A Question Of Balance.

Many people die from simply over-eating the wrong foods. And food is often behind some of our gravest problem – affecting everything from our moods to our health. Thus, adopting a good and balanced diet is central to our overall good health.

Healthy eating is not a matter of denial or hardship, but it should be approached as the learning of new and improved eating habits – moderation rather than restriction. Life must remain enjoyable. Eating should be palatable, interesting and enjoyable.

This can be best achieved by taking a variety of foods – which will ensure that defiencies do not develop. The emphasis should be on the quality and not on the quantity of food we consume. Generally, a diet with moderate quantities of high quality, low fat animal-derived foods and balanced with generous quantities of plant derived foods, preferably whole grain is recommended.

Eating a variety is key to providing all the nutrients the body needs. Absorption of some nutrients can be very variable, and we tend to use nutrients from animal derived foods more efficiently than plant foods. However, the body’s abilityto use nutrients can be altered by the combination of foods eaten together.

What matters most is what you usually eat, not what you occasionally eat. People who diet excessively may not get the calories or other nutrients they need for good health. Extreme thinness is also unhealthy. Thus, to maintain a healthy body weight, we must balance the amount of calories in the food and drinks we consume  with the amount of calories the body uses.

On the other hand, physical activity is an important way to use food energy, improve fitness and prevent the diseases associated with a sedentary lifestyle. Maintaining a “keep fit” lifestyle doesn’t have to mean slogging  it out in a sweaty gym. Just boosting your levels of general daily activity will reap big rewards in improved health and energy.

In today’s health conscious world, staying healthy and fit is very important. Nobody is totally healthy or totally sick. Each of us is a unique combination of health and sickness. And each of us have an unique combination abilities and disabilities, both emotional and physical. It is never too late to live better.

It is a question of balance. !!!

Love Is A Rubik’s Cube.

What begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a teardrop?

Someone once told me that love is like a Rubik’s cube. There are countless numbers of wrong twists and turns. But when you get it right, it looks perfect – no matter which way you look at it.

On the other hand, relationships are like glass. Sometimes it is better them broken than try to hurt yourself – even though the heart was meant to be broken.

However, nobody likes to feel the emotions of pain, and most of us will do anything we can to get away from it. Yet pain is a part of life and like anything negative there is always a better positive to be gained in the end. So do not lose hope.

All of us must go through the stages of letting go or become stuck in the symptoms of the stage we never finished. Whether that person you are today is angry and negative or hopeful and anticipatory depends on how well you navigate the grieving process.

In some individuals, such grief could evolve into a major depressive episode. While for others separation from our loved ones for whatever reason usually leads to grief reactions. And this could either be the stone that sinks you, or a stepping stone to greater things. Which it becomes is entirely up to you.

Are you a victim or a survivor?

Perhaps a better way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. We attract love by the emotions we display, we retain love by the emotions we possess. A relationship is a two way street. It is never all your fault or the other person’s. You go into the relationship together and work through it all together.

After all, what is a relationship without a little risk and faith?

Soft Skills: Are They Important?

The essence of any business is people.

In an ever changing world of business, businesses no longer compete only with products anymore. Rather with how well they use their people. Today, soft skills are deemed as the underlying principles that trademark a company for professionalism and excellence.

More and more businesses are recognizing that in order to gain a competitive advantage, they need to make sure that their people know how to handle themselves at work and how to relate with their customers and peers. From showing empathy and optimism to extreme self-awareness to knowing what is going on around them.

Too often, the focus has been on what the employees need to “know” when evaluating or hiring them instead of “who they really are.” By allowing the human aspect of your employees to shine through, in essence, you are encouraging them to do what comes naturally to them.

A certificate is not an end in itself. Soft skills do matter. We need to constantly improve our soft skills to create opportunities for ourselves. It is wake-up time. Keeping the right perspective – your value and not just your technical expertise, is your power. Soft skills will not only improve opportunities for your career prospects but also your personal growth as well.

Good grades and even technical skills do not determine how successful a person will be professionally. Instead, the most important set of skills that will determine how far one will go in his or her career involves in dealing with people – people skills.

Be mindful the top stars in each field are the ones with the best people skills. Thus, soft skills are important. Improving human relations, efficient day-to-day operations, soft skills are now often the bottom line in a company because it is these areas that matters most to a customer.

S-U-M-O.

“Man spend his life in reasoning on the past,
in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

Some people seem to go through life standing at the complaint counter every day ……………….

Let’s face it some people exude negativity. They constantly complain. They don’t like their job, they don’t like their boss, they don’t like this, that and …….. They even complain they don’t have enough time to be happy; yet they find enough time to be sad – this has everything to do with complaining. After all, it’s impossible to complain and be happy at the same time, right?

