Friday, August 12, 2005

Wise Sayings.... Or Are They??

When I was in the lift this morning, I overhead a conversation between two guys. One dude was advising his friend on a personal problem I guess. He said "Be on the problem. Don't be in the problem. When you are on the problem, you can see how to solve it. If you're in the problem, everywhere you look you see problems." Err... hearing that I was straight away reminded of Robert Kiyosaki's (Rich Dad Poor Dad author) advice (which I don't see as advice at all, just trying to sound smart) when he said "Don't work for money. Make money work for you."

Seriously, I find a person totally distant whenever they think that a saying can solve whatever issues that another person brings up. Imagine you go crying to someone and saying "I've just lost my beloved" and he replies "Weep not for the departed, only weep for the living." Or, you go to someone with career problems and he says "Don't be too worried about your career's problem, worry more for the problem's career, because the problem is facing a tough fight against your persistence, and the problem will lose." Yeah, these crappy advices in this paragraph are all created in 5 minutes of my time. They sound smart, but they are not! There is no human touch in advices like this. It's like saying "Hahaha.... you are facing a problem?? I'm not, see. So therefore, let me rub it in about my non-problem status by saying something smart. Let's see... how about 'For the world to be at peace, war must be declared upon war, because negative against negative is positive.'" What the crap?!?

There are several sayings that relate more closely to the person. Among those I've heard on movies or have seen is in Harry Potter 1, when Harry was looking at the mirror to his parents, and the Professor Engelbert Humperdink (Hahaha!!! I don't READ Harry Potter, okay! So bear with me, it's the old dude!) said "Do not dwelve on the past, lest you forget to live." or something to that message. I find that to be a good message. At least he didn't say "Miss not the time with your parents, instead, miss your parent's time with you." The message like the Prof Humperdink (crap, what's his name?! It's sounds something like that!) said pops an understanding in your mind, and is a lot better than a message that's confusing and makes you look stupid.

If however, you have no choice but to repeat a 'smart' message, please follow up with a layman method to address the issue. Robert did follow up after his "Don't work for money, make money work for you", but his follow up, my friends, are to use the money you currently have. What if you don't have enough? How to make money from zilch?! He didn't say anything about that, did he?

Personally, I think that sayings are very good. I have one on my fridge that says "Children's laughter makes a home". I have sayings at the back of my head that jump to me whenever I am in need of motivation in a certain area, and these motivational sayings may come from friends, something you read, or even from a rapper!

My own motivation to gain courage, especially to consciously do something that's risky or shameful, and especially when trying to approach a complete cute girl stranger to befriend in the past, would be "If you think you can't, you've already lost without even trying." At least here it's not a 'smart' message, playing with words. It's direct... and it makes sense. If I just look at her, forever we won't be friends unless fate makes us get introduced by others. But if I at least approach her, there is even that 1% chance or even higher, we'll just never know! Enough to say that I have had done that thrice and ended up with two friends. Or maybe I've done that more than thrice, but that three occasions was really a shivering and heart-stomping situation.

Other courage motivation I derive from Eminem's Lose Yourself that says "If you had one shot, one opportunity, to sieze everything you ever wanted. One moment. Would you capture it or just let it slip?" Direct advice from a rapper. It's a good one. It keeps me (and hopefully all of you) on your toes to not just let opportunity goes by. Lastly, when I'm at a 50% chance on deciding whether or not to do something and time is running out, the best advice ever to push me to do it would be Nike's "Just Do It".

Speaking on Nike, the new advert about that jogger who runs and then have a conversation against himself, whereby one wants to continue running, and the other doesn't want, is quite nice. But it reminds me oh-so-much of Smeagol/Gollum of Lord Of The Rings. Nike should star Smealgol wearing nike shoes climbing mountains instead.

Smeagol: "We needs to climbs this mountain"
Gollum: "No we don't, my love, we be real good rights here."
Smeagol: "No! Mountain calls for us. We needs to go."
Gollum: "Hobbitsess in the mountain. Remember how Hobbitsess trickses you?"
Smeagol: "But we wears precious Nike shoes. We can outruns them!"

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