Term 2

Week 1

I noticed this week that the flowers are in full bloom all over the campus and the two mango trees are full of fruit and yet, I doubt many of us noticed. We have just been too caught up with the things that are urgent rather than the things that are important.

In “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff”, Richard Carlson has a great advice to give us: imagine yourself at your own funeral. When we look back at our lives, how many of us are going to be pleased at how uptight we were. Almost universally, on our deathbed, people wished that their priorities had been quite different. They wished they had spent more time with the people and activities that they truly loved and less time worrying about aspects of life that really didn’t matter all that much.

So, think of yourself at the end of your life. What kind of person do you want others to say you were. Remind yourself right now, of the kind of person you want to be and the priorities that are most important to you.

In truth, none of us has any idea how long we have to live. We act as if we’re going to live forever. We postpone the things that, deep down, we know we want to do – telling the people we love how much we care, spending time alone, visiting a good friend, running a marathon, writing that heartfelt letter, becoming a better listener, and so on. We come up with many reasons to justify our actions and end up spending most of our time and energy doing things that aren’t all that important.

Remind yourself: life is precious. Treasure yourself.

Week 2

Here’s a old Chinese fable that tells us that the unfortunate things that happen to us sometimes are actually blessings in disguise.

There was once a wise old man in a village. One day, a farmer went to him and said frantically, “Help! A horrible thing has happened. My ox has died and I have no animal to help me plough the field! This is the worst thing that can possibly happen to me.” The wise old man was not perturbed. “It may be so, and it may be not.”

The very next day, a strong horse was seen near the farmer’s farm. The man, having no ox to rely on, managed to capture the horse to replace his ox. Ploughing the field had never been easier. “This is the best thing that could happen,” he told the wise man. “Maybe so, maybe not”, replied the latter.

A few days later, the farmer’s son was riding the horse when he got thrown off. He broke his leg and could not help with the crop. Oh no, thought the farmer, we will starve to death. This time, he went again to the wise man. “How did you know that capturing the horse was not a good thing?” My son is injured and this is the worst thing that can ever happen. The wise man looked at him compassionately and said calmly, “Maybe so, maybe not.”

Sure enough, the next day, troops came to take every able-bodied man to the war that had just broken out. Because the farmer’s son was injured, he was spared. He would live, while the others would surely die.

The moral of the story is this: we don’t always know what’s going to happen – we just think we do. Often we make a big deal out of something and worry over the slightest discomfiture. If we keep our cool and stay open to possibilities, we can be reasonably certain that all will turn out well, in the end.

Week 3

Heard of the international bestseller called, “The Present” by Spencer Johnson? A boy journeys through life in search of an elusive gift he first hears about from a wise old man. This Present, according to the old man, is "the best present a person can receive." Later, when he becomes a young man, disillusioned with his work and his life, he returns to ask the old man, once again, to help him find The Present. The old man responds, "Only you have the power to find The Present for yourself." So the young man embarks on a tireless search around the world for this magical gift that holds the secret to his personal happiness and professional success.

It is only after the young man has gone to the ends of the earth and given up his relentless pursuit that he comes to realize that The Present -- and all the promise that it offers -- has been his all along. He realises, at last, that embracing the present -- living and working in the moment, free from the guilt of the past or the stress of the future -- is indeed the best gift anyone could wish for.

Many of us spend much of our lives worrying about a variety of things – all at once. We allow past problems and future concerns to dominate our present moments, so much so that we end up anxious, frustrated, depressed and hopeless. We postpone our priorities and convinced ourselves that “someday” will be better than today. However, that “someday” hardly ever arrives.

Many of us live as if life were a rehearsal for some later date. In fact, no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over.

Set your attention on the present moment. Push fear from your minds. Fear is the concern over events that might or might not happen. Statistics tell us that only 4% of what we worry about actually happens. Why waste our energy worrying? Bring your attention to the present moment. Live it fully.

We are stronger than our fears and more competent than our worries.
            - Richard Carlson

Week 4

It was Lao Tze who said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step. Ever considered taking on a new venture, starting on a new project or heading towards your life’s goal? The task can seem so overwhelming. How does one begin?

The trick to success is simple: just begin. Take a single step, followed by another, and then another. Don’t look too far into the future, and don’t look too far back either. Stay centred in the present moment as best you can, follow a simple plan and you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish over time.