Every organisation has some of these people. Each of us have encountered some. And everyone can easily identify someone who never stops complaining – complaining is literally a way of life for them. They are never happy with anything. The sad truth, not only does this makes them feel miserable but it often has the same effect on those around them.

As a matter of fact, if you always focus on the negative, you rarely if ever see the good in what is going around you. Not only will you feel that life is depressing and uninspiring, but after a period of time imagine the damage it does to your life. A constant state of complaining  will certainly brings down your morale, ruins your productivity and distracting to say the least.

Complaining plants the seeds of negativity. I mean when you give into the habit of complaining, it only increases your stress level, pushing you into a downward spiral of negativity. Negative emotions and behaviors produce or amplify stress. Most of the time, complainers make bad leaders. And being dubbed the complainer at your workplace, could possibly kill your career advancement opportunities. Besides, constant complaining may make you look incompetent and send out wrong signals.

Complaining is contagious but positive communication is, as well. Why not opt to stay positive and have a positive vision? Being optimistic – putting a smile on your face and focus on the positive aspect of life, work and family make us a happier person, change our perspectives and help us communicate rather than complain.

Gratitude seems to play a big part – I think it really is everything. You cannot be stressed and thankful at the same time. That’s the way our brains and bodies are wired. Focus on gratitude, you won’t be stressed unnecessarily and your world will be right.

“S-U-M-O” simply stands for: Shut Up, Move On. !!!

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain.
But it takes character and self-control
to be understanding and forgiving.”
- Dale Carnegie.

Being Part Of The Bigger Picture.

In a boat was the King, his Prime Minister, his men and among them was a gardener. For a long time, the gardener has been questioning why he was what he was, and why he never had the chance to be part of the bigger picture.

While the Prime Minister was consulted at all the time for administrative problems, the gardener was only given menial tasks that seemed to revolve around simple chores. The gardener’s wish was simple – for the King to turn to him for advice instead of going to the Prime Minister all the time.

As the boat moved further along the river into the jungle, the gardener could not help but grumble about how unfair life was as he watched helplessly and with envy while the Prime Minister and the King discussed the Country’s future.

After a while, it got darker and the King decided that it is time to stop for the night before moving with their adventure on the following day. Once the place was ready, the Prime Minister and his men decided to explore deeper into the jungle for supplies.

The King was resting in the tent, while the gardener tended to the fire and other things outside. Again while working, the gardener just could not help but grumbled about his life.

What’s so great about the Prime Minister? the gardener asked himself. I could do anything that he could. Yet, I’m stuck here doing all the stupid chores.

Apparently, the King who was in the tent, was not asleep, as there was some strange noise that come from the bushes near the tent. The King overheard every word the gardener said. He crept out of his tent and called for the gardener, who was excited at the prospect of being addressed by the King personally.

“Could you please check what is keeping me from getting some rest?” ordered the King.

In his excitement, the gardener immediately ran to the source and came back with what he thought the King wanted to hear.

“Your Highness. I saw several dogs” the gardener said.

“How many?” asked the King and the gardener ran in again to check.

When he came back, the gardener told the King that there were five of them.

The King kept finding new things to query and the gardener found himself getting more and more tired as he had to run into the jungle several times to get the answers.

Soon, the Prime Minister came back with his men came back and more supplies. Despite having all the answers already, the King decided to ask the Prime Minister to do the same thing. The Prime Minister went to the source and latter reappeared smiling.

“I found a female dog nursing four puppies. Two of the puppies are female.The male puppies are black and the female ones are spotted.” There were more details, and some were even things not noticed by the gardener.

Once the King got the full report, he turned to the gardener and smiled.

“You see, he got all the information within one trip. You had to run in several times and yet you still do not get all the necessary facts. Now you know why you are just a gardener and why he is the Prime Minister,” the King said.

Who do you think you are? This is a simple fable. But it does have an effect on how I look at things today. It is not that we are born as the Prime Minister or gardener. It is that eventually, we will have the opportunity to decide to either act like the Prime Minister or the gardener in the story.

New Year, New Chapter.

“Dreams are renewable,
no matter what our age or condition,
there are still untapped possibilities within us
and new beauty waiting to be born.”
– Dr. Dale Turner.

New Year, New Chapter – another chance to get it right. !!!

Many of us are kind of enthusiastic to make resolutions in the beginning of the year. Most probably they share the “New Year new beginning” concept. Or, is it due to the tradition that most of us love to hate – we love to make them, hate to keep them and love keeping them behind until the next New Year.

