Wise words

Here are some wise words from Mother Theresa:

“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred; forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of being selfish or having ulterior motives; be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies; succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.”

Easier said than done. Doing the right thing is never easy. But I’ll try anyway.

Traffic woes

It’s about time that Malaysian traffic and road rules be changed to reflect the changing times.

For starters, traffic lights may be done away with. Nobody bothers following traffic rules any more. I for one always get horned at for stopping or slowing down when the traffic light turns orange. Sometimes when the road in front of me is jammed, I stop even though the traffic light is green because I do not want to be caught in the middle of the road, blocking traffic from other directions, should the light suddenly turn red. But I get horned at for my good intentions.

Secondly, our roads may be expanded to include pavements. Motorcyclists use pavements where pedestrians walk, as if the pavements were roads. And they actually have the cheek to horn at you to get out of their way!

One-way roads may be abolished. Motorcyclists always travel in the opposite direction on a one-way road. It is a phenomena that is becoming more and more common so that on a one-way street, I don't just have to look one way before I cross the road, I have to actually look both ways before crossing the road.

Indication lights on vehicles may likewise be abolished. Many drivers expect to immediately turn into another lane almost at the same time as their indication light is turned on. I always thought that the purpose of indication lights was to warn other road users in advance as to the direction a person wishes to go. A lot of drivers also weave in an out of traffic without any indication at all. When I do use my indication lights, nobody bothers giving way to me and I have to end up forcing my way in.

Road markers may also be abolished. Many drivers love to cut into other lanes, especially when taking corners. This is especially common among bus and taxi drivers. Our roads are big enough to accommodate a vehicle without the need for them to cut into other people’s lanes.

Whilst we are changing our road and traffic rules, we may also abolish the need for zebra crossings, sign boards and bridges for pedestrians to cross the roads. These are redundant.

It is time Malaysia listened to its road users and updated its road and traffic rules to take into account the latest trends in road usage.

My world

I live in an unforgiving, cruel, judgmental world. The good guys never win. I’m getting out the first chance I get. I hope I never return.

The girl who nobody loves

It still hurts when people talk about relationships or marriages. Not that I am not happy for them. I am. But it still hurts. Because it reminds me of what I do not have.

 I know it should not affect me. I have accepted the fact that I may never marry and may never have children of my own. So I shouldn’t be affected when other people talk about things like that.

But it does and I don’t know why. Maybe because deep down the eternal idealist in me still stubbornly believes that it is possible and I am still in denial that it is never going to happen.

I am holding on because I cannot bear to hurt the people I love. I wish for death but it evades me. And knowing my luck, death will come when I am actually happy. So is it better to be alive and sad or to die when you’re happy? Either way I lose.

Let’s face it. I played the game called life and I lost.

It is up to us

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can be so callous. A colleague told me that he had recently consumed turtle eggs. When I said that turtles in Malaysia were endangered and we shouldn’t be eating their eggs, he said that the eggs were cooked anyway so it was too late. If everyone thought like him, it is goodbye turtles!

Supply and demand. Basic economics. If there is no demand, there will be no supply. So if people said no to turtle eggs, the unscrupulous sellers of these eggs would realize that they are not worth their time, effort and money, and would not supply turtle eggs.

Then he says it is no different from eating chicken eggs and if I want to be so emotional about it, I should stop eating chicken eggs. The difference is, chickens are not endangered. We have chicken farms where chickens are bred for the purpose of consumption. They are not in danger of becoming extinct.

Then he says the statistics are questionable as most of these statistics are supplied by the West. The West had killed enough animals and now that some of them face extinction, they tell us Easterners to protect and conserve to justify their guilty conscience.

I do not think that the statistics are wrong. But assuming for one moment that the statistics are wrong, SO WHAT? What is so wrong about protecting animals in the wild? So what if the West had been guilty of annihilating most of our wildlife? Do we have to follow in their footsteps? Why don’t we show them that we are better than them, that we actually care about our fellow inhabitants of this world?

The hands that are killing the animal kingdom are the very hands that can save and protect them. Whose side are you on?

So long as it is mainstream

A friend commented that our censorship board need not be overzealous in censoring movies and books, because our mainstream media, particularly the newspapers, publish pornographic material almost on a daily basis.

What with one sex scandal after another, it seems to me that we have become obsessed with sex. I would think twice about letting children read the newspapers these days. Perhaps our mainstream media should also come with ratings or warnings – 18SX, 18PG etc