the diminishing value of being punctual

 I chanced upon the ‘template’ folder as I meddled with my wife’s brand new touch screen LG KF600 mobile phone, and came across the canned message which says “I am late.  I will be there at ____.”

 

So I looked up the list of canned messages in my two-year-old Nokia model, and voila! there it is, the same message.

 

This must be a frequently sent message for phone manufacturers to include it in the template. 

 

Has being late become the norm?  Or worse, are the societies starting to view punctuality as an outdated and irrelevant value?  I certainly feel it is increasingly the case.

 

The conservative few who still make the effort to be on time think that they do so out of respect and consideration.  Therefore to them, those others, by carelessly turning up late, do so at the expense of their (the punctual fellows’) time, convenience and goodwill.

 

 

a man’s spirit sustains him

 Just this recent Sunday, my wife and I noticed this lady coming out of the driver’s side of a nice car, well made-up, sporting attire, bounce in her stride.

 

But for the knitted headwear covering a balded head, we did not guess that she is recovering from cancer. 

 

Her will to live out her life is inspiring.  My wife and I could not help but affirm the notion that a cheerful outlook and an appropriate fighting spirit would positively affect the outcome of any given trial.

 

The Bible confirms as much in Proverbs 18:14:

“A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?”

count your blessings

 Humans being humans spend too much time worrying over things that usually will not turn out quite as bad, if at all.

 

We fail to be be thankful for blessings we already enjoy.

 

As John Lennon puts it, “You don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it.”

message of the humble potato chips can

 Pringles potato chip cans look humble enough.  I learn only today that it is a patented item.  The Straits Times carries an article about its inventor Fredric Baur’s cremated remains being stored and buried in one such cans.

 

Everyone has good ideas which unfortunately remain unharnessed.  We either lack the money, time, experience, courage or motivation to bring them to fruition.

 

I for example, also worry about what others think.  Will they find my ideas ridiculous?

 

Consider the Pringles potato chip cans again.  If Fredric Baur had worried about being ridiculous when patenting a can, he would have missed it all.  That he had requested to be buried in a Pringles can conveys how much he valued the piece as being the defining achievement in his life.

 

The point is that we worry too much, and think too little of our personal creativity. 

 

We have all heard from Nike – Just Do It.  Maybe it makes perfect sense – we’d never know except in retrospect.

 

 

 

 

the rose

 I like Bette Midler’s ‘The Rose’, but did not pay attention to the lyrics until recently. 

 

These lyrics are worth pondering over..

 

The heart that’s afraid of trying never learns to dance

The dream that’s afraid of waking never takes a chance

The one who’s afraid of being taken never learns to give

The soul afraid of dying never learns to live

birds are made for men

 I spent a quiet moment by my window this morning, enjoying the birds’ chirpings.  There were a rich variety of tunes, all of them sweet.

 

As I indulged, it occurred to me how the singing comes across at just the right level of decibels.  Like Goldilocks would say, “not too loud (that it becomes noise), and not too soft (that we miss it altogether) – it was just nice”.

 

It cannot be by chance that birds communicate at a volume that is pleasing to men. 

 

Scientific suggestions that birds and men evolved into what they are by chance, are not supported by the mathematical probability that both creatures should possess every organ they carry, functioning in exactly the way they do.

 

Multiply that now by the probability that the sounds exuded by one creature should invoke delight in another.

 

So if evolution did make any scientific sense at all, it certainly is not mathematically viable.

 

That birds singing should bring happiness to men must have been meticulously designed.  And guess what? This hypothesis is supported by Moses’ account in Genesis that God created all things for the benefit of mankind.

 

 

 

priceless product of pressure

 A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure – Anonymous

 

the line between civilisation and anarchy

 UN World Food Program executive director Josette Sheeran, in addresing US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, quoted that there are only seven meals between civilisation and potential anarchy. 

 

“At the seventh meal lost, people are reduced to fending for their survival and the survival of their children..”

 

Most of us are blessed enough not to have to verify the truth of this saying.

 

The reality out there is that the current global food crisis has sparked riots in more than 30 countries, and is threatening world peace and stability.

 

Perhaps we can do our bit by not wasting, hoarding or speculating commodity prices for personal gains.