Month: December 2019

Why, How Can We Be Grateful and the Three Things I am Grateful for in 2019

Looking back at the 17 blogposts I have written this year, there’s not much gratitude found in them. There are a few thrown in here and there. Some are big and bold writeup of gratitudes, some are just bits and bops. I’m a little disappointed with myself in this regard. I set out to make the world better but probably ended up with a bunch of frustrated criticism in my writing. I can blame the world for making me feeling angry, disappointed, frustrated with the people or situation but in the end these are just excuses. I’m thinking…let’s end 2019 with being grateful.

Research have shown that our brain and body works better when we are in a positive state. We need to be positive in everything, even in death. We have all heard of the phrase ‘she/he is now in a better place’ or ‘Allah loves him more’ at every funeral right? That is putting death in a positive way isn’t it?

We can be easily be more positive by being grateful. Being grateful literally makes our brain positively better. Saying our gratitude out loud and writing down our gratitude make our brain ‘workout’ to be more positive. Think of an athlete working out to build muscles, the same principle applies here only that it build neural sensitivity to positiveness.

Being grateful is vital in making us stronger and more resilient to stress. In today’s world, stress is almost everywhere. Read the newspaper, stressed with the news. Drive to work, stressed with the traffic. Take the train, stressed with the sardine packed situation. Arrived at the office, stressed with our boss and co-workers. My wife arrived home, stressed with me spending more time with my second wife.

There are simple ways to rewire our brain to be grateful. But before that, let’s understand what gratitude is. Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines gratitude as the state of being grateful. Grateful means appreciative of benefits received. We sometimes think so hard for big and bold things to be grateful of when there are so many little things in life that we can be grateful of as well.

This includes me as well. I wanted to write things I’m grateful of in 2019 but I kinda struggled to find the things I’m grateful of. That’s when I got reminded of being grateful to the little things and also this book. This is what sparks this write up.

Onwards with the 5 ways to practice being more grateful and slowly but surely rewires our brain to be more positive. I should do it more and I believe so should everyone else.

  1. Practice sharing with loved ones
    • Share your gratitudes with loved ones daily. Best is to do it at the dinner table. Or it could also be just before you go to sleep. Try your best to share your gratitudes for the day, it can’t be from the day before or last week. It has to be from the day. It must also be uniquely yours, can’t be the same as your wife/husband or kids. Take turns, and you start first.
    • It’s also better at night because being grateful just before going to sleep will help us to sleep better.
  1. Practice Journaling
    • Writing down really works well with our brain. Ever heard your teacher or lecturer said don’t just listen to the lecture but also take notes? That’s because writing down further strengthen the brain neural activity. Furthermore it also involves physical object and thus further strengthening the neural activities of our brain.
    • Just write down three things you are grateful of before you go to sleep every day and that is it.
    • With your phone, it’s makes it THAT so much easier to write down three gratitude daily. We all know you scroll through your social media feed just before going to sleep, now replace it with writing down the things you are grateful of for the day.
  1. Practice mindfulness
    • Mindfulness is so very simple, it means: slow down.
    • I’m guilty of this as well. I want everything fast and now. In playing my video games, almost always I have this ‘min maxing’ mindset. To maximise everything in minimum time.
    • We tend to be doing it in real life as well right? Some wants to be millionaire before 40. Some wants to be in office on time and rushes through the traffic.
    • Mindfulness is to notice ourselves in a hurried state, and let it go away. Just let it go away and relax. A few minutes late won’t kill us. Tomorrow be out of home earlier and not be late anymore.
    • On the way to work, take notice of the birds, the trees, the clouds, the flowers planted by nature and also by humans. Once you got out of the car, look at the nature around us. Mindfulness is literally about asking you to stop and smell the roses.
    • Life is too short to be missing out on all of these, be grateful and let’s appreciate these little things.
    • Eckhart Tolle the author of “The power of Now” said it best, Nature never rushes, and yet everything gets done.
  1. Practice Stoicism
    • This is my second personal favourite.
    • Buy the new iPhone 11 Pro and the pleasure of owning it will wear off pretty quickly. The feeling will be completely gone by the time iPhone 12 comes out.
    • Same with buying a new car. Try driving an old 10 or 15 years old car instead of your 5 years old car and you’ll be thankful of your current car.
    • I still drive our trusty 11 years old Proton Persona to work every day. On the weekend I’d drive my wife’s newer car and that made me appreciate it so much more.
    • Make it a habit to live a simple life. This will help to make us think more of the pleasures in life that we take for granted. Take a simple meal that only a minimum wage person with a family of five can afford and the next Nasi Goreng USA Special will be the best meal you have ever had. Take the bus or walk somewhere instead of driving and you will be grateful you can afford a Proton. Sleep on the floor for a week and you’ll be grateful you have a RM150 foam mattress instead of a ten thousand ringgit latex mattress.
    • We all probably have a lot of comforts and life pleasures, even the little ones. Try to live without them and it will teach us to not take them for granted. We will actually be grateful for them instead of thinking to replace them with newer and better things.
  1. Practice to combine gratitude and forgiveness
    • This is my number one favourite of the five. This is the ultimate workout for our brain. We all experienced stress, anger and hurt. It may have manifested or it may have not and are buried inside us without us knowing. These stress, anger and hurt are probably caused by someone.
    • Write down these stress, or anger or hurt that we are feeling. Feel them, feel them hard.
    • Once you felt it hard, find a way how have this stress, anger or hurt have made you a better person. Find a way how you may have benefited from it in a way.
    • Then let the the stress, anger and hurt got away or melt away. Let the negativity go.
    • A good example I can share, my previous job is so very stressful. You think of the most stressful situation you have ever been in. Got it? Now multiple it by a million, that was how stressful I was. Not only that, I was also angered and hurt many times while working there. However, without all that stress, anger and hurt, I wouldn’t have learned how to cope with hard situations, I wouldn’t have had the best experience in my entire career, I wouldn’t have had some of the more fulfilling achievements, I wouldn’t have paid off several of my debts. Lastly, I wouldn’t have been the person I am today without all that stress, anger and hurt upon me. I let it go, let it melt away and it’s the best feeling ever.

