To help or to be cheated

I got cheated few weeks ago when all I wanted to do was to help.

They were standing by the road side just around the corner of the junction to my housing area, it was around a hot day and they were sweating while waving their hand try go get help. Few cars passed by them without even stopping to offer any kind of help. Although the couple are total strangers to me, I've decided to stop and see if I could offer any help. They claimed they were on business trip, and their friend was at oversea, they are stranded and didn't know what to do. They asked for some money to get by the night, I offered some money to them.

When I got back, I sat myself down, thinking at what happened, I suddenly felt that I was being cheated, I told my wife and we decided to call the police. About half an hour later, the police called back, saying that their patrol car was there to investigate, but the couple fled when they saw the police patrol car.

There you go, I was being cheated. How much??? Around 100 over ringgit.

100 over ringgit can feed myself for over a week, but that wasn't the main issue here. The notion that I was being cheated because I wanted to help, really make me sick.

It keeps me thinking, is it worthy to offer help when you are at risk of being cheated. While there are genuine cases that really need help, the risk of being cheated of personal possession and even lead to kidnap cases that might be life threatening, is too high.

If you asked me if I will offer help to people asking for help few weeks ago, I would say a definite no. But think over it, and I've realized that if there were a day when I needed help, I would really much loved a helping hand. Yes, I will still do what I would normally do, to offer help whenever I think I should and I could, but I'll be more aware of the situation.

Orange Life

Orange is one of the common fruits that we can get easily nowadays, and eating an orange is nothing new to everyone.

Looking at the orange, the skin layer doesn't look appealing. Normally, people will peel the skin layer, consume the fruit, then throw away the seed.

The orange to me sort of symbolizes our journey through life. At first life seems boring and unappealing. When we start to peel away the tasteless outer layer of our physical existence we suddenly realize there is a world of sweet, wonderful existence to consume.

We may not be the most beautiful looking person in the world, but if you make an effort to search deep inside yourself, you will be able to find the goodness and the juiciness of life. Many cold hearted people do not want to take the time and effort to 'peel' the orange and look within themselves to find the greatness in life.

After you have 'peel' the outer layer of orange revealing the juicy fruit, you then consume and enjoy the greatness of the orange. All you have now is the seed and to many people the experience just end there. Many people just think that this tiny seed is a waste and just throw it away.

Just like our life, even if you have a great life and able to enjoy your life to the fullest, everyone will face the death one day. Some people view death as a sad and hard ending to their story. But inside each and everyone of us laid a seed, a seed to continue, a seed of life.

If only you can plant the seed, you will find out that life doesn't end there, in fact it is the beginning of another great life that will make us more glorious. We may blossom as a tree, giving life ans sustenance to many more generations.

It is true that it is not easy to know the purpose of life, and everyone will go through a period of soul searching. But the 'secret' of life is not hidden, it is everywhere in the nature of us to see. All we need is to take time for ourselves, peel the outer layer, enjoy the fruit and plant the seed.

A husband's thought on his wife

I wake up every morning,
thinking that I must be dreaming.
To wake up besides you,
knowing that you feel the same as I do.

Thank you for being with me always,
with the look in your eyes and smile on your face.
Thank you for the things you’ve done,
bearing the pain to give birth to our son.

It’s been 7 years, 3 months, 17 days, 18 hours since we met then,
like the song I sang, "Now and forever, I'll be your man".
Whatever I’ve done, you’re there to forgive,
with a gentle kiss right on my lips.

It’s been 1 years, 11 months, 28 days, 5 hours since you marry me,
you’ve been a great wife, sweeter than honey.
Although I've never say it out,
that I love you and you make me proud.

Love always,
Leonard
13 June, 2009
2.18pm
Starbuck (KKIA)

28 years old chap

I was born in 6^th May 1981, so that makes me 28 years old now.

How I celebrated my birthday? My parents together with my wife, my son and I went for “Seremban Baked Crab” branch in KK last weekend. It was a great get together dinner because it was meant to celebrate something, my birthday. All the dishes was so sweet, the crab and beer combination was superb. Although we often eat out as a family, every dish was at the right taste, even the rice taste nicer, perhaps that is how things taste like when someone is in happy mood.

My wife and I then went for a movie in GSC, 1 Borneo using the birthday treat that they offer for GSC members. I have to admit that this is the first movie in a year for my wife and I, we watch “Fast and Furious 4”, although it is an action movie, it felt like a romance movie to me, I felt we are still dating each other.

