Hallmark of A Great Individual

It was only yesterday night that I was in Hari Ramulu's class and once again, he has made me think hard. What really triggered such a thought? When Hari started comparing the CGPAs of two different individuals (they have very high CGPAs), I started thinking of what really makes great people great? So I kind of came up with this short list of what really makes us great

1. Cognitive capacity (Intelligence)

Well, needless to say, we always relate the greatness of people to intelligence. I have to say that this belief is partially true and partially false. I think the reason for saying this is very simple isn't it? There are many things in life that can be misused and intelligence is one of them. Otherwise, you wouldn't be seeing hackers who hack into servers and destroy files (not all hackers are bad). However, I wouldn't go far enough to say that people with average cognitive capacity to be mediocre in their lives. There are people with average cognitive capacity doing great things as well. Although it is evident that not all of us are born with the same cognitive capacity, nurture also play a very important part of the development of the cognitive capacity. I believe that sound cognitive capacity is not a pre-requisite, but an advantageous trait to have in order to become a great individual

2. Emotional Control

I have to say that being emotional is something that only makes us human. I feel that some of you might argue that:

Without emotions, we'll be less of a human. Being a human is all about having emotions. If a dog can show emotions, why not humans? If a human can't show emotions, it only means that he's even worse than a dog

In my honest opinion, there are many times that emotions will take the driver's seat in our mind and we do things that turn out to be irrational. I have personally been through such situations where emotions took control of me and I ended up making decisions that I regret. I have been lucky at times when the mistake didn't cost me that much but there are times when such mistakes did quite a severe blow to me. All these are pretty much based on my personal experience where there was poor upholding of my discipline.

* this does not apply to people to are involved in fields that are related to emotions like arts. I agree that there are many artists that make a living with their emotional expression and I truly respect these great artists *

3. Spirituality

For a person to identify and answer his higher calling, he must be in touch with his spiritual side. What is spiritual? Spiritual means of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature. Essentially, to be able to identify and answer the higher calling means that that person is able to add value to his life by having a purpose in life. By having a more fruitful, purposeful and meaningful life, everyday seems to be so colourful. A person will have the determination to accomplish what he set out to do everyday simply because he is answering his calling, a greater and stronger reason to accomplish what he wants to accomplish

Having highlighted three hallmarks of a great individuals, I must admit that this is an incomplete list of all hallmarks of what makes an individual great. There is no definition of what constitutes a great individual because the scope is just too wide for me to cover in its entirety. Greatness is something that I don't know how to gauge. If you have any of your own opinions to add, I'll be very happy to share my views :D

* this post is only an opinion of the writer and should never be treated as a fact *

Good Leader, Great Leader

"A great leader may not be a good leader but a good leader is a great leader"

Quoted from: Hari Ramulu

This quote really got me thinking harder. One of the classic examples cited by my Professional Ethics lecturer is Adolf Hitler. Well, coming to think about it, I started thinking of the other side of the coin instead of the side of the coin that he was referring to.

Let's take Adolf Hitler for example. Adolf Hitler as we know him is painted as a very cruel German leader who wanted to conquer the entire world. As someone who has killed so many people throughout the entire duration of World War II (WWII), this guy will most definitely be the bad guy.

But then, think again! Despite his notorious reputation, Hitler is a highly reveled figure in the Nazi Germany back in the 1930s. His leadership has brought Nazi Germany to become a very developed nation after all the destruction that Germany suffered after its loss in World War I (WWI). Germany even organized an Olympic Games in the 1930s and won many medals during the Games. In the eyes of his supporters, he is a great and good leader.

Let's take an example that is simpler, Dol Said of Naning who fought the British during the imperialist period. Our history books have told us that Dol Said is one of the first few freedom fighters and risked their lives to obtain freedom for not only themselves but also for the country. Hence, he is portrayed as a good leader in our history books (written by the Malaysian government). However, just look deeper and you will find that in the eyes of the British, Dol Said is just another terrorist, a ancient-day Osama bin Laden to the United States.

There are other examples where there are two sides of the coin in what constitutes the term that we usually use, GOOD. An analogy can be used by looking at cylinder from the top and from the front. From the front, the cylinder is a rectangular while from the top, the cylinder is a circle. We only need to change our perspective and many things will change dramatically.

Moral of the story: try to have a 3-dimensional (3D) perspective to life :D

*This blog posting is not to show my support for figures like Adolf Hitler. It is only intended to show the different kinds of stories that you will hear when two opposing sides tell their stories*

Vacations

When we talk about vacations, many people will have various different kinds of impressions of happier times. One person might be thinking about the 'sun, sea, sand and girls' of a vacation to the beach while another might be thinking about the getaway out of the busy-ness of city life. Sometimes people go for a shopping vacations (especially true to rural folks because I consider myself a country bumpkin from the small town of Teluk Intan).

Some people look for thrill, excitement, fun and adventure in their vacations. Some people look for peace and calamity in a vacation. There are others who seek a combination of both. All these are based on each person's perspective and I believe that not everyone will have the same kind of preference for the same tourism spot.

