Cogito ergo scribo

During the Sunday sermon, our pastor told us a short story which i would like to share here. I did a search on the Web and found the same story, but i will re-tell the story in my own words:

A group of frogs were leaping through the woods one day and two fell into a deep pit. The two fallen frogs then tried to jump out of the pit but it was too deep and they could not make it despite several attempts.

All the other frogs gathered around the pit and looked down into the hole. They saw how deep the pit was and believed that it was not possible for any frog to jump that high.

"Just give it up. It is too deep. You are as good as dead!" They shouted at the two frogs repeatedly. They kept on telling the two to stop and accept their fate.

After failing to leap out of the pit after so many attempts and hearing what the others were saying, one of the frogs finally heeded the advice of the other frogs and gave up. It then died in the pit.

The other fallen frog, on the other hand, continued jumping harder and harder. At the end, it finally managed to leap out of the deep pit successfully. When he was out of the pit, all the other frogs asked him, "Why did you keep on jumping despite us telling you to stop?"

It turned out that this frog was deaf and thought that all the other frogs were cheering for him and encouraging him the entire time!

Moral of the story: There is power in our words, and often it can be the power of life and death in our tongue. Words of encouragement to people who are down can lift them up and even be the force to help them through the difficulties, whereas destructive words may be the last draw that kills a person.

Here's a nice little clip of a variation to this story I found on the Web: The Little Frog.

Labels: story

A: Remember my ex-girlfriend Sandy? She's getting married next week.

B: Really? So you are going to her wedding?

A: Nay, she didn't invite me. Actually we kinda lost contact after the break-up. I heard the news from a mutual friend.

B: Oh, so are you gonna call her to congratulate her?

A: I don't think so lah... It will be kinda awkward to call her up out of the sudden. Anyway, i'm glad that she has found her happiness.

B: Uh huh...


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


B: Hey, do you remember A's ex-girlfriend?

C: Erm, by the name of Sandy, right?

B: Ya, you know what... she's getting married soon. And she didn't invite A to her wedding.

C: Hmm, i'm not surprised actually. Their break-up was quite nasty.

B: Yes, i guess that's why they don't speak to each other anymore. A didn't even wanna give her a call to congratulate her. He said he's happy for her, but he wasn't smiling at all when he said that.

C: Really? Then maybe he's not genuinely happy for her loh...


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


C: Ei, did you hear about what happened to A?

D: Huh, no. What happened?

C: His ex-girlfriend is getting married very soon and he won't be at her wedding.

D: Really? You mean they can't be friends anymore after the break-up?

C: No, they hate each other. A doesn't even wanna give her his wishes. He isn't happy about her getting married at all. Apparently, they haven't let go of the unhappy past.

D: Wow, i never expected A to be this kind of man leh...


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


D: You know what happened to A recently?

E: No. What?

D: He was very upset about his ex-girlfriend getting married in a few days time. He isn't going to attend the wedding and refuses to wish for her happiness.

E: Are you serious? But i thought their relationship ended long time ago?

D: Yes, but it seems they still haven't let go of their old feelings.

E: Ya, i do remember how deeply in love they were with each other...


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


E: Did you contact your good friend recently?

F: Who? You mean A? No, we haven't been keeping in touch for a few months already. Why leh?

E: Oh, so you didn't know about his ex-girlfriend getting married within these few days?

F: Huh, Sandy getting married? No, i didn't know that.

E: Well, A refused to go to her wedding and even hoped that she wouldn't be happy in her marriage. He's probably still in love with her after all these years.

F: Huh, then he must be feeling really bad now. I must talk to him...


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


F: Hello, A, are you feeling alright?

A: Huh? Yes, i'm ok. Why did you ask such strange question?

F: I heard from someone that Sandy is getting married tomorrow or the day after, and you didn't wanna attend her wedding. Why leh? It has been such a long time.

A: What? No lah, she didn't invite me to her wedding.

F: Is it so? Don't tell me that you still can't get over her? Hey friend, let it go lah... you gotta move on...

A: WTF??!!!

---

Fact #1: Everyone likes to gossip about others.

Fact #2: We selectively register some, but not all, parts of a message into our minds.

Fact #3: We form our own truth based not on facts but our perceptions.

Fact #4: Facts always get distorted through the communication channels.

Fact #5: A rumour about you will always find its way back to you, and most of the time it's gonna be nasty.

Labels: story

Today, i'm gonna relate an incident that happened a few months ago. By telling this story, it serves two purpose. Firstly, it proves that i'm actually a bad person who's capable of doing very bad things. And secondly, there are lessons to be learnt from this incident.

Our company controls the access to the main building through Employee Pass Card. We gotta scan the Card at the lift to access any floor in the main building. There's a time setting to the access though. The Card only works between 8.20am to 8pm by default for all normal employees. The Management and some special staffs, such as the security guards, have extended access time. If a normal employee needs to have different access time, request has to be submitted to the Management, and once approved, the Facility Manager will have to program the Card for the special access time.

