When I'm Afraid - by Cheri J.Meiners

Sometimes scary things are real.

There might be fighting somewhere, or people who want to hurt other people.

I want to be strong. I want to do things I think are right, even if they seem hard.

-by Cheri J.Meiners

한숨 hansum “Breathe” by Lee Hi
Take a deep breath
Until both sides of your heart get numb
Until it hurts a little
Let out your breath even more
Until you feel
Like there’s nothing left inside
It’s alright if you run out of breath
No one will blame you
It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes
Because anyone can do so
Although comforting by saying it’s alright
Are just words

[Chorus]
Someone’s breath. That heavy breath
How can I see through that?
Though I can’t understand your breath
It’s alright I’ll hold you

[Verse 2]
It’s alright if you run out of breath
No one will blame you
It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes
Because anyone can do so
Although comforting by saying it’s alright
Are just words

[Verse 3]

Even if others think your sigh

Takes out energy and strength

I already know

That you had a day that’s hard enough

To let out even a small sigh

Now don’t think of anything else

Let out a deep sigh

Just let it out like that

[Outro]

Someone’s breath. That heavy breath

How can I see through that?

Though I can’t understand your breath

It’s alright I’ll hold you

You really did a good job

Artist: Jonghyun (김종현 ) Song: 하루의 끝 (End of a Day)

Hold out your hand, wrap it around my neck

A little below, massage my shoulders

At the end of a tiring day

Even if the sun has already come up

I’m finally closing my eyes

 

I close the door to my day later than others

Playfully tickle my earlobe

Because even though we’ve been in different worlds all day

We always end the day together

 

Your small shoulders, your small hands

Become my cozy blanket at the end of a tiring day

You did a good job today, you worked so hard

I hope my shoulders and my thick hands

Will become cozy comfort

For the end of your tiring day as well

I want to naturally sync my breathing with yours

 

Like water in a bathtub that wraps around you

With no space left

I wanna warmly hold you without any space left

At the end of my day, filled with awkward mistakes

You, my prize, are waiting for me

 

I can’t cry all I want or even laugh all I want

At the end of a tiring day but still, if I’m next to you

Like a child, I can whine and then laugh

Till I run out of breath

I’m not used to seeing myself like this

 

You did a good job today, you worked so hard

You are my prize

My dear self, Thank you and goodnight.

謝謝你很努力
Thank you for your efforts
謝謝自己沒放棄
My dear self, Thank you  for not giving up
謝謝你一路堅持到這裡
Thank you for persevering through
太陽依舊會升起
The sun will still rise
希望永遠不滅熄
The flame of hope will always continue
晚安了 親愛的自己
Goodnight, my dear self.

還能大口呼吸，就是幸福的
Every breath is a blessing
還能睜開眼睛，希望就能夠看見的
Hope is always available when we open our eyes,
雖然步伐是小了一點
Your pace may be slow
但我一定會走向前
But you are still moving forward
幸福得更努力一些
Continue with passion

還能夠說感謝，就一直掛嘴邊
Give thanks daily
還能夠有夢想，就要更勇敢的去追
If you can still dream, have the courage to pursue it
我親愛的寶貝，我知道你會累
My dear little one, I know you will tire
生命很困難，但記得要勇敢
Life is hard, but you must be brave

月光依然美麗
The night is still beautiful
好像每一個你
as beautiful as yourself
晚安了親愛的自己
Goodnight my dear self

Ella 陳嘉樺【晚安歌 Goodnight】Official MV

MY STRUGGLES WITH DEPRESSION
 REAL-LIFE STORY. By Maxy Chan - A Student Living with Depression ;

MMHA BULLETIN NOV 2017 · 4

I was diagnosed with depression in early 2016. Three months before the diagnosis, I experienced severe chest pain, frequent migraine, I couldn’t feel whether I am full or hungry. I couldn’t sleep almost after 3am every day. There were too many thoughts running in my head. I need to shout in order to release the uncomfortable feelings that have been trapped in my body. I was shocked to notice I cried almost three times every day, during my classes in campus. I don’t know why I was sad.

