Chapter 13-- Dreams

Everybody dreams or have dreams. I particularly likes to day-dream. In this modern era, I realize that there are basically three types of dreams that we can classify: Normal noctural/sleeping dreams, day-dream and aspiring dreams.

Normal noctural/sleeping dreams
Although it may be tempting to just states nocturnal dreams, I am however awares that in this modern world, not everyone sleeps at night and hence it may be more appropiate to refer to this type of dreams as sleeping dreams. Sleeping dreams as the name imply is the dreams that we have when we sleep. It is by far the most common and uncontrol type of dreams that one can have since I am quite certain that everyone in this world must have at least dreamed once in their entire lifetime when they slept. It is also in my opinion the most interesting type of dreams one can have since it is so uncontrollable and unpredictable that we never know what to expect from these dreams. It can be a sweet,wonderful dream or it can be a horrible and terrible nightmare. From the scientific point of view, it is also the type of dreams most worth of studying. It has been argued that these dreams would provide indications or predictions of what would really happened in real life( hence the term deja-vu) while on the other side of the camp, it is said that the things that appeared in these dreams are actually a direct opposite of what might happened in real life. For me personally, I have never doubted or believe in either side of the camp but i do experienced feelings of deja-vu before.



Day-Dreaming (include night also)
As mentioned above, I really like to day dream a lot. In fact, I think that I might have horned my day-dreaming skills since I was an infant(imagine the ample amount of time an infant has beside eating and sleeping--now imagine how boring a life an infant can have =p). Even now, I can day-dream anytime and anywhere and on anything. For instance, although I may seems to be engaging in a conversation with you, I may actually be day-dreaming about something else. This shows how high a level of competence I can have when it comes to day-dreaming. And unlike some people who thinks that day-dreaming is not productive and is a waste of time, I simply have to beg to differ as day-dreaming can require quite a vast amount of imagination and creativity to achieve. Also, I think that day-dreaming can keep your mind in an active state and keep you positive about things since when we day-dream, we usually only focus on the bright and positive things that we hope can happened one day.(such as diamonds growing on trees and people having wings to fly)


Aspiring dreams
The last type of dreams belong to the category of aspiring dreams and it is not to be confused with day-dreaming. Unlike day-dreaming which can be more abstract or wholly imaginative( such as hoping that one can fly), aspiring dreams are in a way more realistic and down to earth as these dreams reflect a certain scenario that you hope and want to achieve. This could range from scoring well in a exam for a student to becoming multi-millionaire for a businessman. In another words, aspiring dreams could jolly well serve as a motivation factor for people to be successful in their lifes and it is therefore important for us to habour aspiring dreams to provide us with that extra push when we are feeling down.


Yours sincerely,

Yongster

Chapter12-- Hesitancy

Hesitant- uncertain about what to do or say because you are nervous or unwilling. ( Longman dictionary of contemporary English)

Sometimes I really hate myself. It seems that I always have this nasty habit of procrastination which although I am fully aware of, are unfortunately unable to get rid of. Things could get so bad that I hesitant even for the slightest things such as cleaning up my room or even dumping my soiled clothes into the washing machine. However, I would like to stress that I am not indecisive. I can made decisive decisions but I would be hesitant in carry them out. For instance, I may already have made up my decision to buy the shirt that I wanted but I would always either consciously or sub-consciously delay buying it. It seems as if some unexplainable forces were holding me back like what I mentioned in my previous entry. Even though I wanted somethings, it would always seems that this "wants" are not strong enough for me to carry them out immediately. It could be due to reasons like I am in no mood to shop for the shirt or that the price of the shirt is unjustified in my opinion. Perhaps, I may even be kidding myself when I say that I can made decisive decisions. In that case, is decisiveness and hesitant really separated just by a thin line? Or even more importantly, is hesitant and lazyiness merely separated by a thin line?
Although I have always wanted to learn how to cook, I often found that I hesitant whenever the opportunity does arise. Yet the desire surfaces again when these opportunity has passed. Its funny but one of the crazy reason I had whenever this chances came by is that I would suddenly lost all mood to do it. From the definition given by the Longman dictionary, nervous and unwilling are the 2 reasons for being uncertain. For me, nervous during these occasions? Maybe. But unwilling? I certainly don't think so. In that case, why do I find myself struck in the same situations everytime? Why do I always seem to have the tendency to give up when something I want is already so close? Does it then imply that I am a person who give up easily? During my army days when we often have those running sessions whereby the distance can stretch up to more than 12km, I do not give up or even hesitant to want to continue running the whole distance.In fact, I am very determined to want to complete the whole journey during that time.There was at that time this fire burning inside me that propelled me to want to complete the whole distance without walking or resting. All that is in my mind when I ran is the finishing line that I very wanted to cross. However, this burning desire seems to sizzle out completely outside camp for no apparent reason and up till now I still cannot quite figure out why it is so.

However, perhaps being hesitant does have its own advantages. At least being hesitant might reflect how careful and meticulous one is as being hesitant might just means that one consider even the smallest details. For instance, when I look back at some of the items that I did not buy some time ago due to my hesitancy, I sometimes realize that it is a blessing in disguise as I realized that these things are not what I really wanted or will be using. Moreover, being hesitant also show that you are able to weigh out the pros and cons of "doing" and "not doing" something which indirectly imply that you are at least using your brain to analyse something instead of blindly following your heart which can be dangerous at times. In fact, come to think of it, all of us are in actual fact hesitanting whenever we are thinking about something. In that case, are we actually all on a level playing field?

