Quotes we adore

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.

~Marcel Proust

You are not a mere drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.

~Rumi

Watch and wonder and travel by the road not taken.

~Robert Frost

There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.

~Clare Boothe

The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.

~Emerson

~Quotes of love~

Try something different: surrender!

~Rumi

Teach only Love, for that is what you are.

~ACIM

I don't believe in failure. It's not failure if you enjoyed the process.

~Oprah Winfrey

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

~Immanuel Kant

The people and circumstances around me do not make me what I am, they reveal who I am.

~Laura Schlessinger

Words we live by ♥

Something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves.

~Robert Frost

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Be notorious.

~Rumi

Your passage through time and space is not at random. You cannot but be in the right place at the right time.

~ACIM

The basic paradox: everything is a mess yet all is well.

~Ezra Bayda

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it.

~Danny Kaye

Quotes we love :)

The only place where dreams are impossible is in your own mind.

~Emalie

The sun never says to the earth,'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that - It lights up the whole sky.

~Hafiz

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now.

~Rumi

For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.

~Evelyn Underhill

This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we are.

~Pema Chodron

Three Little Birds

Happy March 11, everybody!

Today would be the 70th day of the year, and instead of reflecting on how time has flown, i'll just sit back and enjoy the flow. Join me? :)

amazing picture comes from (source) -- let's just chill.

There are 295 more days remaining till 2010 ends. How will you use these 295 days? How many of these 295 days will you spend being your most amazing self? Which of these 295 days will you spend being love, being fulfilled, being kind? Might i so bold as to suggest -- all of it?

Today, the SPM results for all 2009 Form Five students will be released. I can already foresee the tears (of joy? devastation?) that will roll. Housing a mechanism that helps me expect the worst to keep from being (too sorely) disappointed, i have been preparing myself for the lousiest results ever -- and to balance that out, reading some FAIL quotes to keep me going;

so here it is, for whatever will be, will be.

• A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour. -unknown

• Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett

• Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

• Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed. -Corita Kent

• For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. -Mary Kay Ash

• Don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing is gonna be all right. -Bob Marley

 
Have an awesome March 11, everybody!

Something i dug up

I was looking through an essay i wrote for a previous writing competition, and i found this (excerpt):

And then there is this: hope. It is an exciting emotion, and has many names; they call it evil, for it draws out a person’s sufferings. They call it a liar, because it lets us see only what we want to see, and that it bears no logic. But hope, to me, is a jubilant twisting in the stomach that we feel in our spirits. The senses awaken and revel in it, and the soul jiggles and dances. To truly hope is to risk enduring pain, but even that is something for us to rejoice in, for what is happiness without sadness? There are but rags and riches, winters and summers, and a person has to be lost before he is found. The truth of everything is this – there cannot be one without the other, so why not celebrate both?

Oh, the wisdom the younger me used to have! :P

I did not win anything, nor did i get shortlisted, but these are words that i still stand by and believe in.

Have a GREAT day, you all!

positive vibrations

Natasya Falina = Giving it back to make you smile says:
hahaahh ya well it'll be fine!!!
u can be positive
start jumping around
and scream happy happy happy
weeeee~

.

"From places thought impossible to stand -- here we are."

.

Real power is the quiet but certain understanding that everything that comes to us works for the good of us, no matter what it is.

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“If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.”

Takin' a step back

"Often times we get caught up in trying to measure worth and analyzing every detail, every tiny piece of a situation that we forget to consider what those pieces can create. Things that look like worthless junk can in fact turn into smaller pieces of a picture that’s leading you to an ultimate happy ending/beginning."

And everything that seems so hopeless and futile and lost right now, is only one tiny part of the big picture. Sometimes we get too up close with certain things that we fail to see how it all contributes to THE bigger story.

But it's quite easy, really. All you have to do is

take a step back

and smile.

Let the Clutterflies free.

(source & inspiration)

Daily Encouragement

"Religious strife must be avoided at all cost; under no circumstance should it be allowed. People may hold different religious beliefs, but the bottom line is that we are all human beings. We all seek happiness and desire peace. Religion should bring people ...together. It should unite the potential for good in people's hearts toward benefiting society and humanity and creating a better future."
-Daisaku Ikeda-

Enough said.