I requested my parents to bring me to mental health professionals. My father refused at the first time, worrying that I may leave a bad record in my future career. When my symptoms were getting serious, I started receiving sessions from clinical psychologist, hypnotherapist, and psychiatrist. With psychiatrist’s letter, I took deferment of two semesters to rest at home.
I was prescribed Olenza, Xanax, Zoloft, Prazovex, and Prozac. My parents brought me to the park every evening, to get near to nature, and encouraged me to exercise. I gained 7-8kgs in the next few months. Depression can also cause obvious weight gain or weight loss.

Simultaneously, I started developed symptoms of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I kept washing hands, I needed to make more than 15 pumps of hand soap every time I wash my hands. I also wanted to repeat every word I said to family. I kept repeating the route that I just walked because I think I didn’t do it well. Suicidal thoughts came every often. I made a few attempts without success. It was totally heart-breaking, overwhelming and devastating. I needed to lay down at least half an hour to let my thoughts run, so that I can feel at ease to proceed my daily routines. because the cause of a depression can contain factors from biology, psychology, and social categories.

However, throughout my counselling sessions, I realized I have been suppressing my emotions for more than 6 years since I was a teenager. I never share my secrets to friends or family. I didn’t allow myself to feel anger, sad, and many other negative emotions because I think it is not polite to be angry. I also didn’t want to express myself when I feel happy, because I was worried there is someone around me who may be going through an unfortunate event at the same time. I have developed a habit to conceal my emotions through the years.
Today, I am still taking Prozac under the advice of psychiatrist. In 2017, I tried to make changes in my life to actively join university clubs and events. I experienced seeing a movie in cinema unaccompanied. I went to a picnic with friends. I organized my first solo piano recital.

I went to a pub with siblings. I participated in short marathons to motivate myself to exercise. I participated in a local “Go Bald” event to raise awareness in childhood cancer. I organized a fundraising recital to collect donations for UNICEF Malaysia. Recently, I just had my first ice skating experience.
I don’t think I have fully recovered from my mental illness.
 But I think that embracing the condition I am facing, and be more open in mind is already part of the recovery journey. I am now pursuing my bachelor’s degree in music at a local tertiary education institution.

By Maxy Chan

Taken entirely from MALAY MAIL .
One thing many will agree upon though, despite the hard news reporting, is the paper’s quirky sense of humour.

Through the years, many creative minds have contributed to the paper… lending it a unique personality that easily stands out from other publications in the country.

Even its in-house ads reflected the character of the paper as evident in two particular ads which came out circa 90s (go check them out in the other pages of this final edition of the newspaper in print!).

Unbeknown to many, the creative force that was behind those ads was none other than the late storyteller extraordinare, Yasmin Ahmad.

Yasmin would go on in the next decade to stamp her mark on Malaysia’s collective psyche; not just for her advertising artistry that included those tear-jerking Petronas ads Malaysians looked forward to every single major celebration, but also for her films that were deceptively simple but infinitely relatable.

From her debut in 2003 with Rabun to the breakthrough hit that was Sepet the following year, Yasmin amassed not just a following, before her final effort in her fifth full-length feature film in 2009’s Talentime, but also the respect of an entire industry.

From sitting down with Yasmin and dissecting Sepet to being stunned on the set of the controversial Muallaf in 2008 where lead actress Sharifah Amani shaved her head to Yasmin’s gentle shrug at the reaction of her established peers walking out of her Gubra premiere in 2006, I was fortunate to have been able to write about her work.

The final print edition of Malay Mail would be incomplete without featuring Yasmin and it was by sheer coincidence that the two ads featured in these pages were found.

The discovery came in the form of a chance discovery of a special collectible — a limited shoebox edition of Yasmin I Lup Chew.

Nine long years after her passing, Yasmin’s legacy is kept alive through reproductions of her raw works that ended up captivating the hearts, minds and imagination of Malaysia.

Launched in tandem with the book, Yasmin I Lup Chew, titled after the lovingly cheeky phrase she became known for, it is a must-have offered for sale only online.

An exploration of its contents reveals a treasure trove offering an insight into the eccentricities that made Yasmin Ahmad special.

Neatly packed in the shoebox is a painstakingly reproduced collection of her works a book could not house.

