Taiwan 2010: Technicalities

I'm leaving Tuesday night. I'll be back in a month, July 8.

What I'm packing... iPhone, iPad, Airport Express, 1 TB hard drive, Nikon D40, Nikon S640, and required chargers. I'll be taking plenty of photos for sure. I had originally expected to be near an Internet connection at least once every few days to check up on e-mail, Google Voice texts, blogs, etc. Turns out this is probably not going to be possible.

This summer trip (I haven't been considering it a "vacation" for a while now) will be a different one for me, yet again. Seems like every time I go back to Taiwan to visit family and see new places I have to grow up even more. I don't think I'm ready.

I am not sure who I'll see, where I'm staying, or what I'll be doing in Taiwan this time. But one thing is for sure though. I will return a slightly different person, hopefully one more appreciative of life and family, one with more regard for time we have on earth. Even across language barriers, it'll be trip of spiritual enlightenment, you can say.

It Always Takes One Time

Why is it that we only learn about our shortcomings and attempt to change after we encounter the problem ourselves? It is for the better, to be sure, but often times, these problems are avoidable if we heed the warning from others or from our own common sense.

A smart person learns from his mistakes, but a smarter person learns from the mistakes of others. The obviousness and genius of this is that there are few of us who actually can. I try, but I usually only understand something once I deal with it personally.

Oh well. Have a nice weekend, and do better things. Be a better person.

Self-Reliance

The problem with people these days is the lack of self-reliance. While it is necessary for society to function with the specialization of labor and for people to seek assistance when help is needed, we cannot forget about our own fundamental abilities and our own responsibility to do our own things ourselves.

We need to return to the fundamentals.

The theme of this week is self-reliance. Live it well!

The Art of Living

As I have anticipated, my junior year will be the highlight of my academic career at Cornell, just like I have expected sophomore year is the dark ages of school for me. (I base this on my four years of high school, which showed that year two was the worst and year three was the best.)

Since returning to Cornell for the spring, I have engaged in more things on campus than I every had before. I am continuing working at the Help Desk, I have been participating in several campus-wide events, and I have been enjoying my classes and the work I do for them. I even made time to go back to practicing music. And I have been happy.

Maybe it's my sleep schedule. Maybe it's the fact that I'm living on West Campus. I don't really know why. I just know that I have no reason to be angry or upset with my life or those around me and that I am happy to be alive. No, I am not crazy, and no, I am not dying. I just found more reasons to laugh and smile. Maybe it's my friends. If so, thank you. Truly.

I came across this article on Psychology Today, "The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment". As I was reading it, I found that I had been living the lifestyle the article had suggested. Wow...

New Life Goal

Do one thing at a time. In this world of doing too much all at once, I'd like to focus on one thing at a time to completion.

Extreme multi-tasking is no longer a virtue. It is to the detriment of the mind.

Resolutions for the Next Year, Maybe

Consider the laundry list of resolutions you have kept for yourself (if you believe in such things) over the last few years. How many of them have you actually accomplished?

(I define New Year's resolution in the popular sense, of losing weight or of volunteering to helping others; not in the sense of setting life goals like signing up for your first credit card or getting married.)

The trick with New Year's resolutions is to either ignore the whole thing and resolve to do nothing particularly different, or to focus on at most one resolution.

If you are serious and choose only one thing in your lives that you'd like to make better, it'll surely happen that year. By December 31 of that year, the resolution should be an integral part of our lives, to a point where it is no longer considered out of the way or special, but rather routine. The next year after that, pick something else. Year over year, it'll add up. And then things can actually change. Then, things will actually stick.

Now that you have only one resolution, make sure it is reasonable. For example, if you resolve to do something with a numerical value to it, divide that number by 2. Aim for that instead. (This can be for wanting to go fishing with your buddies 5 times next year, or hoping to sell 4 of your paintings, or eating one apple everyday. Change it to going fishing 2-3 times, selling 2 paintings, or eating one apple every two days.)

I do not believe in making resolutions public (because frankly, others don't actually care, and if they do, they'll forget anyway). Nor do I believe in writing resolutions down (intended to hold yourself accountable to yourself). If you need to do either one of these tricks to get you to focus on your single resolution, I would argue that the resolution you made is either too much to handle, that you are not ready to deal with the self-induced "change", or that you are not serious about keeping your resolution. Reevaluate your resolution or reevaluate yourself. There ought to be no give and take. There ought to be no forgiveness if you break this simple promise to yourself.

If you are at worried about not keeping your resolution, either resolve not to make it in the first place, or take baby-steps. Remember not to change to be someone else; make your own, not borrow one from others. It doesn't work that way.

Things will happen regardless of whether you resolve to do them or not. The purpose of a "New Year's resolution" is not to cover all aspects of your life. You will get to whatever you need to deal with when the time comes (and you'll know when). New Year's resolutions ought to be, I think, just an excuse to focus on one particular aspect of your life. The coming of a new year shouldn't be the only time when you consider making changes to your life. If it is, that's just foolish.

Things will happen as they will. The best you can do is to plan for one simple goal at a time and stick to it. You just have to set aside enough of your "resolve" to follow through and to undertake whatever else comes your way the rest of the year, not just on January 1.

Farewell 2008. Hello 2009. I'll see you on the other side.

(Image from timessquarenyc.org.)

Life Lesson: Money

Two nights ago, I had a conversation over dinner with someone I'd like to call "Grandpa". He is well into his 80's and, fortunately for me, has much to say about a lot of things. We talked about investing in the stock market, thinking about retirement options, and operating a small business. We talked about money and how it is possible to start with very little and end up, as he has, with more. He said something that struck a chord with me:

Money is only good for making more money.

I have learned over the past few years that, for me, money is merely a means to an end, rather than be the end itself. That is not to say we do not need to have it to live. Life situations may vary by the way we are brought up, by what I call indirectly inherited wealth, whether it is physically given to you or not. This inhereited wealth includes food, a dinner table to put it on, a place you can call home, and even life lessons taught over time. We should never lose sight of what we generally take for granted. There is not enough appreciation and gratitude these days. (I am at fault as well.)

P.S. ... which brings me back to photography. In the end, I do not expect to be a professional photographer. In the end, it does not bring food to the table and pay the bills. While it is definitely an art worth practicing and is not a waste of money, I realized there is no reason to jump into such an expensive hobby so quickly. Paraphrasing what my father told me just this weekend, spending and indulging on things that make you a better person and a more effective worker is okay in moderation. More importantly, do not spend money that you don't have. Do not count on the money of others.

P.P.S. Since I have thought about this topic of money more carefully, I have gotten better at Texas Hold'Em on my iPhone. Having money is a great feeling when you are able to pressure the poorer players to elimination. But at the same time, every hand is, to some degree, a gamble.