Life is not fair, get used to it

There is an urban legend in Internet for years that billionaire Mr. Bill Gates spoke to a group of students about the 11 rules of life. I think whether those rules are really from Mr. Gates is not important at all, what matters is the meaning behind these.

These are the rules that I hope all students, youngsters, newbies in the job market can study carefully and learn from it. These are also the rules that explain why we believe the only way to success (and to get respected) is to work hard, extremely hard.

I can appreciate life is not easy, but life is never easy and no one promised you that in the first place (my boss always reminds me that). I also believe every one of you can overcome all your life obstacles, as long as you don’t whine about those, but keep going … don’t stop !!

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

Here is the slide deck of the 11 rules of life.

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=bill-gates-life-is-not-fair-get-used-to4528&stripped_title=bill-gates-life-is-not-fair-get-used-to

What to share and what your friends all care about ?

WordPress, Blogger, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Plurk, Foursquare, Gowalla … there are so many “networking” sites in Internet that you can access everyday from your laptop, cafe PCs and your mobile devices. Many times I ask myself why I want to share with my friends or a total stranger of what I am thinking, where I am and how to resolve some tricky problems.

I think the answer is simple, because many of us want to be a part of larger group, a good cause, or simply of something you care.

Not a frequent blogger, twitter myself but every time I want to post something on these social networks, I can’t help but to ask myself what the purpose of that blog post, tweet, news, or location is ? The information may be about Kindle, iPhone, photography, Information technology, web usability, food but the bottom line is – will my “friends” or “followers” benefit from it ? If not, then why post ?

Couple of days ago when I was reading the book Delivering Happiness : A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, a picture popped up in my mind.

That was, all these “information” I wanted to post in these networks actually intersect with each others and each of the intersections may serve a different group of my audiences. Then I drew the following picture / graph … about how I want to serve you, as my friend; with my expertise, news, views and where-abouts.

3 years, 2 cameras, 1 new photobook

It’s hard to explain … I have big hard disks to store all the photos, and of course good software to manipulate / view / backup the photos. However, I still like to print the photos out, and then look at them, touch them, smell them … So here is it, my second photo book – Mirror with memory (this link works for iPad as well).

This photo book is a collection of my travel photos in the past 3 years with Olympus E-510 and E-P1.

Enjoy some samples below (for non-iPad browser only) !!

Which Kindle to buy ?

There are 6 models of Kindle you can buy now from Amazon.com, the Kindle DX (with white or graphite colors, in different prices), the Kindle with Free 3G + Wi-Fi, and the Kindle with Wi-Fi only (both with white or graphite colors). Each of these Kindles is good device to read, but which Kindle shall you buy ?

To answer this question, I draw up the following flowchart and hope you will find it useful.

Don’t miss all the other Kindle blog posts !!

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional

I learnt this proverb for quite sometime, but not really appreciate the meaning behind it until three years ago … In year 2007 today I started the 49 days treatment of a serious heart disease, and every now and then I still ask myself whether it was just a dream or something really happened (for those who are fans of the movie Inception, you understand what I’m talking about).

Guess it will probably take me ages to accept such event really has taken place, even though I can see the 10-inches scar on my chest every day. And it will also take me a long time to complete the self-healing, in other words, to truely believe that I have recovered – such that I shall not treat myself as a patient / victim anymore.

The self-healing process has taken such a long time, I reckon, is probably because the six, seven weeks of treatment in the hospital was so painful, so disturbing and so discouraging that I wondered it would never end. However, with the support from family members, friends, colleagues and of course the doctors, nurses and staff in the hospital; I managed to complete the treatment in seven weeks.

Granted, it was painful, but I also learnt that suffering was optional – you need a positive mindset to go thru all the hurdles in life. So, be thankful to every sunrise, sunset and live your life to its fullest.

hospital