Handwritten poetry, ideas, miscellaneous jottings, scripts and photos, apart from the book itself are in reproductions of a notebook, the occasional doodle, a sketch, an old-fashioned photo album from the Nineties and a ‘newspaper’ with articles and press ads dreamt up by Yasmin herself.

And in the pages of the I Lup Chew Daily, sandwiched inside are these two rib-tickling funny full page ads about the Malay Mail.

While it is aesthetically awe-inspiring to see the attention to details in the recreations with the yellowed and aged pages, and little blotches of correction fluid (today’s generation will never fully appreciate the use of Liquid Paper), the magic here is the insight into Yasmin’s musings.

The box is akin to finding a little time capsule. Sister Datin Orked Ahmad would probably know best, as much of the material was sourced from an actual shoebox, that held most of the items.

“When I saw it, I cried. It was exactly as she left it,” she sighed.

“We kept it as a limited edition item, because we wanted to keep it special for those who appreciated, missed and treasured her.”

Through the beauty of technology, former colleagues and a new generation of creatives have managed to put together the package that is a work of art on its own.

One of those mainly responsible for the limited edition shoebox is Virgil, who worked with Yasmin as a copywriter from the late 80s at Ogilvy & Mather to her last agency Leo Burnett.

“Yasmin kept her handwritten notes and photos in various shoeboxes, just like how she depicted it in her movie Gubra (where Alan Yun shows Sharifah Amani his late brother’s shoebox hidden under his bed).

“In the Ogilvy & Mather office, whenever Yasmin noticed struggling fellow copywriters, she would show us her… shoebox. And tell us stories.

“She was never lokek or kedekut when it came to helping others improve. She never hoarded knowledge.

“Her library in the office was open to all. She would even insist we read her books on Zen koans, the Tao Te Ching, Rumi’s Sufi poems, even Wislawa Szymborska’s Polish poetry.”

At Leo Burnett, Yasmin organised classes every Friday night to teach whatever she knew, which by the third week, attendance had dwindled to Virgil alone.

“She didn’t give up teaching the one person who turned up.”

Bringing the project to life was Fictionist Studio founder and creative director Joanne Chew, along with art director Jona Lim and intern Kimberly Yap.

“We were given quite a lot of disparate materials to work with, and the freedom to suggest how they could be showcased.”

The small team worked with paper sponsor Antalis as well as printers, Percetakan Image Vest, to ensure that all items were faithful reproductions of Yasmin’s stuff.

“I had received a call from Hyrul Anuar, a friend who was part of the team at Leo Burnett who was tasked to get the project off the ground. He asked if I was interested to take on the project.”

Despite budget restrictions and swamped with work, Chew however agreed.

While she knew of Yasmin, she never had the opportunity to meet her – and working on Yasmin I Lup Chew was an eye-opener.

“I think most of us Malaysians identify Yasmin as a creative genius. That was what I knew of her, and her witty sense of humour.

“But working on Yasmin I Lup Chew shed so much more light on what a kindred spirit she was, how quintessentially Malaysian she was, in the movies she made and her outlook on life. She loved her family and country so steadfastly, it was beyond inspiring. And not to mention her humility.”

And that was the creative direction from the get-go.

For Virgil it was years in the making, and for Chew, endless hours spanning five months.

“It was a labour of love and our way of paying tribute to her — by trying our best to design a damn bloody beautiful book which matches a damn bloody beautiful soul,” said Chew.

“Having received positive reactions has been very rewarding for us but more importantly, we hope that this project can inspire other Malaysians to be more compassionate, live life with a greater purpose and the realisation that something can always be made from nothing, just as how Yasmin did.”

Yasmin Ahmad never wanted to be idolised nor was she perfect, and that is one of the messages the team hopes to get across.

“Everyone, herself included, started from nowhere, and took years to improve as you can see from her notes, poetry and ideas.”

REHMAN RASHID, 1955 - 2017 by Umapagan Umpikapagan

Michael Chabon's "Wonder Boys", that miraculous meditation on the eccentricities of writers, begins with the following line: "The first real writer I ever knew was a man who did all of his work under the name of August Van Zorn".

