— witsandnuts

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Tag "Life"

Errornomics

I’ve started reading Errornomics, one of the previous birthday presents I got. It talks about why we make mistakes and what we can do to avoid them. It’s an enjoyable read and although I’m still 200+ pages to the end, I’ve already exclaimed “Aha!” plenty of times. Since I’m still miles away to making a book review, I just want to share the specific learning points that I’ve “tested” or realized.

As we look for things, we don’t always see.

This morning, we were in Lulu Hypermarket to do the weekly groceries. We intentionally went in during the peak hour to test one theory. Apparently, handedness is the best predictor of a person’s directional preference. Hence, most people who are right handed, like me, tend to look at the right when searching for the shortest lines for people at stores, banks, and the like. At the supermarket today, as we were about to pay, I checked the queues at the left first. Really short!

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Complaining doesn't solve anything
Complaining might solve things to a certain extent. But once we try not to focus on ourselves, we’ll realize that there are other things that matter more. And at the end of the day, we might be sharing the same boat.

For most of us who spend more time in the workplace, whether we like it or not, the best thing that should happen is to sustain our excitement in going to the office or attending to work-related stuff. Think of motivating factor + a reasonable boss, eh? I’m glad that although life at workplace can be really crazy at times, my boss is easy to deal with.

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Japanese in the midst of quake
{Source.} Would you still line up during emergency?

Do you remember how our grandparents, parents and other people whom we look up to told us that one of the measures of one’s character is how he behaves during the most difficult times? And as we grow and become more accountable, we often hear that the strength of a nation or an institution is best tested in the most trying times.

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Changes

Hey, I am still alive!

It is interesting how preoccupation makes us unmindful of other stuff which are continuously spinning. When things become overwhelming, it really feels liberating to get loose and laugh, be annoyed and surprised alike by the changes we randomly notice in a few minutes.

  1. It has been weeks since I have stopped eating pork. Difficult, yes. Like a hard habit to break. But it is self-imposed in the spirit of trying to be healthy. And I am happy with the initial results.
  2. Since my visit two years ago, I had to see an ophthalmologist again because of the eye discomfort happening lately whenever I am wearing (which I don’t on a daily basis) my glasses. Guess what? My grade decreased by 0.75. How cool is that? “Is this normal?”, I asked. “Yes, but very rare. There was a movement in your cornea, so and so….”, the expert said. Too technical to me. There are unbelievable circumstances which really do happen that you can only care less about the hows and whys. What matters more now is that my eyes are happy again. Okay, I take it back. That was rare. I am rare. LOL.
  3. I finally managed to pay attention to my iTunes and came up with new playlists which include Linkin Park, Justin Bieber (LOL), John Mayer and Christmas songs. I wish to share some soon.
  4. Flickr freedom! It has been blocked across UAE since 2005 because it was allegedly “inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE”. Yahoo, which owns Flickr, has not disclosed the condition(s) met for the ban lifting. I have not decided yet on reviving my Flickr patronage, Webshots (which was there just when I needed it most) is doing a good job so far.
  5. If things are not going to be sorted out through “peace talks”, the Blackberry email, web and messaging are to be banned in the UAE due to security concerns starting mid October. You can anticipate the drop in prices. I wonder what is going to happen in my company provided unit.
  6. iPhone has been officially released in the UAE, too. But to most of the consumers’ dismay, the voice call feature is blocked across the country. Well, yes, Skype ban is on.
  7. You want a degree on mothering? The University for Mothering and Family Science (Ajman, UAE), the first in the world to offer a “mothering profession” has been formally launched. The four-year programme currently has 25 enrollees. Annual fee is AED 25,000 (USD 6,806).
  8. I have stumbled upon another amazing illustrative blog. That is where I sourced the above photo. An addition to my favorites: Milk toof (remember the book?), Indexed and Blogusvox‘s Buhay Buhangin Series.
  9. And the list goes on.

I am not experimenting on the permanence and randomness of life. But I wanted to come up with a very random changes list because I am at the point of nowhere today. Apparently, life is not always a bed of roses. One of my favorite approaches to find my focus is to defocus by realizing (over and again) that the world is not only about me and my situation.

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If you have to choose between buying something or spending the money on a memorable experience, go with the experience.

According to a study conducted at San Francisco State University, the things you own can’t make you as happy as the things you do. One reason is adaptation: we adapt to all things material in our lives in a matter of weeks, no matter how infatuated we were with the coveted possession the day we got it. Another reason is that experience, unlike possession, generally involves other people, and fosters or strengthens relationships that are more edifying over time than owning something.

This supports my preference for travelling next to basic necessities and other things. What about you?

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