Improve Your Brain Power

There are many ways to help us become more creative. Force ourselves to use the non-dominant hand is an effective way to develop the other hemisphere of our brain. Thus, our brain will be kept in full use and in preparation for creative thinking.

Switch the side of our mouse-pad is a good case. It’s easy to be integrated into our lives. I’m using the mouse with my left hand now.

I thought I would get confused at when I needed to click the left  and the right buttons. It turned out to be not. I didn’t pay much attention to that, and it just happened naturally. The only difficulty is that I’m not very proficient in pointing to the object accurately. I seem like a handicapped girl.

It did make me working a little slowly. However, I believe it’s just a phase of adaption. I hope I can navigate the mouse with my left hand as effeciently as with my right hand in the near future. Let’s see and I’ll tell you more about my experience. You may have a try and share with me your feelings.

Men and Women (1)—-Different Values

Have you ever dwelled on the differences between men and women? I had no idea that men and women could be so different that they seem to be from different planets until I read the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by John Gray.

It is definately a fantasitic book. It reveals how men and women differ in all areas of their lives, as well as specifies how to develop or improve their relationship. It was once the manual for loving relationship in 1990s, even today.

I’m so impressed by the book that I can’t wait to share with you some of my thoughts while I’m still reading it.

Different Values

Men value power, competency, efficiency, and achievement. They are always doing things to prove themselves and develop their skills. They pride themselves in doing things on their own. Autonomy is a symbol of efficiency, power, and competence.

Women value love, communication, beauty, and relationships. As a woman, I agree in particular, these two points: feelings and counseling.

For the first point, we not only recognize things more depending on our feelings instead of analysis, but tend to share our feelings with others, whether it’s a happy feeling, a stressful feeling, or an intimidating feeling.

As for counseling, we are very involved in personal growth, spirituality, and everything that can nurture life, healing, and growth (I guess this is the result of maternity). We also like to offer unsolicited help and assistance to others, which is a sign of being considerate.

Because of their distinct values, men hate to accept unsolicited help from others, which challenges their competency. Women expect men to listen to and feel their feelings, instead of disrupting them with a solution. Women also like to change men as they are always happy to see something is being nurtured. However, this is men’s most hateful thing.

In order to develop a harmonious and lasting relationship, both men and women need to work hard.

Next time, when women are sharing their feelings, men just listen and express your empathy instead of offering any solutions to women’s feelings.

For women, never offer unsolicited help to men and giving up the thought of changing them.

Special Toastmasters Clubs

Last Saturday I was invited as a judge for a contest. I didn’t know what it was like until I got there. It’s a club of disabled people.

I was shocked, either by the existence of such a club or the members’ spirit. Some of them sat in a wheelchair, some do not have a loud and clear voice, some cannot see you at the same view line as they have some problems with their eyes. But they all have a positive attitude, I guess, whether they aspire to improve themselves or to make friends.

I talked with one girl during the break, who was sitting in a wheelchair and couldn’t have a good eye contact with me. Then I knew it’s a new club and she has finished two projects. I was curious about what she does for a living.  I had guessed she must be working from home. Indeed, she told me she is a copywriter at home. Sometimes, I think they are more excellent, doing something that we may not have the ability to do. She didn’t know that I actually admired for what she does. I should have told her.

To tell the truth, it is not a good club. They don’t even know what the rules are. But so what? It’s a new club, and it needs more support. Fortunately, a lot of physically sound members lent their hands. Wish the club all the best.

Also, there’s another special club which I’m going to be a volunteer in Oct., Prisoner’s club. I do think everyone, as well as the prisoner, has the necessity to have a positive attitude and improve themselves. Will tell you more after my visit there.

Gratitude 2.0

After establishing and keeping the habit of  gratitude for some days, I’ve found that it’s quite preliminary to just list the 2~3 positive things in our life, which is the result of Gratitude 1.0 (Being thankful for all the positive things in our life).

It’s, however, far from enough. To really appreciate our life and be happy, we must as well be grateful for all the negative things, such as unhappiness, stress, hardship, failure, unfortune, so-called disgusting people, and so on, which is Gratitude 2.0.

Being grateful for all the positive things makes us value our friends and life more. While being grateful for all the negative things will make us free from complaints or frustration, focus on the positive side of life, and turn bad things into good ones.

I used to be afraid of unhappiness. When it came, I was so frustrated and couldn’t get out of it. Later, I realized unhappiness is quite normal, and it happens now and then to any one. I began to accept it and thank it for letting me know happiness and unhappiness consist of our life, for letting me calm down when it came again, and for letting me value happiness more and think out all the ways to happiness.

I also used to be afraid of stress and challenges. I felt uneasy of uncertainty. Later I realized they are also the compostion of life and make people creative. Now I can accept them calmly.

Likewise, we should thank hardship and failure for giving us the opportunities to learn and grow. When you learn to be thankful, you find how true it is that every time that you fall, you are much closer to success.

Let’s update our mind system and learn to thank all the unfavorable things as well as the favorable ones.

I should thank the unfortune that happened last week, which made me know the rules of the company, how Sinaporeans think and react and how I should communicate with them.

I should thank my uncooperative roomate for letting me know the different types of people and think how to deal with the problem properly.

I should thank my Toastmaster friend although he made me frustrated, for giving me the opportunity to think about what a good leader should do.

A good attitude of gratitude actually helps you more calmfully accept all the things in life. It’s no big deal when you encounter the negative things, just relax and learn to thank them.

Way to Happiness & Peace (1)—-Gratitude

I heard a lot about being grateful for every little thing before. And one of my former colleagues also told me how great he feels about being grateful for every thing.

