Introvert / Extrovert

I am a self-proclaimed introvert. Yet ask any of my current friends, and they would probably disagree.

I once did a test, and the test said I was an extrovert too.

But in fact I am not. At least I don't think I am.

I am very quiet when it comes to new people. I rarely ever start conversations.

But I find it necessary, especially in work. To be friendlier.

If I'm not going back to my hometown Ipoh, most weekends are spent alone at my apartment, catching up on chores I've neglected to do during the weekdays.

I really don't feel the need to call up and bother friends on weekends.

But that doesn't mean I won't go out if anyone asked me.

I've always thought of myself as an introvert, yet most people think otherwise. 

Now I'm not so sure.

How does one define an introvert? 

Seeing as how I'm too lazy to Google for the answer, how do I define an introvert?

One : I don't mind being alone and not talking to anyone. 

I wouldn't go so far as too say I prefer being alone as opposed to with friends, being with friends is fun, but there are times I wanna be alone. 

Two : I rarely find myself talking to strangers. 

Not the type of person to get into lengthy conversations with the cashier at this restaurant I normally go or what, but I do put in an effort to talk to people when it feels awkward, i.e when you're in an elevator with just this other person and you see each other almost every day but never really talked.

Yes I think that is a strong proof that I am an introvert.

Three :  I think a lot.

More than I would care to admit. I like analyzing things, and sometimes I end up realizing things that upset me. Although I am not sure that thinking a lot constitutes as an introvert.

I feel that thinking a lot makes me an introvert is because there's a person I know at work that talks a lot, but can be a bit oblivious sometimes.

And I'm a 100% sure she's an extrovert.

I have this friend which I would swear is an extrovert, but he insists that he is an introvert. If it is TRUE that he really is an introvert, then he has mastered the art of conversation superbly.

Conversation is an art. To introverts especially. The words do not come flowingly to the tongue. You'd have to be on your proverbial conversation toes to strike up an interesting conversation, and its even tougher to keep the conversation going.

Especially if you're talking to someone you've just met. 

But sometimes its easier. Coz since you don't know much about the person, you can just ask question after question.

It's the people that you know but don't really have that much in common that's hard.

What on earth would I say to these people.

I don't wanna appear rude and reserved, but I really can't think of anything to talk to these people most of the time.

Being Malaysian, most of the time I talk about the weather, rain in particular. Haha.

Next I talk about food. Makan mana?

Once those two topics are discussed, and that said person is still there, I'll just keep quiet and hope they start talking next.

Like now...

Hmm.

Peace.

Illogical Atheists

The concept of God, to an atheist, is a ridiculous one.

It does not make any sense at all, to them.

However, how many of people that believe in God, thinks that the existence of God makes sense?

Out of the billions of humans in this world that believe in the concept of God, how many of them actually think that God makes perfect sense?

That it would actually be absurd to think that God does not exist?

How many? How many among us, if asked question after question, with logical reasoning, would probably come up to the conclusion that God is not logical?

A mere made-up notion thought up by people ages ago.

We all claim to be logical, educated people that believe in experimental proof and common sense.

We believe all these theories about atoms, cells, electromagnetic forces, chemistry.

Because its been proven to be true.

Yet when the subject of God arises, we turn off our logic and simply choose to believe.

I was once asked by a Muslim woman which was much older than me, that had proper education, a thought-provoking question.

She says that she believes in God and everything, but she wonders why is it that God allows for so much pain and suffering to occur in this world? 

We hear day in and day out of people getting killed, babies left in trash cans, suicide bombings, school shootings, horrifying terrible things, and I suppose she wondered for awhile, if there was a Merciful God, why would He allow such things to happen.

I do not know for sure why she asked me of all people, (out of the blue if memory serves) but I think it was because she was afraid of people treating her differently. Most of us simply dismiss tough questions such as this and follow blindly. 

But it is a most logical question, so I wonder if this 30-something year old university-educated woman thought of this, how many of us Muslims or believers of God for that matter, have similar doubts in our minds.

How many of us, if born in a slightly more liberal country, would renounce our religion and never look back.