For me, that man was Rehman Rashid. He was the first real writer I ever knew. He was also the best. The finest. No contest. The love and care he had for his craft was one that bordered on obsession. His mastery of the English language was second to none.

I remember once asking him about his writing... about why he used the words he did. He told me that the English language was vast and varied. He told me that the English language was loaded and lavish. He told me that there was always an exact word for every sentence and for every situation. And that it was our duty as writers to constantly seek out that perfect expression. He told me that anything less would make us lesser writers.

Rehman Rashid was the first real writer I ever knew

I knew him first from his work: from his many NST op-eds (which would often be read out aloud on my breakfast table) and from his magnificent and enduring treatise on the Malaysian condition.

I knew him better when he was my boss and editor and mentor. When he took in this twenty-something, armed only with the notion of wanting to be a writer, and taught me everything I'd ever need to know.

I knew him best when he was my friend. When he would confess the many conflicting ideas he had about life. When our shared insecurities about writing and putting ourselves out into the world would often surface and come to light.

There are very few people who have been as encouraging about my life and career choices as Rehman has. I will miss his voice. I will miss his words. I will miss him.

I love you boss. Always have. Always will. Rest well now.
*********************************end**************************************
REHMAN RASHID (1955–2017). "The stories go on forever; they'd outlast eternity if they could."
It was with great sadness that we heard this morning of the death of our friend, Rehman Rashid. He suffered a major heart attack while out cycling in January, and never recovered. Our deepest thoughts are with his family and friends. Rehman was a singular character. Some found him abrasive and opinionated, "difficult" even. But that was to misunderstand the man. He cared deeply about his country and its peoples – not in some kind of narrow chauvinistic way but in the hope that the country could realise its fullest human potential. And Rehman cared deeply about language as the potent conduit for ideas (and his use of language was masterly). He disdained mediocrity. He didn't suffer fools gladly. If those are faults, then so be it. Recently, Rehman seemed to have discovered a newly minted contentment, not least because of the reception to his two final books: Peninsula and Small Town, both published last year and offering some kind of vindication We corresponded a lot – about language, about cycling, about books, about the state of the world. I hope he wouldn't mind me sharing his last letter, written in January not long before his fateful last ride, when he reflected on the fact that Peninsula was once again at the top of the bookshop's bestellers' list. His generosity was palpable. Here is what Rehman wrote:

***
Today I want to wallow in this like a kerbau in a mudhole: mmmm, how cool, oozy and exfoliating it is. Would you like to know how it feels? It feels like I can STFU at last. It means this isolated, solitary & reclusive life of mine now becomes right & good & proper, when until just over a year ago it felt all wrong that I should be so distant and alienated from everyone. I had friends once; family too. It's normal for these circles to diminish in the latter years of a life. We grow tired of other people's bullshit and they grow tired of ours. None of this changes with my book on top of the charts – ten thousand readers may not mean a single new friend – but it validates it, and I'm happy for that. I knew there had to be a reason I turned out this way, and this was the reason: so that I could write my heart out without thought of consequences.

Still in that situation, only deeper, so I'm not closing the gate on whatever might emerge henceforth. "The stories go on forever; they'd outlast eternity if they could." I'm quite excited about the prospects ahead, to be honest. Writing what I do is like pulling away layered veils one at a time; each one revealing tantalising shapes and forms still to be uncovered. Puzzled as I've been by the absence of any "mainstream" attention to the phenomenon of 'Peninsula' last year, I now take it as a form of carte blanche: I remain free to do (or not do) as I please with what I have. From feeling rejected and disdained by the "literary fraternity" in this country, I now feel weightlessly above the mists & mire, and I like the view from up & out here. I've paid my dues and owe you nothing but my gratitude now.
***
Al Fatihah.