This access time control was a problem for me. I arrived at the company very early every morning, sometimes before 7.30am, even though the official working time begins at 8.30am. I was, and still am, always the first person to arrive at the company every day. However, i couldn't get into the building, or rather, i couldn't get to the floor where my seat was because my Card couldn't operate the lift at such early hour. So what i did was to sleep in the car until 8am, the time when the entrance at the staircase would be unlocked, and i could walk up the stairs to the office floor.

Then one morning, i decided to make use of the time to blog with the PC at the reception desk in the lobby. When i was waiting for the PC to start up, i opened the drawer of the reception desk and saw the receptionist's Employee Pass Card. I tried the Card at the lift and to my delight, the Card worked even before 8am! So i thought i found myself a solution -- i could use her Card to go up to the office floor.

I tried scanning her Card at the lift, pressed the number of the floor, ran back to the reception desk to put the Card back to the drawer, and ran to the lift again. I couldn't make it at all as the lift would have gone up the floor already. I tried it several times, but no matter how fast i tried to run, there was no way that i could reach the lift in time from the reception desk.

Then i decided to bring her Card to the office floor with me. I figured that as long as i put the Card back to the drawer before the receptionist arrived, she wouldn't notice i used her Card at all. I knew that she commute to work with the transport provided by the company, which always arrived at around 8.20pm or later. So i could place the Card back into the drawer after the doors at the staircase were unlocked and before the time she arrived.

This worked fine for a week or so, with me comfortably sitting at my desk before 8pm everyday, surfing or blogging, and the receptionist didn't know about it at all. Then, one fine morning, as i was happily drinking coffee at my desk while reading other blogs, it suddenly struck me that it was already 9am+ and the receptionist's Card was still sitting on my desk! I was totally dumbfounded and must have heard myself yelling "oh shit!!!" over hundreds times in my head.

There are two lessons to be learnt thus far:

Lesson #1 - When you get too comfortable with something, you will always lose sight of something else.

Lesson #2 - Never do something bad because it will always find a way to go wrong and bite you in the ass.

I immediately went down the stairs with the Card. As i was approaching the first floor, i could hear the receptionist talking to the cleaner (her good friend in the company). I peeped at the reception area from behind the door of the staircase, and i saw the two of them ransacking the drawers and looking high and low for the Card. At that moment, i really didn't know what to do.

Ok, i know i could have walked up to the receptionist and told her the truth, but as all other people who are guilty of something, i was too timid to do that. It certainly didn't help too when our receptionist was known to be quite an unfriendly and bossy person because she had been with the company for a very long time. Plus, she was born with a face that looked as if she was angry all the time when she wasn't smiling. And trust me, she hardly smiles. Uh huh, that's our receptionist for you.

Then i did a stupid thing on impulse. I took a deep breath and put on a fake front. I went up to her and acted surprised. I told her that i found her Card at the pantry under the water cooler, and asked if she had dropped her Card there. This was really a stupid move and i regretted it almost instantly. She took the Card and thanked me profusely. She then told me that she suspected the Security Guard took her Card to access the pantry for water. She immediately went to the Facility Manager's office and asked him to retrieve all the surveillance videos to find out who took her Card. By then, my mind was spewing thousands more "oh shit!!!!"

Here are another two lessons:

Lesson #3 - You may try to cover up a wrongdoing with a lie and appear to be the good guy, but it will eventually backfire.

Lesson #4 - Never do things on impulse. Always think over the consequences carefully.

The things had come to such situation that i had no choice but to confess my wrongdoing. What worried me was that the receptionist would for sure hate me because i took her Card and lied to her. She would for sure tell everyone in the company and might even complain it to the higher Management. Then i would be the most despised person in the company with the reputation as thief, liar and hypocrite.

That was the time when i needed to pull a few strings, or in fact, one string was all that i needed. I had always been in very good terms with the Facility Manager. I went to him, told him what happened, apologized and asked him not to disclose it to the receptionist. I hinted that this was a good lesson for the receptionist too since she shouldn't have left the Card in the drawer of the reception desk where anyone could access it easily. He agreed and said he would tell the receptionist that the surveillance videos didn't capture anything at all.

And so, i was off the hook just like that. I continue to be the likeable person in the company with the reputation of being nice, friendly and helpful, despite the fact that i'm actually a thief, liar and hypocrite.

And the lessons:

Lesson #5 - Honesty is always the best policy.

Lesson #6 - Always maintain a good relationship with people around you, as you never know when you would need their help.

Lesson #7 - Justify you act with some noble cause to make the mistake appeared to be insignificant.

Lesson #8 - Learn the art of strings-pulling as it could get you out of troubles even when you're in deep shit.

I hope my story illustrates the lessons well. If not, perhaps our "close-on-eye" MP could illustrate it even better.