Take a subject you wish to master. Realise that becoming familiar with it doesn’t happen overnight. Education is a lifelong process that happens in short intervals. If you were to read a few chapters a day, for the next few months, you would be able to get through the course.

Remember the savings you used to make using a coin box or a POSB programme? Is it not amazing what a little time will do? Don’t put your dreams off till the conditions are “right”. In almost all cases, the conditions you are waiting for will not be significantly different next week or next year. Don’t wait for conditions to be perfect. Take that first step! If you take it now, instead of later, you will be many steps closer to your gaols by this time next month, or next year.

Week 5

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grief we endure help us in our marching onward.
            - Henry Ford

In a demanding world, you must believe in yourself if you're going to accomplish all you can. Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was four years old and didn't read until he was seven. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had "no good ideas." Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before Disneyland. Sir Isaac Newton did poorly in school.

It is extremely rare to find a successful person who complains and frets about his or her circumstances. On the other hand, it is extremely common for people who are struggling to continually blame their circumstances for their lack of joy or abundance. The real question is: what came first? The attitude or the success?

All of our circumstances are what they are. Life will be a lot easier and much more fun if we make the decision to stop complaining. All that complaining does is make us feel sorry for ourselves – sad, angry, suspicious, self-righteous. When we argue about our limitations, we are not able to free our minds to create and find solutions.

Each time an excuse or complaint comes to mind, shoo it away like you would a fly. Don’t worry about it too much. Get used to the nicer feelings that come from a life without complaints and the success that will surely come, with your new winning attitude.

Henry Ford grew up on a farm in a big family of eight. He could hardly attend school because he had to help his father on the farm. His school was a one-room classroom. At sixteen, he walked to Detroit to find work in its machine shops. Life did not deal him a good hand. Yet when he died at the age of 83, the Ford Foundation was the richest private foundation that existed. He was a celebrated technological genius and a folk hero who changed the way motor cars were and would ever be again.

Week 6

The first rule about winning, says Kasparov, is “Never, never, underestimate your opponent.” “Whenever I am playing at grand master levels, I always, always assume that my competitor is going to see everything I do, even when I plan to see make an unexpected move in order to confuse him. It’s also critical to keep a psychological edge. You have to go on fighting even if you are in a winning position – in fact, especially if you are in a winning position. Concentration is everything and it can be very easy to get off track.”

When asked if chess is the ultimate in human logic, Kasparov has this to say: “It takes more than logic to be a world-class chess player. Intuition is the defining quality of a great chess player. That’s because chess is a mathematically infinite game. I can think, maybe, 15 moves in advance and that’s about as far as any human has gone. Inevitably you reach a point when you’ve got to navigate by using your imagination and feelings rather than your intellect or logic. At that moment, you are playing with your gut.”

So what is the challenge for someone who has defeated Karpov, his archenemy in chess as well as sparred with IBM’s chess computer, Deep Blue?

“If it were not for Karpov, I would probably be the victim of the same complacency that dooms most other people. I was world champion at 22. For the first five years of my championship, I had to prove every year that I was still the best. And it set a pattern. I know that I can never stop competing. And as I look ahead, I see new enemies nipping at my heels, young people who are still too young to vote. And every day I am grateful for them because they push me to be passionate about staying at the top… Without Bill Gates, Steve Jobs would surely not be the man he is today. If Karpov had not existed, you might not be talking to me today.

Week 7

Then one day, something happened that changed his personality overnight. He almost stampeded, threatening to crush the man who cleaned his cage. Then he began to charge at the children. The circus owner realized that he had to face the problem and decided he would have to kill the elephant. In order to raise some money, he would sell tickets for people to view the execution of Bozo.

The story spread and people bought tickets to view the execution. Just before the signal to shoot, a little man stepped out of the crowed and walked over to the owner and said, “Sir, this is not necessary. This is not a bad elephant.” And he bargained for some time to step into the cage and talk to the beast. He signed a note of undertaking not to hold the owner liable for any danger he might encounter inside the cage.

The people nearby could hear the little man talking but they couldn’t understand what he was saying. The elephant trembled, began to whine, cry and wave his head back and forth. The stranger walked up to Bozo and began to stroke his trunk. The now gentle beast tenderly wrapped his trunk round the feet of the little man and carried him around his cage. The crowd applauded.