Stargazers

“Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I believe that when we are born we are all essentially dreamers. We create dreams, and we carry hope, and we form ideals that we hold precariously in our hearts. We start off as visionaries, overflowing with bubbly anticipation and excitement, fully prepared to jump into the future and seize the skies with our bare hands. Somewhere along the way, however, some people lose it. Dreams fall apart into worn out pieces and ideals get crushed.

The world that we live in now demands that we conform to a set of rules that "adults" should live by. As it turns out, there are "rights" and "wrongs" in the cars we chose to drive, or the jobs we take, the words we say, and the things we do. Their cutting glance or scornful word will sear at you, and soon you find yourself letting go a little, simply to comply and to accomodate their expectations.

But really, who are these people to determine the validity of the choices you make? What gave them the right to place value on the way you chose to live your days? The very grounds with which they decide right and wrong is based on their views, their perceptions, their opinions, and there's no one who can truly say that they are "right". Not everything in life is just in black and white, and there is no right or wrong. Everything just is, and from my point of view, all you've got is right Now, so why not just enjoy the ride?

Don't be a burnt out star. Believe in your dreams, because you're the only one who can. There's nothing sadder than a person who loses his own ideals.

Be amazing because you can.

I believe in you.

Gratitude Journal : Loving Melbourne

So i landed in Melbourne on Friday afternoon. Prior to our departure from KL, all we had been hearing of the weather here was how ridiculously hot it was, even at night. As awesome as Awesome goes, however, a great thunderstorm hit on Thursday, and on Friday, it was 21 degrees C!

I love the weather right now. My brothers and i find it a tad bit too chilly, but everyone else just walks around in their dresses and shorts and tube tops enjoying it, because the weather right now is perfect. Can you imagine -- we're already feeling cold when it's 20 degrees, whereas during winter it could drop to as low as 0 degrees!

This is only our third day here, but we have had the amazing fortune to have met a few locals who took us to the city today :) so not only have we made new friends, we also had a few of the funniest tour guides show us around.

The best mindset to put into use is one of a tourist. I constantly find myself amused or intrigued by everything around me, from the random structures i come across in the city, to the street names and the people and performers they carry, to the road signs. I just love looking at each of the buildings and houses here, all so incredibly quaint. Absolute love! We should never let ourselves slide into a blindness that prevents us from seeing the beauty in everything around us.

~You have to ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.~
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Always stay fresh, lovely people ♥

P.S : I almost forgot! Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy Valentine's!

Daily Encouragement

From Daisaku Ikeda, the president of the Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist network that aims at promoting peace, culture and education through personal transformation and social contribution. Awesome!

"Unless we live fully right now, not sometime in the future, true fulfillment in life will forever elude us. Rather than putting things off till the future, we should find meaning in life, thinking and doing what is most important right now, right where we are -- setting our hearts aflame and igniting our lives. Otherwise, we cannot lead an inspired existence."

One of what i constantly crave to be, other than Love, is to be Inspired. Inspired people see light in everything. Inspired people are passionate, and it doesn't matter in whatever, really, because what it all comes down to is this -- the moment that you become impassioned is the moment that you come to life.

Inspired people don't get bored, trapped in their own mind-constructed cages. They explore their environment for everything amazing that has yet to be experienced, and then they go ahead and experience it all.

Do lead inspired existences! After all, that's what we were all meant to do :)

Reminder to myself

Today, in complete innocence, I pulled on my one and only Beatles tee and walked out of my home, mind and spirit still very much asleep. Halfway throughout my class though, I got a well-timed awakening.

Call it an epiphany if you will, but I've been going through some down times recently, and very much needed some Awesome reaffirming in myself. Maybe it was the caffeine rush that helped boost this, but I am truly grateful to say that I (right Now) embody the spirit of Living In Every Now Moment.

This equates to what you have now, what you have been going through recently, all your rough patches, everything that didn't work out, all that you want, all that you cannot get -- it all constitutes your Now moment, and it is all perfect.

Because you're here now, and everything must have fallen into place perfectly.

Are we riding the same wave, here?

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.

• It's easy. •

Please do surround yourself with love today. ~

<3

The girl who silenced the world for five minutes.

Gooood morning, everybody!

"This is what one child told us, 'I wish i was rich. And if i were, i would give all the street children food, clothes, medicines, shelter and love and affection.' If a child on the street who has nothing is willing to share, why are we who have everything are still so greedy? I can't stop thinking that these are children my own age; that it makes tremendous difference where you are born; that i could be one of those children; i could be a child starving in Somalia, or a victim of war in the Middle East, or a beggar in India."