I was wondering why we should be grateful for every thing, since some things were the results of our own hard work, and some things were meant to be there.

For example, I used to be seldom grateful for my achievement since I thought it was the result of my hard work. I used to be seldom grateful for getting to know some friends since I thought we happened to meet. I also used to be seldom grateful for the food or other things I owned since I thought I paid for them.

In the past, I only thanked my hardships and failures as I thought they made me grow and became stronger.

Changes came without being noticed.

I don’t remember when and why I’ve begun to become thankful to many things, even those I used to think they were naturally there.

I thank my friends for guiding me on my way to achieve my goals, thus I discovered another different and exciting world and life, I discovered the potential and energy deep inside me, and I’ve been living a passionate and happy life! 

I thank my landcouple for providing such a good and cozy place for me that I could live happily and contentedly.

I thank my company for giving me the chance to work for them so that I could have a whole new experience in another country.

I thank the food provider for serving such delicious meals. What a wonderful chef!

I even thank destiny or God for helping me meet so many nice people.

I suddenly find there are so many things to be thanked.

As I’m filled with gratitude for many things, I feel happier when I’m with them.

Yes! Gratitude makes you happier. Gratitude makes you appreciate every thing so that there’s little room for anger, hatred, or impatience.

I’ve decided to be more grateful. Here are my plans.

1. Every day gratitude ritual. Show my gratitude for at least two things just at the moment that I open my eyes in the morning or close my eyes in the evening.

2. Get ready to show gratitude to every little thing at any time.

Let’s move forward together.

A Long Way to Go into Peace

Some negative mindsets have been annoying me these past few days.

I thought I had got much  improvement on getting a peaceful mind, which turned out to be a kind of illusion. In fact, those negative mindsets have been there all along, and they were merely covered by the temporary happiness resulted from idleness.

I falesly thought they were the same. The truth is, temporary happiness is different from peace in mind. Being happy doesn’t mean I’ve got a peaceful mind. I’ve still got a long way to go. Meanwhile, I should not deny my progress in being positive. Just as I said, they are different things, and they should be improved side by side.

<Impatience>

I found I’m too easy to get angry. Mostly, it is the result of my impatience.

Patience can be understood or defined in different ways. In my dictionary, it means the mindset that is eager for the result, the intolerability of process. Someone impatient needs things to happen immediately. They can be furious about the long and tedious process. Comparatively, they may be incredibly patient with someone with slow mind and keep explaining and talking to him. I think it’s more out of respect. So from the former definition, I’m an impatient person.

Impatience can make you very angry and frustrated. I haven’t found a way to improve. Maybe likewise, I should show respect to those processes as well as I did to slow people. Understand every thing needs a process. Some ever say, process itself is beautiful. Maybe. I haven’t found and enjoyed that.

I’ll do some researches and discussed with you in the future.

If you have good suggestions, leave them in the comment.

Power of A Humorous Speech

I’ve been busy being a judge from mid-August, and my short-term judge career is supposed to be over at the end of this month. God, so many clubs in Singapore!

My journey about humorous speech began from the end of July. When I first heard about humorous speech contest, I couldn’t help laughing at the ridiculous contest, “Why do they have such a contest?! It’s pointless! What are the standards for humorous speech?”

Later on, I got the idea that one of the standards is the laughters the contestant gets. Therefore, in the division level contest many contestants will have their special cheerteam in charge of laughing, no matter what the contestant speaks, laugh! That’s funny!

Now I realize how important and unique this contest is. And I’ve decided to add to humor into every future speech of mine!

What on earth is the power of a humorous speech?

Humor can make a good speech turn into a great one! Humorous speech tends to make deep impression on the audience and the audience is easier to remember the main message you convey. Thus, you achieve the original purpose of delivering this speech, say either persuade the audience, or encourge the audience, or just convey some information.

Humorous speech make you popular. If every speech you deliver makes people laugh so that they keep coming whenever there’s a speech made by you! Isn’t that fascinating? It will definitely help you establish and strengthen your confidence in public speaking.You may also have other opinions, but those two points are good enough to make you unable to wait to become a humorous speaker.

Leadership Qualities

Last Saturday, I went to a Toastmasters club for their installation party.

Great leaders were invited: district governor, immediate past district governor, Community Center leaders and leader of Ministry of Education.

All of them mentioned about leadership qualities. In particular, leader of Ministry of Education put forward his opinion on this subject: vision, stress, and determination.

I’m not quite for the latter two qualities, stress and determination.

Stress is more passive a word. A leader should be proactive and initiative. He must feel it’s his responsibility to make everyone better off. It’s not a have-to-do thing, but a must-do or at least should-do thing. 

As for determination, I don’t think it’s the special quality or pattent for a leader. Every one who aspires to success should be determinant. It’s not a decisive quality.

In my opinion, good leader qualities are: vision, sense of responsibility or desire to serve, and motivative.

I’m on my way there.

How do you like it?

Can We Be Happy All The Time?

To your disappointment, the answer is “definitely not”.Even if you are regarded as a happy person on the whole, you’ve still got sometime when you are unhappy and feeling sad. Let alone normal people who often have ups and downs.

If so, do we still need to look for happiness?

Definitely.

In my opinion, being happy is more like having a wise opinion towards life, rather than just a state of mind. To seek happiness is not to look for fun in life, but to seek a balanced life.

What does a balanced life look like?

Some of the important factors contributing to a balanced life are: optimistic, positive, lenient, patient and unruffled quality.

The good news is, those qualities can be learned. Therefore, we all can live a happy life although we may not be happy all the time.

What are the keys to a balanced life?

I’ve got some sources of that, and would like to share with you in the future one by one.

What are your keys to a balanced life? Maybe you can write it down here and we can talk about it.