Taken from gerakbudayabookshoppenang

******************************************************************
Every once in a while, a great love story is told. Rehman Rashid shares his with treasured memories in this master piece –

We met in 1987, soon after I returned from a year in the UK as the New Straits Times’s London correspondent. I was at the zenith of my newspaper career (yes, I peaked early) and she was an associate at the law firm of Rashid & Lee, involved, inter alia, in the legal representation of rural folk and Orang Asli. Her father was Brig.-Gen. Dato’ Chen Kwee Fong, one of “Templer’s Twelve” (the first Malaysian army staff to attend Sandhurst), who had retired from the Malaysian Armed Forces as Chief Engineer. Rosemarie was the sweetest little thing, bright as a button, with such dignity and grace, and a ready, pretty laugh. “Every time I see you,” I spontaneously blurted out early in our acquaintance, “it’s like seeing you for the first time.”
But those were harsh times for our country. I had requested the London stint for breathing space after the 1986 general election, during which I had seen the disease of money politics first-hand for the first time, for a total and instant loss of innocence and idealism. A year later, things were even worse. Team A/B, Chinese education; Operation Lallang loomed. Throughout that troubling period, Rosemarie was a beacon of stability and calm; au courant with the issues and au fait with the law. The night before I was to go to Bukit Aman to be intimidated by the Special Branch with our Internal Security Act, I went to see her in her family home in Damansara Heights. This could all be taken away just like that, I thought. She stood on her front step in the forebodingly dark and quiet night, looking up at me with such concern and understanding, I cupped her chin in my fingers, tilted her face to mine and placed upon her delicate lips the lightest and softest kiss; our first. (She subsequently called it our “ISA kiss”, and requested it frequently.)

The upshot of Operation Lallang was that I quit the newspaper. I was 32 and already a proven writer & award-winning journalist; no problem. Quite fortuitously, Asiaweek magazine in Hong Kong offered me a job and I took it. Rosemarie left Rashid & Lee to accompany me there. For a couple of months I supported us while she looked through the classifieds for lawyer jobs. She found a position with the Bermuda firm of Conyers, Dill & Pearman, then busy expatriating Hong Kong corporate residencies to the mid-Atlantic in anticipation of the 1997 handover to China. They adored her. (As did everyone, no surprise.) After a year of happily building our careers with our respective new employers, Rosemarie and I were married in the spring of 1989, at the Bishop’s Chapel in Macau.

I would never have asked her to “convert”. I always felt it was too much to ask of religion that it be swappable for any reason other than personal epiphany or revelation. The Jesuits of Macau asked only that I agree to a “Dispensation of Cult”, whereby I pledged never to compel my wife to raise our children in any way she did not approve or wish. That would have been my way anyway. (And we did not think children would arrive too soon; both our careers were opening vast new possibilities and potential.) For the next three years we were blissful as a couple; living well and comfortably, and operating at globe-girding levels. But I was not happy professionally, and Rosemarie understood why. “Your heart is in Malaysia,” she said.

“My heart is with you,” I said. “But Malaysia is my area of expertise.” And writing a book about it all became a notion, then an obsession. Asiaweek’s publisher and editor-in-chief Michael O’Neill understood it too, and let me have a year’s sabbatical to “get that bee out of your bonnet, and come back to us.” Rosemarie said she just wanted me to be happy, and if I needed to do this for that, she would back me completely. And so I went back to Malaysia to finish that book. Which process went so well, by the end of it I felt my place was here and I didn’t want to leave again. I might do the most good here, I thought. Malaysia could use me. Indeed, Malaysia *needed* me, whether it knew it or not. But our marriage would not have been recognized here as it was everywhere else in the world, and there was no way my lawyer wife & I would have transgressed that. So Rosemarie, who always thought so well of me and what I did, let me go.

Of course, I should have gone back to her as soon as the book was published. But then it took off so successfully, and she and I both knew me well enough to know that, wherever else we were in the world, I would only feel all the more that I belonged in Malaysia and nowhere else. So I feel now that our separation would have been inevitable, if for reasons very different from those for which marriages ordinarily end. And so Rosemarie went on, up & out into the world, while I…

…I, the biggest, saddest fool, gave up my angel for this country. Which is as much to say, for this hatred and contempt; this mediocrity and ignorance; this incompetence, cynicism and corruption. This religious arrogance and racial chauvinism; this vile mediaevalist barbarism.