I reckon the whole world looks at a new year as a new beginning, a fresh start to change things about life or start new projects or activities. The “new beginnings” concept seem to have a charm that invigorates our spirits – a new or fresh beginning provide an opportunity for us to all start over and another attempt to getting it right.

If there is one resolution that we should all make, it has to be making a habit to rise above the little things. Make time to reflect on something important to you, something you can resolve to do in the coming months to make it better than the last one.

What will you resolve? Will you resolve to learn something new? Try harder at work or to help more at home? Will you resolve to be kinder, or to be a good friend?

The easiest way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. Nobody can ever go back and start a new beginning. But anyone can start today and make a new ending. Be willing to be a beginner every single day – the tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

If those truly dramatic life-changing resolutions you have made are the hardest ones to keep,  do yourself a favor and don’t go over the top with an entirely revamped outlook. Instead, I would suggest that you just focus on taking what you learned from the past year and making good habits a part of who you are.

Finally, whatever you choose, remember that when you feel like giving up, a resolution about being determined, sticking with it, and have faith, both in yourself and in God. !!!

Walking Down Memory Lane.

Looking back at my last ten years ………………..

I had my favorite grilled lamb steak for “New Year Eve’s” dinner with Sandy at the Victoria Station. The place was packed to the brim and everyone were in the mood to celebrate.

While waiting for my meal to be served and sipping my malt whisky in between, my mind drifted a little and soon I was quietly reflecting what my past ten years was.

• I was recovering after a bout of depression.
• Met Sandy at a Christmas gathering.
• We clicked at first sight.
• Sold my apartment and moved closer to my place of work.
• I bought a condominium.
• Sandy became the general and me the major – for all decision-making.
• We watched the Y2K scare in a panic.
• I was good at singing in karaoke sessions.
• Busy travelling all over the Country on business trips for some years.
• Worried about the SARS outbreak.
• Sold my Toyota Camry and got a Toyota MPV.
• I retired early and bowed out of the corporate world.
• My father passed away due to old age.
• I bought a landed property and we moved to live there.
• Invested into equities.
• Focused on realizing my passionate dreams.
• Started my first blog, “Working Woes” at bloghi.
• Market crashed.
• Took up jogging seriously.
• My mother had a knee-cap replacement.
• Life was not a bed of roses – even roses have thorns.
• Started “Straight Talking.com” with WordPress.
• Experienced vision problems.
• Diagnosed as retina problems.
• Undergone several laser treatments in the last three years.
• Experienced bouts of vision loss on mt left eye.
• Dispensed with expired medication by a Specialist Doctor.
• Got another eye specialist to treat my retina problems.
• Global economic downturn.
• Got my fingers burnt in the stock market.
• My house was broken into.
• Worried scared about the H1N1 outbreak.
• Vision improved although not very stable.
• Reconnected with some very old friends,
• Became more tech-savvy.
• Had a bad fall – got up a changed man.
• Thank God, the predicted “Great Depression” was averted.

Ten years ago today, I did not have a blog, RSS feed, a Facebook and Twitter feed, or any social networking accounts, GMaps, Flickr and other digital services that I rely on today. If anything defines the past decade, it has to be the importance of the internet, a technology that is now central to the lives of so many of us.

Looking back at my last ten years, it has been quite a trip. So much more had happened to me actually. I am sure I had forgotten things a little – ten years older now. What about you? What happened to you in the last ten years? With the grace of God, I pray that I may be able to write on my next ten years when the time comes.

Note: I have created the “Straight Talking.com Group” in Facebook. This will be another avenue for me to connect with you. It is a site for sharing positive vibes and mutual support. As always, your presence is most welcome and much appreciated. Do check it out at http://tinyurl.com/yk2rmuk

Purpose The Starting Point.

Purpose is the intent behind an action being done – it can be synonymous with the goal or intended result of an action.

Many of us have a wrong idea of what constitutes  to their true happiness. Success and happiness are not matters of chance but choice. It is not attained through self-gratification, but rather through fidelity to a worthy purpose – or the singleness of purpose. Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear. One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel one’s life has meaning – that one is needed in the world.

Success is not built on success. It is built on failure. It is built on frustration. Sometimes, it is built on a catastrophe. Most people give up just when they are about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touch down.

The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success. Some people are destroyed by their first failure. While others are destroyed by their first major success. So let’s have successes in small amounts, leading up to being successful.

Perhaps, successful people ask better questions and as a result, they get better answers. As for me, success means different things in different parts of my life. But overall if I have to define ultimately what success means – the bottom line – then for me is if I am healthy and happy. Remember when you dance? Your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the dance floor. It is to enjoy each step along the way.

The starting point of any great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have ane do.