I hope the above 5 ways to be more grateful will help you to live your life better and now I’d like to share the top three things I’m grateful in 2019.

My mom and the rest of the clan.

My mother is now 65 years old and she is fit as a fiddle. She still cooks for us when we are back in SP. She’d also pack for us food should someone is heading to KL and told him/her to pass the packed food to us. She would call me whenever I forgot to call her (and I almost always forget to all her). Until today she tries her best to not cause us trouble whether financially or emotionally. More than that, she was worried for me when I quit my job earlier this year. If there’s one thing I’m grateful in this year it’s this.

Second would of course are all the great games that I played this year. It’s been so overwhelmingly great. I played so many good games it’s sucks so much of my productive time that I feels so guilty. It has taken away time when I can read more, work more, spend more time with my wife and family more and do whatever more things I can do but instead I played these video games. And for that I am grateful.

This is probably 5% of the total team whom I have had the pleasure of working with. Thank you to all 100% of them.

Lastly, thanks the two great folks at my work place. First is the folks at my previous workplace for an experience of a lifetime. From my first day there, up to the very last day, it has been nothing but great stuff. You all know who you are and I’m forever in your debt for an experience of learning and contributing of a lifetime. Second is to the folks at my new workplace, I’m grateful for the chance given to me and the trust placed in me to be part of the great team there.

That’s all folks. Thank you for all your reads and comment here or personally or on my social media pages. See you in the next decade that is tomorrow. Have another great year in 2020.

Peace be unto you.

The Story of My Second Wife

Since there’s all this talk about this Ustaz or Da’i or PU or whatever people call them nowadays, one thing for sure is these ulama’ folks are definitely NOT what we would call pewaris nabi for sure. Okay back to the main story, since this Da’i actually married his second wife and told people that he met his wife in front of or near the Kaabah and that he can’t resist her after the 18th times or something like that. I think it’s my turn to tell all of you about my second wife. I want to one up the Da’i this time. It’s our 25th Anniversary anyway so it’s kinda a good time to be talking about it. It’s also a good time to be sharing with all of you about my second wife.

Let me start about a few months before we got married. It was the year where I was sitting for my SPM. I first saw her in City Point Shopping Complex. It was the premier Shopping Complex in Sungai Petani at the time. It’s just 2 minutes walk from the gate of my school. So you can all imagine the temptation we all had to go through every day. Who in their right mind wouldn’t “lompat pagar” or skip school when the best place to hang out is just 2 minutes away.

This is a recent photo of City Point. It’s no longer the best place to go shopping, I believe only the ground floor are occupied and probably a portion of the first floor.