My gut feeling tells me that by the time you're reading this sentence you're probably got frowning eyebrows, furiously reading and worrying that I've gone mad and lost faith.

Haha. No no I'm still perfectly sane. For the most part.

Despite not being a 100% Muslim country, the Malaysian Constitution is written up according to Islamic law. It actually prohibits people from going murtad. 

The Malaysian constitution dictates that if you are a Malay, then by law, you MUST be a Muslim. According to the law, there is no such thing as Christian Malay. This is why years ago there was so much noise about the Malay girl that converted to Christianity and wanted to put that in her IC.

If she were successful in her bid (which she wasn't FYI), any Malay in this country could convert and there would be absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. 

I partly feel that this is why the opposition are so gung-ho on promoting equal rights between races and brandishing the Sultans as wasters of public funds.

The special rights of the Malays and the sovereignty of the Sultans are in the Malaysian Constitution. If they can convince the rakyat that either one of these are stupid rules, then they can change the bit about the Prime Minister having to be a Malay, and worst, Malays not needing to be Muslims.

But I'm straying away from topic at hand.

When that woman asked me, me being a bit younger then, told her that I believe that what happens to others is not just a test to them, but a test to us as well. Take example the Palestinians being oppressed. It is a test to them, no doubt, but it is also a test of character for us, their Muslim brothers and sisters. What are we doing to help them? Are we at the very least sympathetic? Or could we not care less?

When you see someone being mugged on the street, do you help or do you ignore in fear of you being hurt / mugged as well?

Or perhaps a more subtle one, if you're late for work, do you run a red light and deny people that had green their right of way, or do you wait?

I recall a certain someone complaining that she was not tested, and she feared that it meant that she was not worthy of being tested, which ultimately meant she was not a good person.

We are constantly being tested, only thing is that the tests aren't meant to be obvious like the ones we take in the university. If it were we'd cheat or study just immediately before the test, and then pass when in fact had it been a surprise test, we'd fail miserably.

Are we not under 24-hour observation by the two angels at our sides? Not to mention, God, all-seeing and everything.

Also, I think if you're worried that you're not a good enough person, odds are you are good enough. Lol.

Upon hearing my explanation, the woman agreed with me. I do not know till this day whether she merely agreed because she regretted asking the question and did not want to cause any more concern or because she truly agreed and I managed to put her curiosity to rest for the time being. 

I hope it was the latter. Nowadays, I would have a different answer, but that is another discussion for another time.

It is not wrong to be curious, to question what we believe, in my opinion. Even the prophets of old asked God for proofs, not because they didn't believe, but because they wanted to strengthen their beliefs.

I truly feel that if we really understood science, we would come to the conclusion that it is absolutely illogical to believe that there is no God.

After all, the Big Bang is merely a theory. There is no conclusive evidence, merely signs that tell us it is probably true, and that so far we've not found signs to say that it is false.

Yet we take it as fact and assume it to be true.

Is it that far-fetched an idea to think that God does exist?

Peace.

The Key to Happiness.

Happy New Year!

Well, Happy Chinese New Year to be exact.

I was supposed to blog at least once a month, but I forgot last month. My bad.

Also I didn't really have anything to write about.

Honestly I think I write better than I speak English. My verbal English is bad, I think.

Probably from lack of usage. Must try to speak more.

Maybe speak to myself more. Like I do in this blog. Ahaha ha.

7 lines in, and I've already run out of things to say. Hmm.

Safe to say that I won't be a professional blogger in the near future....

But then again, all these professional bloggers do is post pictures of themselves (because most of them are very pretty), with very minimal writing done, and voila!

Tells you what the real world is like.

I saw this video very recently. It's a talk by Cameron Russell, an underwear model, and she talks about what her life as a model is like. It's a 10-minute video, you can watch it if you want.

If you don't, basically she's saying, looks aren't everything, don't judge a book by its cover. And pretty people are also very insecure of their looks.


I've been watching loads of these videos lately. They've been an eye-opener of sorts.

No, not because I've been watching videos of underwear models, (just this one, I swear), because some of these videos make you think on what you think you already know.

There was another video which struck me as very interesting. AND there was no underwear model involved.

