

i need more SOPs and check lists..

the past two months had been challenging.. my weaknesses/flaws are starting to show.. maybe i should say.. my points of improvements have presented themselves.

my focus seems to be shifting towards how i feel about the mistakes that i make at work and how ill-suited my weaknesses are for such a role.. i feel that i have not risen to meet the challenge and have found myself drowning in the crashing tides. drowning and unsure of how to ask for help and what to ask for help for..

maybe i'm just tired from driving myself too hard.. maybe i've been attaching to much meaning to all of these.. is my expectations of myself realistic? am i suited for what i am doing? am i on the right path? y am i doing all this? what is it for?

i hope that i get out of this funk soon..

can't believe that i'm planning my solo trip to TW!

half filled with trepidation and half with excitement. it's been a struggle to convince myself to do it.. battling with long forgotten fears and anxieties.. pushing myself to work thru them or learn to manage them as i plan this trip.

it's funny to think that people all over the world past and present travel long distances or live away from their family from a very young age and here is a 32 yr old who is worried about travelling to a nice and friendly country that uses a language that she is familiar with. what a sheltered life i've lived.

i've been building.. my confidence.. my independence.. my coping mechanisms to my anxieties..

sometimes i wonder if my anxieties are not my own but was instilled to me since young. i would really love to find out the root cause of it.

maybe i will find my answer during the trip.

i'm anticipating quite a bit of things that would be brought to head in this trip.

*reminder to bring laptop to write them all down..

this is the first time that i felt truly at ease at the workplace. like a... i belong here and my skills/knowledge/ability is wat this place/team/company needs.. comfortable in my own skin.. of course there are times when i feel anxious that i'm unable to meet the expectations.. and there are times when i wonder if i could handle what is thrown at me.. but i think the past few years had trained me well.. did my best to manage my own expectations, emotions and the workload.

this sort of marks the end of a tumultuous period in my life even though i'm only technically freed after the 30th.

it was unexpected and harrowing time to say the least and definitely one of the darkest period that i have been through. dark in the sense that i feel like i was sucked into another world and lost myself. a side of me that i never knew came out and i'm unsure as to how to process that. it is like Alice in Nightmareland.

maybe i am a tad dramatic in my description but if you are the one experiencing it, you would feel so as well.

well.. with every great upheaval, comes great opportunity for growth. i believe these lessons will serve me well in life.

onward to the next adventure!

change is here again.. and i am not adapting as quietly to it as i used to.. it seems like this company keeps bringing out different sides of me that i have never known..

this time round it's terrifying and exciting at the same time seeing how people react to this new side of me.. and also, to flex that muscle that i never knew i had, has been exhilarating.. i'm not sure if it is a "right way" to handle, but it's first time in my life that i find that i'm not just bending to the winds as they sweep into my life..  

to be able to see the wind as it is and finding a way to harness it's strength is totally something new.. and to be fearless in what lies ahead, opens up a lot of possibilities.. it is the first time that i am anticipating what will happen and actively taking steps to meet the challenges head on..

with it also came a lot of unidentifiable emotions that sprang up and i am still learning how to deal with them.. there is an underlying unhappiness/irritation that seems to spill on to my daily life.. there is also a brashness that accompany the way i talk which i do not appreciate.. and sometimes melancholy creeps in at the most random moments.. probably a result of the loss of my spontaneous and carefree nature.. probably cos sometimes i find myself a little too mercenary with the way i see and plan for things nowadays.. the pure desire to just give and service is lost.. for now.. i hope..

Drama after drama kept happening at the workplace. The dust is finally settling..

I'm glad that my road is getting brighter and clearer from now on.

Question of the day.. am I a dog or a cat?

I might have developed a minor addiction to using hp constantly...

I have been curbing my data usage since two days ago. The woes of having only 6gb of data avaliable. The curbing made me realise that I use my phone's game or apps to distract my mind quite often throughout the day. If find myself reaching for my phone every 5 to 10 mins if I'm idle on the train or doing nothing.

Have I turned into someone who is afraid to be alone with their own mind?

I have always, for the longest time, classified myself as a passive person. Throughout my childhood and all the way to adolescence, I've never had a goal or a dream that was created solely because I have a strong desire to achieve, it was all about what my parents wanted, or what was expected of me from the people around me. I've always been very adaptable to the situations that were thrown at me or with the restrictions that were imposed on me by my loved ones. I melded the best I could and I was comfortable doing so, sometimes even happy to be able to oblige. I have never fought hard for anything or anyone. I was never the one to rush ahead of the crowd, never the one to lead.. always the follower.

Putting those observations aside, for the past 8 to 10 years of my life, I have been doing my best to work myself out of this passiveness. Having armed myself with a better understanding of human behavior with my years as a Psychology undergrad and the pile of self improvement books that I have read, I refused to be stuck in the little box that labeled me as passive. I took steps, big and small steps.. even steps that led me backwards instead of forward. What I'm saying is that it took me effort to work towards being proactive, to not sit back and give people the wheels of my life. I won't say that I'm 100% proactive now, but there is definitely a huge difference then and now and I'm proud of it and of me for having come so far.

So, you could say that I was almost a hundred percent sure that I was "born" a passive personality and that I'm working against "nature" to nurture myself to becoming more proactive. Little did I know that a conversation with a friend would shake this almost unshakable belief. It started off as a random conversation about work and some observations about how passive or proactive some of our colleagues were and I got curious about how she would perceive me. We are relatively new colleagues that bonded at work and it always interests me to know how different people from different settings would perceive me based on what limited interactions they have with me. Hence, I popped her the question of "Do you think I'm a passive or a proactive person?" and as expected, she replied saying that she sees me as a proactive person. I've expected that answer partially because I know I might come off as a proactive person at work and I also believe that the person I am right now has moved quite far away from the passive end of the spectrum. I was explaining to her the reason that she sees me as a proactive person is that I am a passive person that works hard at being proactive on a daily basis. And her reply to me was " Have you ever thought it could be that you are born with a proactive personality but due to circumstances of your childhood became passive and believed you are so due to your retroactive introspection?" Well, she didn't say it in so many words but the gist of her question gave me a big pause and gave my brain a huge desire to rewind and re-code/map my actions and behaviors based on this new idea that she postulated.

My head is still spinning from it and as always.. it might take me a while to fully come to any conclusion..

Today sucked.

clarity and truth...

lol.. world peace..