This is none other than Severn Cullis-Suzuki, environmental activist, speaker, television host and author, also none other than David Suzuki's daughter -- wowza!!

I highly recommend you watch this powerful video :)

Have a good day, all!

Randy Pausch

...is an incredible man.

The Last Lecture : Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, was delivered by Randy Pausch after he had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. And this was what made this hour-long lecture so fascinating to me right from the start. Because, despite the fact that this man had already been given a death sentence ["he was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health"], he still maintained such a remarkably humorous and upbeat personality, the positivity he held clearly emanating off him as he spoke.

Randy Pausch died in July 2008, less than a year after he delivered his "Last Lecture", yet with his video up and his book in the stores, he doesn't cease to inspire.

One thing he spoke of that's stuck with me is this : -- "the brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things."

He further stressed, "they're there not to stop us, but to stop the people who don't want those things enough."

"They help us show our dedication; to separate us from the people who don't really want to achieve their childhood dreams."

Which requires no elaboration, cause the words he chose really speak for themselves. They provide a sound way to look at the things that are stopping us in life; a refreshing reminder for us to never give up -- a brand new perspective.

You know how to dream, to desire, to want things -- but how far are you prepared to go to get these things that you want? Are you ready to get out of your comfort zone to achieve these things? How much of yourself are you willing to give -- and this is in terms of effort and time and passion? If you get not what you want, then perhaps you are not giving enough. You probably don't want what you think you want enough.

Sometimes when we decide to approach something, we chose a method that we decide is the best, and then we get so deep into it that when it doesn't work out, we think that all is lost. But that isn't it. There are so many ways to get what you want -- whatever it is -- and just because the way that you think is best doesn't work out, doesn't mean all else won't either.

Think about it. When you hit a dead end, it's not the end. If you fail at getting your dream job, or your ideal scholarship, or admission into your chosen university, it is not the end.

Your journey isn't over.

It's only over when you say it's over. And that's the most beautiful part of it all -- it's your call.

It's all up to you.

Entirely.

Stay awesome, all.

(source)

Spread the love

Today, see if you can stretch your heart and expand your love so that it touches not only those to whom you can give it easily, but also those who need it so much.

- Daphne Rose Kingma

Goooood day everybody!

Here's today's challenge for you all -- be love. I first heard of this from Jason Mraz's blog, and i wasn't really sure of what the man was talking about. To be love? I mean, i know how to love, but to be love? Well, i don't much know how do i define being love, so here it is from the man himself :

“Be Love” is a bold declaration. It’s about choosing kindness over being right. It’s about cutting out the conditions in which you might think are required for love and going straight to the source, or rather, being the source yourself, that which is Love, unconditional.

By just one single sentence in there -- it's about choosing kindness over being right -- i have already encountered several challenges. I think it has been naturally instilled in me over the few years of my life the desire to be right.

When a friend or family member wrongs me (albeit unintentionally), i find it necessary to battle it out till the end, until everyone -- most of all said friend or family member itself -- knows that i am right.

When someone isn't generous enough to me yet expects me to be a completely giving person right back, i become compelled to shun that person right in their face.

When someone says "no" to my request, i get mad and prepare myself to reject that person at their next request of me.

Well, that ain't right. The alternative to entertaining this inane desire to be right all the time is to just take a step back and look at things from a wider perspective, because ultimately at the end of the day, when i am right, the only person who is happy is -- well let's face it -- me. And even most of the time this twisted satisfaction of mine has an underlying guilt to it because now there is a strained vibe to the air -- because of me.

It isn't necessary to be right all the time; to "win" every time. After all, with all the uneasiness/unhappiness caused, the satisfaction i get becomes nothing but a cheap thrill that will be forgotten all too soon -- and then what is the point? The perfect words to sum this up is that "it all amounts to nothing in the end". If all we have is right now, then why do we want to make these Now moments miserable ones?

So i have made it one of my resolutions this year to Be Love, and it will be a challenge. I will have to face off with the Selfish in me everyday, especially when it catches me unaware. It will be tricky. It will be awesome :)

Questions of the day. Will you yourself partake in this challenge to become a transformed person? And how will you go about it?

With love ♥