It was a video by a psychologist that talks about happiness. Why are we happy? Why are we unhappy?

It's a slightly longer video, 22 minutes long to be exact, but its worth the watch. I'll post it at the end of the post.

The gist of the video is that happiness is not determined by what you get / have, it is determined by the way you look at it.

I'm 25 years old this year, and I think I'm entering the soul-searching phase of my life, so all these questions come to mind.

Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Why am I unhappy? Why am I happy? Should I be content?

There was one point in time where I was upset with myself for not being happy. I kept asking myself, "You have everything, so why are you not happy?"

It took me awhile, and a whole lot of thinking and doing, basically changing the course of my life, but I think I've found the answer.

The key to happiness is to be happy with what you have.

This is the key.

If you can do this, you shall be happy for the rest of your life.

This is of course not to say that you will never be sad. Of course there are things in life that may upset you, but as French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard once said of anger, "It will cross the mind like a bird crossing the sky without any tracks".

This also does not mean that you should be passive and not strive for anything more than what you already have. You should, and by all means you must, because for every second you live, you are that much closer to death.

This is to say that if you try but you don't succeed, it sucks, but don't beat yourself up about it. No point in being sad about something you can't control.

Of course, its easier said than done. But I believe it works.

Sometimes, in our pursuit of happiness, we do things that we might regret later on. We so desperately need to feel happy, we do things like take that higher paying but stressful job, or buy that house we can barely afford, or date that ridiculously beautiful but awfully shallow girl.

I have a friend that appears to not know what he really wants. His first job was a high-paying one, but it was in another country, so he felt alone and lonely.

So he decides to leave the job, get a job in Malaysia with a lower pay, but at least he's near to his friends and loved ones. Finally gets married, but now says he cannot work a desk job, he has to do something more hands-on.

So what does he do? He decided to get another job, similar to his first job, and in that same country.

I don't know about you, but looks to me like he's back to square one. Make that square negative 1, because before it was just bachelor him missing friends and family, now its married him, far away from the wife.

When he asked our group of friends, myself included, whether he should go for that job he was offered, me being myself, I told him that he instead should focus on his family. Bad enough that they were living in different states at the time, now he plans to move out of the country and go offshore for weeks.

But he says to me that he HAS to try, he cannot live not knowing what it would've been like, what it could've been like.

So I told him to go for it.

As a friend, we wish, we hope that we could dissuade our friends from doing things that are bad for them, but if they are adamant, the only thing we can do is support them and hope for the best.

The key to happiness is to be happy with what you have.

This is actually considered mengumpat, but I suppose its for good.

If you wish to stumble upon happiness, I think you should at least know what you want, else you'll end up with a lot that you don't.

Enough for now.

Peace.

End of Days

So the world did not end this year. Big shocker there.

I don't think many people believed that end-of-the-world, despite all its hype.

It is an interesting topic nevertheless, what would you have done if it was the end of the world?

Would you have lived your life differently?

Would you run to nearest mosque and repent for all your past transgressions?

Would you book the first flight of to Egypt and die in front of the Pyramids?

Or would you perhaps confess your undying love to that special someone on your very last day of existence?

Most interesting indeed.

I thought for awhile on what I would've done had I actually believed it was doomsday.

I don't think I would've done anything differently.

If it was predicted that the world would end at the stroke of midnight, during the day I would probably go to work as usual (assuming people actually went to the office), or go about my normal everyday activities.

Sleep. Play games. Watch movies. Observe as the world reacts.

Usual things.

I do not know this for sure, but I would assume some people would think either I have lost all will to live and have decided to wait for the inevitable end, or that I am unbelievably lazy and cannot be bothered to salvage what precious moments still left to spare.

Almost, but not quite.

I thought of it for a second or two, and I decided, what is there to do?

Did I wish to see the world and marvel at the fascinating sights and cultures?

Did I wish to see myself have a family and grow old with my wife while our own children build their life?

Did I hope to build a successful career doing something that I love (whatever that may be) and buy my parents whatever worldly indulgence that they desired?

Did I wish to be a better person than I already was, perhaps the best person I could be, and leave my mark in this world?

Of course I did.

But what could I possibly have accomplished in that short period of time?