I paid for my loyalty to Malaysia with everything good and decent that I had, only to be mocked and despised; to watch my profession usurped by “the right kind of Malay” regardless of literacy; to have my name smeared and reputation destroyed; and in the end to be hounded back to the very redoubt in the hills where I had written that book 23 years ago now, never again to write. Rosemarie never saw this place where I may now languish forgotten and ignored for the rest of my own days, and now she never will. I chose my love for my country over my love for her. Bad choice. Big mistake. My punishment has been a life of regret and insuperable loneliness.

See la, how beautiful was my bride. RIP Rosemarie P.Y. Chen, 1961-2015

Taken entirely from blogtakes.com

Found an interesting psychiatric input while reading Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Searched more about Martin Seligman's Learned Helplessness online.

In 1965, Martin Seligman and his colleagues were doing research on classical conditioning, or the process by which an animal or human associates one thing with another. In the case of Seligman's experiment, he would ring a bell and then give a light shock to a dog. After a number of times, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened: as soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he'd already been shocked.
But, then something unexpected happened. Seligman put each dog into a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence if necessary. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman put the dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence.
Instead, the dogs lay down. It was as though they'd learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, so they gave up in the second part of the experiment.
Dogs who had previously been shocked did not try to escape the shocks in a subsequent experiment. 

Seligman described their condition as learned helplessness, or not trying to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught you that you are helpless.
After the dogs didn't jump the fence to escape the shock, Seligman tried the second part of his experiment on dogs that had not been through the classical conditioning part of the experiment. The dogs that had not been previously exposed to shocks quickly jumped over the fence to escape the shocks. This told Seligman that the dogs who lay down and acted helpless had actually learned that helplessness from the first part of his experiment.

Taken from study.com 

ShW introduced me to this book. 

The author, Marie Day wrote a children's book about schizophrenia, an illness that affected her brother. 

I'm always amazed how some people can turn the difficulties in their lives into blessings for others.

This quote is amazing,

"The old world is dying; the new world struggles to be born,

 and during this *chiaroscuro, merge monsters." 

Antonio Gramsci

*an effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something

taken from Malacca Style by Tham Ze Hoe and Serge Jardin

from Streets of George Town Penang by Khoo Su Nin,

"Penang was much more than a port. The colony which Light created offered a liberal haven where each settler could establish the foundation for the next generations. This was true for the Malays escaping the Siamese in Kedah, the Eurasians fleeing religious persecution in South Thailand, the Chinese rejecting Manchu oppression to make their fortunes in the Nanyang and the South Indian leaving behind poverty and strife in the subcontinent."

When I read the above, I fervently hope Penang can liberate me while I am on her soil.
And this is funny.

"If spiritualism can be so easily traded for crass commercialism, under the watchful eyes of enlightened buddhas, then human beings are pretty much in the same predicament as the tortoises in the Kek Lok Si's 'liberation pond'."

“I remember once I asked Maester Luwin why he wore a chain around his throat.”

Maester Aemon touched his own collar lightly, his bony, wrinkled finger stroking the heavy metal links. “Go on.”

“He told me that a maester’s collar is made of chain to remind him that he is sworn to serve,” Jon said, remembering. 
“I asked why each link was a different metal. A silver chain would look much finer with his grey robes, I said. 
A maester forges his chain with study, he told me. 
The different metals are each a different kind of learning, gold for the study of money and accounts, silver for healing, iron for warcraft. 
And he said there were other meanings as well. The collar is supposed to remind a maester of the realm he serves, isn’t that so? 
Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can’t make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. 
A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people.”

Maester Aemon smiled. “And so?”

“The Night’s Watch needs all sorts too. Why else have rangers and stewards and builders? Lord Randyll couldn’t make Sam a warrior, and Ser Alliser won’t either. You can’t hammer tin into iron, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless.” 

......................Game of Thrones Book 1 Chapter Jon

"I tend to be cynical about a lot of things, but Maya Angelou is somebody that no matter how much I pick her apart, she still has integrity. She was a victim of incest and rape, and she worked as a stripper.
And now she’s a literary icon and Nobel Laureate.
It goes to show that life is cumulative, and you can’t devalue any type of experience."

--- Humans of New York

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. ”

- Maya Angelou

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.” 