As he walked out of the cage, the little man said to the owner, “You see? He’s a good elephant. His only problem is, he is an Indian elephant and he understands only Hindustani. He was homesick for someone who could understand him. As the man picked up his hat and walked away, the owner looked at the note and read the signature of the man who had signed it. The man was Rudyard Kipling.

John Luther believed, “Natural talent, intelligence and a wonderful education – none of these guarantee success. Something else is needed: The sensitivity to understand what other people want and the willingness to give it to them.”

Week 8

Since we’ve let books loose in the college, here is one I hope you will pick up to read, Paul Coelho’s “The Alchemist”.

The novel tells the tale of Santiago, a boy who has a dream. After listening to "the signs", he ventures on a journey of exploration and self-discovery, symbolically searching for a hidden treasure located near the pyramids in Egypt. On the way, he meets a number of people, including kings and alchemists. At the end of the novel, he discovers that "treasure lies where your heart belongs", and that his treasure was the journey itself, the discoveries he made, and the wisdom he acquired.

As the alchemist himself says, when he appears to Santiago in the form of an old king: “When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true. “

One reviewer of the novel put it very well when he said that that is the core of the novel's philosophy and a motif that echoes behind Coelho's writing all through "The Alchemist". The whole of humankind desperately wants to believe the old king when he says that the greatest lie in the world is that at some point we lose the ability to control our lives, and become the pawns of fate. Coelho suggests that those of us who do not have the courage to follow our dreams are doomed to a life of emptiness, misery and non-fulfillment. Fear of failure seems to be the greatest obstacle to happiness. As the old crystal-seller tragically confesses, “I’m afraid that great disappointment awaits me, and so I prefer to dream”. This is where Coelho really captures the drama of man, who sacrifices fulfillment for the sake of conformity, who knows he could have achieved greatness but ends up living a life of void.

Week 9

Christopher Reeves, the actor, was Superman before many of you were born. Because of his close physical resemblance to the comic-strip hero, producers of the 1978 version of Superman gave him the part. The film and its three sequels turned Reeve into a worldwide star and grossed $300 million in the US alone.

However, the world had the privilege of learning what it takes to be a real superhero when Reeve broke his neck in May 1995 during an equestrian competition in Virginia. He was thrown off his horse.

Although paralysed, Reeves became a tireless campaigner for research into spinal chord injuries and other disabilities and was seen regularly at the US Congress, lobbying for better funding. The actor set up the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation to fund the research. He even made a return to acting after his accident, appearing in a 1998 production of Rear Window, a modern version of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who becomes convinced that a neighbour has been murdered. The role won him a Screen Actors Guild award. In Oct 2004, Reeves suffered a cardiac arrest, slipped into a coma and passed away in hospital.

His publicist, Wesley Combs, told the BBC: "He inspired people in ways I think were surprising to some, but obvious to others. He was a courageous individual who lived by the mantra 'nothing is impossible'. "He had a unique optimism, a true belief at looking at the best part of a situation. He did not look at is as being an obstacle, he looked at is as a challenge."

Week 10

Singapore’s former President Wee Kim Wee died at the age of 89 on 2 May 2005. In his book published in 2004, Wee Kim Wee: Glimpses and Reflections, Dr Wee told many candid stories which are reflective of an honest, sincere mind, underscoring his simple philosophy of life. A boy from a poor kampong of bullock cart drivers, he stopped school at age 15 to work as a dispatch clerk. Through hard work, he rose to join the top management of The Straits Times Group, and became a diplomat and Head of State. What is even more remarkable is that he maintained his simplicity, interest and concern for his fellow men, even after achieving so much.

One of the chapters that was most endearing in the book Glimpses and Reflections was one where he shares the art of making friends. If you really want to make friends, you must like people. Not just people with material, social or political power, but people in general. Then and only then, will you learn new things about yourself and from those you meet. You will feel rich. You will feel a sense of achievement and success, though you may not have much by way of monetary wealth. Your wealth will be in your friendships.

Relating how he would invite guests to tea at the Istana during his term as President, guests who included taxi drivers, PUB meter readers, postmen and any other ordinary Singpaoreans who had done public service that had caught the eye of the media, Dr Wee reiterated the fact that people need people.

“If people wait for each other to make the first move, the world would be a cold place to live in. We all need to win friends not just on an individual level, but at all other levels including national, regional and even international spheres. The alternative is that we live in a sad, unfriendly world.”