Labels: malaysia, story, work

Here's a little story about life as coffee, forwarded to me in an email by a friend. Many people may have read it before, but a good story can always be retold many times without becoming trite.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups made of Porcelain, Plastic, Glass, Crystal, Some ordinary looking, some expensive, some exquisite.

He told them to help themselves to hot coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in their hands, the professor said:

"If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up,leaving behind the plain and cheap looking ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

What all of you really wanted was coffee - not the cup - but you consciously went for the best cups and, worse, you were eyeing each other's cups.

Now, if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain. Life - the quality of life doesn't change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So folks, don't let the cups drive you..., enjoy the coffee instead.

I once wrote that love is like coffee, and now this little story tells us that life in general is like coffee. Hmm, coffee sure is a good analogy to many things.

Labels: story

Here's a story that i heard many years ago, told by a teacher when i was back in high school:

Once upon a time, an old monk and a little monk lived in a temple high up on a solitary mountain. One day, the old monk thought that the little monk was old enough to leave the mountain to see and to understand the sufferings of the secular world.

The little monk had never left the temple since young. Before he left, he went to see the old monk.

"Master, i'll be leaving the mountain soon. Do you have any words of advice for me?" asked the little monk.

"Do not be afraid," the old monk said simply.

With that, the little monk left the mountain and began his journey.

Many years had passed and the little monk returned to the mountain after he had travelled far and wide. The first thing he did after he was back to the temple was to see the old monk.

"Master, i'm back. During all these years that i was out in the world, i've seen a lot and experienced a lot. Do you have any words of advice for me?"

"Do not regret," again, the old monk said simply... The end.

And the moral of the story: Old monk doesn't talk much.

Ok, seriously, the story is simple yet it tells us a lot about how to live our lives -- do not be afraid of the uncertainties in life and do not regret the past.

I had written my thoughts about it in my Chinese blog.

Labels: story

I like stories, especially those short stories with profound moral. It's always fun to listen to the stories and try to figure out the hidden lesson in them, just like the the story on Yuan Shi Kai.

Here's a another nice story that i would like to share, one that i heard from a professor during a lecture of the Introduction to Psychology course for my Bachelor degree.

In the psychiatrist's office, a man was having a session with the psychiatrist.

"Doctor, my family and friends have been telling me that i have a problem and i should seek help from you," said the man.

"Ok, i'll show you a series of pictures with different shapes," the psychiatrist said, "Please tell me the first thing that comes to your mind after looking at the pictures."

The psychiatrist showed the guy a picture of a circle and asked, "So, tell me, what's on your mind after seeing this picture?"



"Sex," answered the man.

The psychiatrist showed the guy a picture of a triangle and asked, "How about this?"



"Sex," said the man, plainly.

The psychiatrist then showed the guy a picture of a rectangle and asked again, "And this?"



"Sex," the man replied again, frowning.

"Ok, i know what your problem is," the psychiatrist asserted, "You are obsessed with sex."

Upon hearing the diagnosis, the man jumped out of his chair and said to the psychiatrist furiously, "How dare you say that i'm obsessed with sex?! YOU are the one who's showing me all the dirty pictures!!!"

The moral of the story: Men are obsessed with sex but they either don't realize it or they don't wanna admit it.

Labels: story

贝 likes to read biographies, especially of the famous personalities from the era of Qing Dynasty. Currently, he's reading the biography of Yuan Shi Kai (袁世凯).



I can never understand how he could find such books interesting at all. Look at the tiny Chinese characters squeezed into the yellowish pages. Oh boy, just skimming through a few sentences and i would be dozing off already.  



He always shares with me the interesting things that he read from the books. There's this little story that i found quite interesting so i'm writing this down.



During the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后) when Yuan was just a General, he tried very hard to get into the Dowager's good book. Before he went to the imperial court to meet the Dowager, he bribed her favourite eunuch, Li Lian Ying (李莲英), or nicknamed Xiao Li Zi (小李子), to give him some tips on how to butter her up.

Li told Yuan that the Dowager liked to listen to flattery words (who doesn't?). So if he spoke of something that she liked to hear, he should continue elaborating on it. Conversely, if he spoke of something that she didn't like, he should stop talking about it and change the subject.

This shouldn't be too difficult huh? Well, there was one problem though -- all officials who meet the Dowager must kowtow and no one was allowed to look at her unless the privilege was granted by her. In this case, Yuan would not be able to observe her reaction to determine whether or not he was saying something to the liking of the Dowager.

The crafty Li came up with an idea. He told Yuan to pay attention to his feet. During their meeting, Li would stand beside the Dowager. If he put his feet together, it meant Yuan had said something that the Dowager didn't like and shouldn't continue on the topic anymore. Conversely, if Li stood with his feet apart, then it meant the Dowager liked what she heard and Yuan should continue his conversation boldly.

This tactic worked very well. With the help of Li, Yuan managed to make the Dowager very happy every meeting and eventually he was granted to be seated during their meeting.

And the moral of the story: behind every man's success, there's always a person without a penis.

Labels: story