-Maya Angelou

Bestselling author Andrew Matthews believes that being happy is a conscious choice people have to make daily until it becomes a way of life.

“The problem solving part of our brain lights up when we are happy and shuts down when we are miserable. So we have to shift the whole emphasis from saying ‘I’m going to work hard and be miserable, and one day that will make me happy’. We have to find joy and contentment in our daily lives, and that is really the fuel that will make us successful,” he explains.

Matthews shares that his books and life philosophies are inspired by Martin Seligman’s positive psychology, in which the American psychologist studied people who are happy and effective and concluded that “happy people were already happy before they found successful careers, relationships and so on”.

“Richard Branson (of Virgin Airlines fame) was already happy before he became a rich man, Usain Bolt was already happy before he became the fastest runner in the world,” says Matthews.

“What is the common factor among the happiest people? It’s gratitude. Happy people look for things to be thankful for. Does that mean you wake up in the morning and think about what are the things to be thankful for? Some do.

Others understand that life is all about what we look for. If you look for faults in your boyfriend – you find them. If you look for faults in your job – you see them.
“But if you wake up and think about the good things that happen (and have happened), that affects you every day of your life. Then you start looking for those qualities in others as well,” says Matthews.

“The essence is – the average people say ‘When I’m happy then I’ll be grateful’, and extraordinary people say, ‘When I’m grateful then I’ll be happy’.”
Nevertheless, Matthews feels that it will eventually become easier for us to just be happy, and that starts with ourselves. He says that many people have forgotten – or simply don’t know – the importance to being kind to themselves.

“Many people think that we’ll get better results if we criticise ourselves, when it is the exact opposite. Be kind to yourself, don’t criticise yourself, and understand that there is no book out there that says you have to be perfect,” he says.

The author adds that we should start “living in the present” and making a conscious effort to do just that, otherwise, we will regret the past and fear the future.

“Just as we cannot carry all the food that we would need on our back for the next 20 years, we can’t carry all the worries on our back that we need to solve in the next 20 years. For the most part our present moments are pretty much OK – unless you’re having a heart attack or being eaten by a bear, you’re pretty much okay.”                                                

Taken from http://www.thestar.com.my/

"Balance and harmony are neglected today, yet they are the foundations of wisdom. 
Everything is done to excess. 
People are overweight because they eat excessively. 
Joggers neglect aspects of themselves and others because they run excessively. People seem excessively mean. 
They drink too much, smoke too much, carouse too much (or too little), talk too much without content, worry too much. 
There is too much black-or-white thinking.
All or none. 
This is not the way of nature.
 "In nature there is balance. Beasts destroy in small amounts. 
Ecological systems are not eliminated en masse. Plants are consumed and then grow. The sources of sustenance are dipped into and then replenished. The flower is enjoyed, the fruit eaten, the root preserved. "Humankind has not learned about balance, let alone practiced it. 

It is guided by greed and ambition, steered by fear. In this way it will eventually destroy itself. But nature will survive; at least the plants will. 
"Happiness is really rooted in simplicity. 
The tendency to excessiveness in thought and action diminishes happiness. Excesses cloud basic values. Religious people tell us that happiness comes from filling one's heart with love, from faith and hope, from practicing charity and dispensing kindness.
 They actually are right. 
Given those attitudes, balance and harmony usually follow. These are collectively a state of being. In these days, they are an altered state of consciousness. 
It is as if humankind were not in its natural state while on earth. It must reach an altered state in order to fill itself with love and charity and simplicity, to feel purity, to rid itself of its chronic fearfulness. 

We all "How is it that you say all are equal, yet the obvious contradictions smack us in the face: inequalities in virtues, temperances, finances, rights, abilities and talents, intelligence, mathematical aptitude, ad infinitum?" The answer was a metaphor. 
"It is as if a large diamond were to be found inside each person. Picture a diamond a foot long. 
The diamond has a thousand facets, but the facets are covered with dirt and tar. It is the job of the soul to clean each facet until the surface is brilliant and can reflect a rainbow of colors. 
"Now, some have cleaned many facets and gleam brightly. Others have only managed to clean a few; they do not sparkle so. Yet, underneath the dirt, each person possesses within his or her breast a brilliant diamond with a thousand gleaming facets. 
The diamond is perfect, not one flaw. The only differences among people are the number of facets-cleaned. But each diamond is the same, and each is perfect. 
"When all the facets are cleaned and shining forth in a spectrum of lights, the diamond returns to the pure energy that it was originally. 