I first laid my eyes on my second wife somewhere in early 1996. She was in this shop on the second floor of City Point Shopping Centre. It was there and then that I vowed to take her home one day in the future. I was so determined to marry her, that first time I laid my eyes on her, no need to wait till 18th time. That’s how much I love her. Unlike the Da’i lah, took him 18th time to realised he needs to marry her. Apparently lambat naik.

This determination has boosted my zeal to go through my Form 5 and finish my SPM as swiftly as I can, so I can marry her. The next few months I spent most my afternoon with her at City Point. Everyday right after school, I’d hang out in City Point with her. I was lucky as the uncle who takes care of her in City Point allowed me to spend time with her daily. I’ll never forget you Uncle. So sporting at the time considering it’s the 90’s.

Fast forward a few months later, the day of my last SPM paper has finally arrived. It was an afternoon paper. I cycled to the school about an hour earlier. I stopped by at City Point. Met with her and told uncle that I want to marry her in a couple of months time. Uncle just smiled and told me to start working and earn a steady income first and be a responsible person. I hold on to his words. I started to save all my daily school allowance since the day I met her. I worked in a bread factory near my house the whole year almost everyday after school. I told Uncle that I’ll immediately start working after SPM and I’ll save all my salary so I can take her from you Uncle. He again smiled.

Immediately after my last SPM paper, my brother, who was working in KFC at the time hooked me up to work in KFC Jam Besaq Sungai Petani. That was THE place to work at the time. Number one Fast Food joint in SP. It was a privilege to be working there. I was thinking, there’s no way Uncle would say no to me knowing I now works at THE best fast food joint at the time. Exactly 3 days after SPM, I started working in KFC. It was probably somewhere in October of 1995. I worked hard and I was awarded the Best Rookie of the Month. I’m not sure if I was really the best or they were just being nice as there was only one new joiner that month. But, it doesn’t matter, I was happy because I was sure that this will further melts Uncle’s heart when he knows that I’m so responsible as a worker and that this award is the proof.

After working for 1+ months, on Sunday, 4th December 1995, it was payday. I have worked for a full month and a bit of extra days in October. I finally received my first salary. My first proper job salary. The total money I got at the time including my savings was probably over RM800. I remember we were only paid RM1.80 per hour at the time. With this much money in my pocket, I then decided to go and see Uncle and tell him that I’m taking her hands in marriage. Never before in my life I had that much money and with this money I can finally get married.

Immediately after my shift ended, I went straight home. Took a nice bath and wore the nicest Baju Melayu I have. It was a Navy Blue Baju Melayu, very fitting as that was her favourite colour. Took out all my savings from the beginning of the year, added together with my salary from KFC, I believed that I now have enough. I said to myself, “Asslamualaikum Cinta, Saya nak amik awak ni. Kuatkan semangat saya”. Went out of my room and I saw my mom at the kitchen, Immediately my brain moved my mouth and told my mom that I’ll be going to the Masjid for Isya’ tonight. My mom smiled so hard, it’s like her dream has finally came true. Yup, that’s a sin for me there. A white lie sin.

Now, I know what you guys are thinking, but hear me out first. You can’t tell your mom that you wanna get married right after SPM. We came for a not so well to do family. She expected me to study hard, go to university and probably be a doctor or something. And here I am, just content to be working in KFC and settle down with the love of my life right after SPM, so of course I can’t just tell my mother. The only option I have is to strengthen my will and told my mother a white lie. I was sure she will be okay with. As people say, it’s easier to say sorry after the fact than to ask for permission before we do it. Right? Right?

So after the white lie, I then head out to City Point on my sister’s bicycle. It was what we call “Basikal Mini” at the time. It was also in blue and it had a basket in front of it. I never thanked my sister for this. I’ll be sure to thank her later after I published this post.

If my memory served me right, this was what it looked like back then. At least similar to this.

I then cycled straight to City Point. Throughout the trip, I imagined Uncle smiling as I arrive in my Baju Melayu. I also imagined holding her in my hands. My head was racing with thoughts of what will be the first thing that I will do with her when I took her hand in marriage. It took me probably 45 minutes of cycling before I arrived at City Point but I didn’t even broke a sweat. I was on cloud 9 where the air is cool and refreshing throughout the trip. I arrived at around half past eight.

The exact route I took to go to City Point that night.