I believe that whatever has happened, has happened for a reason, and whatever did not, was not supposed to.

If the world did end that day, it was not fated to be.

I am not one to go against my fate.

Its funny, how I never cease to complain about my life especially here in this blog, yet I believe in not going against my fate.

Its not to say that I am that person that sits on his ass and waits for things to happen.

Its just that I believe, that whatever I did, whatever I am doing, and whatever I will do in the future, has all been written.

I just don't know what exactly was written.

I'm still trying to figure it out. But aren't we all.

Which reminds me, there is probably one thing I would do differently on my last day.

I probably would contact everyone I have ever known and said I'm sorry for everything.

I can never really tell whether I'm being offensive, because often times I feel like I'm being refreshingly honest, when in fact, nobody wants someone that's REALLY honest.

We just like it when people are honest about things that we like, like how pretty or how smart we are.

We never want to hear things like "Oh you're pregnant, you should probably get maternity clothes rather than pretending those old clothes still fit, coz honey, you're not exactly fooling anyone".

Is what I said in my head of course.... I'm not that evil.

Although I did say something which hinted that.

I should probably apologise to her should the world really end.

One thing I noticed recently, we Malaysians never can disagree on one thing without taking things personal.

When someone says something, its like you're obligated to agree, or else you'll offend the person.

There really is no such thing as agree to disagree here.

At the end of an argument, we nod our heads in agreement, just to avoid confrontation.

We then talk about it behind that person's back. Very typical behaviour.

Sometimes there doesn't even have to be any disagreement. We just like talking bad about other people behind their backs.

Backstabbing SOBs, we are.

Anyways, the reason why I noticed is that most of the people I talk to sometimes disagree to what I say, but when I state my point of views, they suddenly agree on a compromise.

Either I'm incredibly convincing or they just don't wanna argue with me.

Probably both. Haha.

Anyways, I digress. After apologising to everyone, at least people I think I've offended (which would take a few hours), I think I would've just sat down on my prayer mat, and just talked to God.

By this time, the billions of humans on Earth that actually believes in God would probably ask God for forgiveness, but I wonder out of those billions, how many are actually sincere in repenting, and not merely afraid of being punished because they are about to die.

This is not to say that I am pure from any sins, far from it, but if anything, I would like to think that I am sincere in my religious acts.

Truth be told, although my father was somewhat of a religious person, he never really forced me to embrace religion, he merely guided me, and it was largely up to me to decide, even when I was a boy.

As a boy, I would think that I am one of the few that prayed not because I was told to or caned if I didn't, but mostly because I wanted to.

And because there was no cane, I may have skipped a few prayers as well. LOL.

I guess what my father was trying to teach me was that there really is no compulsion in religion, when you do it, do it with all your heart, or why bother doing at all.

There is also the possibility that I may have grossly misunderstood what he was trying to say.

But seriously though, its kinda like when you're speeding above 110km/h on a highway, and you see that AES camera up ahead, so you slow down.

You don't really wanna slow down, but you do it because you're forced to, because you don't wanna pay for the summons.

Unlike that camera and the PDRM, you're not fooling God, He knows your true intentions.

That's the way I understand things anyway. I could be horribly wrong. I know some people think so.

I guess at the very last hour, my entire life would probably flash before my eyes, and I would suddenly be able to remember every good, and every bad thing that I've done.

To repent is to regret in doing, and there are things I hoped I did not do, but it is those things that I have done in the past that become a reminder for me today.

I hope that He forgives me for all that I have done. I hope I hope for this everyday, and not just my very last day.

I am after all merely a puppet in His grand scheme of things.

And after all that, I wait. For the world to end.

What an anti-climactic way to die. Haha.

I'm never really one to show off.

It just sometimes sounds like I'm showing off, when in fact I'm just telling the truth.

Because I'm awesome like that.

Okay that one was a bit show-offy.

Now that we know that the world did not end last week, cheers to the coming new year.

Another year to live.

I shall end this post with some wise words from my brain.

We live today simply to die another day.

However, do not be sad, death is not the end.

It is only the beginning.

Also, don't buy Mayan calendars.

Peace.