Wishing You A Blessed Year Ahead

Today is the eve of the Chinese New Year eve and nothing in me gives a tad of that festive mood.

Life in the past one month has been hectic and hopefully this 4-day break promises a chance for recuperation .

On Thursday, the government announced the S$20.5b Resilience Package to help everyone take a breather from the current ailing global economy. Many hail the 2009 Budget as 'extraordinary' for this 'extraordinary' time while others point to some aspects of inadequacy.

It is never possible to please everyone and not that we have to.

When I flipped the newspapers this morning, headlines relating to Budget 2009 were splatted everywhere. Most of the discussions were within my expectation with some being more insightful than others.

Amidst the money talk, something else caught my eyes:

In Belgiam, a man who had painted his face black and white reportedly tricked his way into a creche, where he ran amok and killed 2 infants, an adult and injure many others. I know it sounds pre-judgemental but I would say that he is crazy to have attacked defenseless young human like that. His motive is unknown but I doubt he has anything acceptable to mitigate his senseless act.

In the U.S., a Chinese Virginia Tech graduate student decapitated his fellow Chinese female student at a cafe. He apparently has been frustrated over problems which include stock losses. This is really bad when Virginia Tech is barely out of mourning over the worst school shooting in 2007.

I would not say that these news reports are dead shocking but they are certainly disturbing and saddening.

In a moment of weakness, human can lose all the learnt emotional control and commit unthinkable acts.

Unless it is of medical causes, people do not just lose their head overnight. Many people have unrealistic expectation on how the world should operate. They remain staunch about their own outlook and equate flexibility and nimbleness with infringement of self established principles.

They often suffer, and sometimes, very badly.

I am not a philosophical anthropologist and my knowledge on human nature and behavior is not even skin deep. All I know is that I too have my own moment of weakness. We all do.

It is no use pretending and deny all the weak traits we have: lazy streak, lack of knowledge, selfishness, forgetfulness, anger and whole lot more. It is much better to prepare ourselves for human weakness and work around it.

From time to time I have to fight against my ill emotions and attempt to lift the sinking spirit. Many others are doing the same. While most of us succeeded and stayed rational but some unfortunate ones succumbed to the enormous pressure life put on them.

We often forget to count our blessings.

A happy person remembers the only blessing he has and lives well. An unhappy person picks on the only blight and brood endlessly over it.

We all have some blessings. If only we constantly remember them, it is not that difficult to kick off the blues. This is particularly important during tough times like now.

With the year of the Ox approaching, let's embrace our blessings and get ready for another year. Take the cue from all the goodness of the Ox: (1) charge with renewed energy, (2) work diligently, and (3) from time to time, laze around, go slow and watch the world go by.

Bye bye rat! Wishing you a blessed year ahead!