So should we never hesitant to hesitant?


Yours sincerely,


Yongster

Chapter 11--Bank of Mum and Dad

The Sunday Times recently reported an article on grown up children who have started working and earning a salary but yet are still taking allowance from their parents. In response, quite a few readers stated that it is an unhealthy trend for it breeds increased dependency among the younger generations.First and foremost, I think that this group of "children" must be quite thick skin to began with or else I could not think of a much better reason to explain this phenomemon. I mean, don't you feel embarrassed if you have already started work and are already earning money for yourself which could be in amount even higher than what your parents earn and yet are still taking money from them? However what really made my made my eyes roll is the reason given by some of these youngster--that they do not have enough money to support their "lavished and luxurious" lifestyle. Hey come on people, if you realized that you do not have the capabilities to maintain your lifestyle, then you should be the one who should rethink and reorganize your spending habit and not just merely depend on your old folks for the extra cash. On the other hand, parents themselves must also realized that it isn't a one way traffic and that they should also discourage their children from taking money from them if the reason given is just to fulfill their material's desire.
I realized that children in this era often have difficulty placing their priorities in life and that I myself is not excluded too. Often, in this "efficient" society where speed is of upmost important, we youngster usually do not have the patient and virtue of saving up for things that we want because we tend to want these things immediately and are therefore not willing to wait for it. So what do we do? Of course one of the quickest way is to turn to our most reliable "ATM" in this world which are our mum and dad respectively depending on whom you are closer to lah. In the long term, we will subconsciously turn to our parents whenever we have finanical difficulty and it will indeed be an uphill task for some of us to break this habit when we are older. However, though difficult it is for some of us, we must still overcome the habit if we wanted to be a true adult who is supposed to be independent of their parents. I have known of some friends who although are already in their 20s were still taking money from their parents to pay for their mobile phone bills or to to buy items they want. I feel sorry for them that they did not possess even the tiniest bit of self-responsibilities and I also fear for them that they will eventually suffer when they are older. But alas! what can we do? As a chinese saying goes "one who is willing to beat and one who is willing to take the beating" What can we as outsiders to interfere if the parents themselves are willing to "pamper" their children with money?

Haiz, in this modern society, how much is the value of dependency worth?

Chapter 10--Forgive and Forget?

Let me get this straight. I HATE to forgive. According to the Longman dictionary of contemporary English, to forgive is to decide not to blame someone or be angry with them although they have done something wrong. Therefore, I always hate myself when I found that I am in a situation whereby I have to decide whether or not to forgive someone. I do not know if it is because of the fact that I am a typical scorpio or simply maybe because I have a "narrow" heart that I usually do not easily forgive someone let along forget about the whole thing. In fact, I NEVER forget. In a way therefore, I really do admire to a certain extent people who really have the immense capacity to forgive and forget just like a snap of a finger. One moment they are angry and the next moment it was as if nothing have happened. Similarly, I also shutter to think of people who may act as though they have forgive someone but are in actual reality are scheming to get back at you someday. For the latter, reverge is what they truly want and it is also one of the top reason why people commit crimes such as murder. They are unable to let go of the inner demon inside them. For the former, although it is enviable that they usually do not have much of a temper and therefore are so willing to forgive people, I am afraid that they may create the impression that they can be a pushover since people might just eventually take their forgiveness for granted.
The question is therefore really, how to create a balance? Under what circumstances should we try to forgive someone and under what circumstances should we chose not to forgive? Also, can we really forgive without forget? Let's take the incident of the Huang Na case. The murderer Ah Hao was eventually given a death sentence. His father went around asking people for signatures to file a petition to the president asking for anmestry. If you were the one being asked, would you sign? To sign means that you have forgiven what he did and are therefore trying to give him another chance to redeem himself but yet to sign may also imply that you have forgotten how tragic Huang Na died. Again, would Ah Hao feel that he is really forgiven even if the whole Singapore had forgiven him but not those closest to Huang Na such as her parents? This example shows that as outsiders, we would normally be more ready to forgive someone for their actions because the impacts on us were not fully felt unlike the victim who felt the direct impact. Let's take another instance, if your best friend hooks up with your boyfriend/girlfriend behind your back, would you be willing to forgive and gasps! forget? To forgive may means that you may be treasuring the friendship with your best friend and relationship with your bf/gf more than the feeling of betrayal but can this really be done in this circumstances? Even if you really forgive them, could you forget? This bring us back to the ultimate question again-Can we really forgive without forget? In most cases, we thought that we have forgiven someone but are in actual fact lying to ourselves. This is because we just cannot forget. Bear in mind that although time may made our memories fade, it will not made them disappeared. A photograph might eventually turns yellowish but the details of the photo are usually still there.Therefore the hurdle of forgetting something that hurts us before can be so high that it is almost insurmountable.

I long for one day whereby I can reach the level in which I can forgive and forget. Yet again, perhaps that day might never comes....


Yours Sincerely,
Yongster