Examples of my preferred kind of tourism spots would be Cameron Highlands and Fraser's Hill where I can just get out of the city and not think about anything at all. Then, I can do anything I truly enjoy like sightseeing for the entire day during the vacation. Another reason I like these tourism spots is because of the cooling weather (I feel warm all day and I usually perspire a lot).

However, having been on a few vacations with friends, I find that the thought during a vacation is to maximise the time during a vacation by reducing the number of hours of sleep during the vacation pretty stupid. Sometimes, they even resort to not sleeping at night during the vacation so that they utilize their time during the vacation. Wouldn't it be paradoxical to do so?

What are the objectives of a vacation? The most important objective of a vacation is to take a break and unwind. It would always be paradoxical for us to take a vacation and subject ourselves to not sleeping to maximise our vacation time. We'll just end up feeling more tired after the vacation instead of feeling refreshed. It would then be better to not have gone for the vacation in the first place.

However, all these are only limited to anything that happens to you physically, not mentally. Will have to look more in-depth to judge on the mental side of this matter

Philosophy of Life and 3Cs of Happiness

Due to the circumstances that currently cricles this blog, I've decided that this blog will be my public blog, which means for everyone to read. The reason for this move will not be disclosed here. For those of you who are interested to know more, you can pm me at my MSN.

Now that this is gonna be my so-called public blog, what would I post in it? The materials here will be mainly and strictly about philosophy (not that previous posts didn't contain any elements of philosophy). I know this subject is kind of boring to many people, but I just find joy in learning more about philosophy


3Cs of Happiness

The first C: Counting Your Blessings. This C is possibly the most important element of being happy in our lives. To be more precise, this C signifies contentment. Happiness is not gauged by having what you want, but wanting what you have. It sounds paradoxical but when you think deeper into this, you'll find that there's a lot of truth to it. By wanting to have what you want, a person then becomes like the greedy dog that already has a bone but wants to have the bone of its own reflections. To say or even blog about this is easy to do, but to practise this is far harder than many think.

The second C: Character. The end result of education is character. We may see many people who are highly educated but morally poor. Don't believe me? Read about the current financial crisis and you will understand what I mean. I would rather people uphold the highest degree of integrity despite not being highly educated. Without a strong character, happiness is difficult to be achieved because of the more temporary nature of the happiness obtained. That is why character is one of the Cs of happiness

The third C: Comparison With Thyself. Comparison happens everyday. We always want to compare ourselves with the people who are best at something. The truth is: there is no point comparing ourselves with other people. The reason: we are all unique and different people have different capabilities. There is no point for us to try to live someone else's life. We'll ultimately end up wasting our time. Why compare ourselves with our own then? Comparing ourselves with our own helps us to continuously improve ourselves and be contented with what we have. Why cause heartache to yourself by comparing with others? We'll feel happier if we just compare ourselves with our own. After all, the ultimate goal is to be a better person than we were yesterday

As for me, I'm still trying hard to practice the 3Cs of Happiness. Wish you all good luck!

P/S: I have to give credit for the 3Cs of Happiness to an elderly friend of mine, Sita Ram

Let Not Blind Faith Blind Us

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

~Buddha~

Thank you very much to the person who just reminded me of this: Chiew Ee

(cropped from http://chiewee.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/let-not-blind-faith-blind-us/)

Folly of Gambling

I just came back from Genting Highlands a few hours ago after a 2-day-1-night trip with my coursemates after our exams ended on Monday. I really had a great time, the weather and the excitement of the outdoor theme park was just amazing. I'll update this trip next time.

Well, the main point here now is any adult who goes to Genting Highlands will definitely go into the casino. I was no different and was in the casino, not gambling but watching (no money to even spend for myself, how to gamble money away?).

Now, most of the people who gamble at the casino are looking for entertainment or winning money (winning money isn't impossible but you need a lot of good luck and self-control to do it). Other than that, I just can't think of any other reasons why someone would gamble

So, if you're looking for entertainment, would it be all right if you gamble? The answer is of course a YES, but then again how would losing money affect you? The whole objective of entertainment is to de-stress. But if you lose money and you feel even more stressed out, wouldn't it be counter-productive to gamble? You'll feel more stressed out after the so-called 'entertainment' than before the entertainment. Unless you won't lose any sleep from the losses at the casino, why gamble in the first place?

I believe most of us have learnt probabilities in high school (unless you're a high-school dropout or you don't study Mathematics at all *only limited to Malaysians*). If you analyse all the payouts and the probabilities of winning at every casino, the expected returns for the long run is less than your original capital. This means that if you play 1000 games of roulette and all the results turn out according to its expected probabilities, then you'll certainly lose money (how else could Genting have grown into such a big conglomerate if it wasn't because of this?). So, if your objective of gambling is to win money, then why gamble when you're more likely to lose your capital than winning money?

Such is the folly of humans that act according to their emotions that bends logic. Many times (not all times), the emotional thought will do us more bad than good (there are times that being emotional does more good than being rational). As for me, I'd be much happier being rational than emotional =D

Introduction to PAD

This is the video that I've prepared for Parents' Appreciation Dinner 2009(PAD '09). Enjoy~~