I parked my bicycle at the usual parking spot on the side of the building. Took the side stairs up to second floor and went straight to see Uncle. He gave me a big smile with a hint of suprised look. He never saw me in Baju Melayu and I think that suprised bit was because of just how handsome I was at the time. It was then I proposed to my second wife. I hold the controller in my hands and asked Uncle if I can take her home. Uncle gave his signature smile and said “Aiyaahh mai mai. Mai sini pilih game, selalu free 10 game saja. Hang selalu mai sini tolong Uncle, hang amik 30 free game”

My second wife with a controller and a memory card

I was so happy to get 30 free games with her instead of my initial expectation of only 10. It took me a good 30 minutes flipping through the game binders at Uncle’s place before I can finally decide the 30 games.

I can’t remember all the games but I still remember the first few games that I was so excited to play that night with my newly wedded wife.

On the left was European Cover for the game. Ont he right was a screenshot of the game.

The first one was Wipeout. Much have been talked about the game on the internet. The game still lives till today with a Wipeout HD and Fury released as remastered for PS4. It’s a futuristic racing game with an anti-gravity vehicle and weapons thrown in. It features a sleek art design of not only the vehicles and tracks but also the whole game presentations like the menu, logos of the teams and logos of the tracks. It boasted a super great collection of industrial music big shots like Prodigy, Orbital, Future Sounds of London and many others. This game is how I got my teeth into industrial and house music. Love this game to death. I’ve never missed a single game in the series on all PlaySation consoles.

Battle Arean Toshinden Cover and screenshot. The game that was supposed to kill Sega’s Virtua Fighter.

Second game that I played that night was Battle Arena Toshinden. It blew my mind when I first saw it. It was super fast paced and characters were circling each other on screen in 3D manner. It was unheard of at the time where most of the games are 2D. Even Sega’s Virtua Fighter had a more traditional 2D gameplay. Compared to Toshinden, the players can easily ‘circles’ the opponent or avoid a punch or projectiles by sidestepping. This gave the impression of the 3D space arena that they have. The game was also less blocky than Virtua Fighter and faster paced. That was why I got hooked.

Ace Combat cover and screenshot

The third game I played that night was Ace Combat. I was a big fan of the arcade game. I get to sit in the cockpit of a fighter plane with a big ass screen in front of me and a flight stick in between the legs. It was great to have the arcade game in our home. Later with Ace Combat 2, it came at the time when Dual Shock controller was introduced. It made the whole thing that much better.

If you guys read this up till this point, I commend you guys for a job well done. Onwards with the story with my wife, I got home that night with the PlayStation box and 30 games in a yellow plastic bag resting in the bicycle’s basket. My mom was still awake so I had to improvise. I took another plastic bag from the kitchen, wrapped the big yellow plastic bag with another plastic bag and hid my newly wedded wife outside the house. Once the coast is clear, I picked up my wife and brought her into my room. At the time my room had a small 14″ CRT TV. It was then that we consumed each other.

The next day, my mom realised that I slept with my newly wedded second wife and she asked, “Berapa ringgi Fikri beli tu?”, I answered, “RM200 lebih ja”. So that was another lie indeed. Mom, if you read this, and if it makes you feel better, I still lie to my first wife whenever we talked about the amount of money I spent on my second wife. Not sure when can I stop lying. I believe I’ve made enough money on my own to freely buy what I want but apparently I still get questioned about it. That’s what happened when you have two wives I guess. Always feel guilty of not being fair enough between the two. Always tipu sunat.

Today, with my second wife, we have been blessed with 5 kids. They are PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. I’m happy to tell all of you that our 6th kid is coming next year insyallah. To keep with with the naming convention, we will call him/her PlayStation 5.

I love both my first wife Intan and my second wife PlayStation and I’m so blessed that we can all live happily together. Intan kids are playing daily with the PlayStations and they really love each other. I couldn’t be happier and always felt so blessed. In fact, even my first wife Intan spends time together with my PlayStation. They aren’t really in love with each other yet. They tend to get jealous whenever I spend more time with the other. For the record, Intan is more jealous of PlayStation since I tend to spend more time with PlayStation. I know I should be fair among the two but after 18th time PlayStation sent me notification to play more games, I can’t say no. So I ended up spending more time with my second wife.

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of PlayStation, I’d like to express my love to you my Dear PlayStation. Thanks for keeping me company during my highs and my lows, keeping my family together in home instead of outside and keeping me sane with all the worldly pressure and stress. Thanks for giving me all great experiences, the smile, the tears, the rage quitting, the shouting and lastly the friends within the PlayStation community. The PBMY Community and Destiny Community.

Here’s to another 25 years of PlayStation. Peace be unto all.

PlayStation iconic logo. Love you to bits!