On Monday night, my friends in KK celebrated my birthday with me in Brass Monkey. We had a nice dinner and again, the steak and beer combination was superb. I guess beer goes well with everything for me… hehehe… We had a great gathering, we can talked about almost everything, joke about almost everything. Although the

topic was a lot different from those 10 years back, the fun wasn’t much different. I guess the change in time doesn’t change anything in our friendship.

On my birthday, my wife was having tuition at night from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, but she shifted the time from 7pm to 9pm and we’re to have supper together. After dinner, my wife took out a cake, it’s my birthday cake…Wow, I have to admit that I was surprise, I never thought that I can still have my birthday cake. After that I leant that my wife asked around which cake shop is nicer besides Secret Recipe, and she booked a cake for my birthday a day before. Of course, the cake taste nice, and the sweetness lingers in me until now. Exaggerating? Well, the sweet taste in my mouth may have passed, but I still feel sweet until now.

Then I went to take my bath to prepare myself for our supper. Like what I always do, I switch on the laptop just wanting to check e-mails and news. And there is a surprise waiting me, my ever passionate and loving wife has prepared a birthday card for me.

Finally, we're ready to go for my birthday supper. We went to McDonald and bought McValue meal. Then I brought my wife to Tg Aru beach, we sat on the beach, we enjoyed the sea breeze, we enjoyed the moon, we enjoyed the sound of the wave, we enjoyed the food, we just enjoyed everything that night.

There's a big difference celebrating my 25th birthday and my 28th birthday. The most important thing for me now is my family, I can easily be satisfied now only by having simple meal together. And that is my idea of normal and happy life, anything we do, even it is something very simple, as long as we do it together as a family, I'll be happy.

I'm not a saint, my birthday wish is not to have world peace. My only aim, is to be able to guide my family into being together always.

My most viewed link

The main reason I started this blog is to share my ideas on daily life, or just write down what I feel on certain event and serve as a reminder for myself in future. But ironically, my most viewed link is "How to strike Toto Mega Jackpot".

Try to search in Google with Toto Mega, this entry makes up Top 5. And everyday, there are at least 5 person that visit this link through Google search. I bet they must have been very disappointed.


There are too many people out there that wanted to get rich quick, in fact I think everyone do. Money is very important to sustain a living, there's nothing wrong being rich, the key is to strike a balance according to your priority.

Some people are raised to think that money is everything. Some people are raised to see money as root of all evil. I don't see any right or wrong in these two statements, it's just how you balance things out.

Wealthy vs Happy

People likes to compare, we often hear this people talk about how much this guy earns, what he has bought, how much he has spend, etc. And will usually follow by belittling themselves saying how poor they are... Of course, I do that too, jokingly... But in my heart, although I'm not a millionaire, I think I'm rich (in my own definition). At least, I am richer than at least 50% of the world population.

I've heard a friend of mine told me that he loves to travel, he feels happy when he travels, but he needs financial backing to back up his love for traveling, that's why he has to work very hard, earn money to live happy. I disagree.

I remembered when I was studying in university, I envy those that have their own car. When I graduated and employed, I bought a car, I was very happy and excited. I can finally afford my own car. I have been driving my car for 4 years now, and the happy and excited feelings fade away.

I believe many people have this experience. My point is, if you wanna earn money just to be happy, there's a high chance you'll either feel empty when you've achieved what you aim for, or you'll crave for more.

Happiness is not an aim, it's a choice. There's no need to wait until you're wealthy to be happy, you can be happy now. It's a state of mind.

It's not that my life is smooth sail, I had my ups and downs. But I choose to be happy, and looking back from now, I can't see anything. What I can see though, is who I am now, which is the cause of what I've been through.

You don't need to be wealthy to be happy, but if you're happy, you're always wealthy.

Marriage

It's been some times since I update my blog. When I update my blog, it usually means there's something that I want to express, something that I disagree or have my own thoughts.

I have a colleague from China, whom is getting married this year. He talked to me about why he wanted to get married and how he wanted to held the wedding reception.

He made it sounds like getting married is something very easy, all he needs to do is to get back to China, arrange a date with registration department, then put down his signature. Then he'll continue to live a life of a bachelor, basically a married bachelor. If everything turns bad, just engage a lawyer, set a date, sign some documents then he's divorced.

I have to agree that to register a marriage should be as simple as possible, moreover, it's just for record purposes. To me, the notion of why you want to get married is most important.

Marriage is more than just a signature, more than the wedding dinner, more than an "I do"...

You need a lot of passion, patient, and hard work to keep a good marriage. By keeping a good marriage, only you'll be able to keep your family happy. By keeping your family happy, only you'll be able to focus on your career and excel.

No point putting up an extravaganza wedding reception without ever understand the meaning of marriage.

Wedding only last a day, marriage last for a life time.