The lights remain. It is as if the process that goes into making the diamond is reversed, all that pressure released. The pure energy exists in the rainbow of lights, and the lights possess consciousness and knowledge.

 -MANY LIVES, MANY MASTERS BRIAN L. WEISS, M.D.

"Patience and timing . . . everything comes when it must come.
A life cannot be rushed, cannot be worked on a schedule as so many people want it to be.
We must accept what comes to us at a given time, and not ask for more. But life is endless, so we never die; we were never really born.
We just pass through different phases.
There is no end. Humans have many dimensions.
But time is not as we see time, but rather in lessons that are learned."
---Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives by Brian L. Weiss

Excerpts from Exploring Buddhism by Christmas Humphreys

His desires and emotions may be rebellious and he cannot sack them, but at least he can call a meeting and address them as one who knows them for what they are.
Values will soon be utterly remade, and the lusts and longings of yesterday be dropped as a hobby laid aside.
With the dying down of personal emotion the mind becomes increasingly controlled and clear, and the birth of the intuition creates the serenity in which Enlightenment is found.

Buddhism which stresses the futility of speculation, and trains the students' mind to the immediate task in hand, finds little profit in discussing matters which do not lead to the heart's enlightenment.
Whether the bundle of attributes which is reborn be called a self, or soul, or character it is, like all else in the universe, forever changing, growing, and becoming something more.

It is not an immortal soul which, possessed by you, is different from that possessed by me. 

It is in face the product that which dies, and whatever the form may be, we are here and now, with every breath we draw, creating it.

pg 77

"Let us arise then, and not only seek experience, direct, immediate experence, but be unafraid when we find it. How? The answer is another question : "Who holds you back?" Let be said again, for there is no more to be said. There are two rules upon the Way - Begin and Continue. Asked, "what is Tao?", a master replied

'Walk on". 

pg 169

"Master how shall I free my mind?" the Master replied, "Who puts you under restraint?" pg 184

Psychological Recovery by Peter Caputi

Pg 154 – while it may be too early to claim unequivocally that everyone can recover from serious mental illness, there is not way of determining that any individual can not recover. The hope and the opportunity to live beyond mental illness must be there for everyone. Recovery should be the expectation.

Pg32 – the struggle can enrich us or it can make us bitter. As I talk with others thus afflicted, it is my gut feeling that this struggle has not embittered most of us nor defeated us, but has made us more compassionate, sensitive and courageous. We have also learned some valuable lessons along the way.

Pg 100 – If we didn’t accept our journey as a difficult one, we’d spend all our time and energy damning he journey, having nothing left to take on and overcome and heal the illness that makes that same journey so momentarily painful and challenging.(Watson)

Pg 34 - But a role is empty and valueless unless you fill it with your meaning and your purpose. Our task is not to become normal. You have the wonderfully terrifying task of becoming who you are called to be.

Pg 95 – This is the paradox of recovery: in accepting what we cannot do or be, we begin to discover who we can be and what we can do.(Deegan)

Pg 81- it feels like I haven’t lost touch with me altogether. That I am still wandering around in there an that I just have a little more work to do to find me, but you know maybe if I get up and go and search I’m there somewhere. And little by little I will find me again. (Young&Ensing)

Pg 85 – One must give serious thought to what he/she wants out of life and define what recovery means for him/herself – and pursue it. Once the person has an increased sense of agency and a sense of direction for their life, they are ready to take more concrete steps towards getting their life back on track.

Pg 93 – I managed to hold down many part-time and full time jobs. I knew I wasn’t functioning at my best but i pushed throught the depression and anxiety and proved to myself that I could be effective even when I was less than 100%. This was an important step and it was risky. (Weingarten)

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. 
Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. 
Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. 
Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”

—Nora Ephron