I saw this online while doing some research. Cant help but think that this is very real. Reminded about the story that talk about the pot of boiling water and the 3 types of person that you can be.
1. Carrot
2. Egg
3. Coffee Beans

I was told that you can be either one of the 3 types. the first type, you are "cooked" by the boiling water, you became soft and you gave in to the pressures that are in your life.

Egg- I cant really remember but it seems to be that you build up a strong front but you will still break under even more pressure

Coffee Beans- it is only in hot water that your aroma will begin to show to the world.

Which type are we? I am starting to be quite irritated with people who always put things like "they have alot of things to do" on their mouth. People who appear to look very stressed and has alot of things to do on their lips all the time. The thing is, i think that everyone has their share of things to do, and what may seem easy to us may not be that easy to the person who is handling it, so I guess that everyone has their fair share of things to do.

Your life is not gauge by how busy you are all the time, someone who is always busy can mean a few things: 1. You are really busy 2. you are overworked 3. you are doing other people's job 4.You are ineffective.

What make things worse is that there are people who always complain that they have alot of things to do! I may complain about almost everything under the sun but UNLESS I really have alot of things to do, i dont usually complain about my workload.

Anyway, I like this read below! Enjoy!

How You Handle Chaos Will Determine Your Success Or Failure
May 6, 2009 by Harrison Barnes

Yesterday I received a telephone call at 9:00 am from an employee who had been working for a recruiting company of ours for less than 72 hours and was giving notice before boarding an airplane. We had brought this particular employee out to work for us from another city and were training her in Pasadena before she fled home to the city she is from.

During this employee’s 72 hours with the company, she witnessed numerous changes we were forcing ourselves to go through. One of our largest businesses was formerly a student loan company. Despite the fact that the number of loans we are doing is down 98% from this time last year due to the difficulty of making loans in this economic climate, we still had some employees unnecessarily on the payroll in the hope that things would pick up. We were in the process of letting some of them go. This new person was witness to much of the chaos these remaining layoffs in this business have created in our company.

While we are understandably doing fantastically well in several of our businesses, the loan industry is not one of them. Moreover, our company has recently replaced its Chief Financial Officer and its Human Resources person. This has resulted in an incredible amount of confusion. We have new people reorganizing everything and are spending a lot of time trying to get everything in order. We are reorganizing departments and refocusing our company away from loans to the job search industry exclusively.

At the outset, I want to make an incredibly important observation that could change your life forever if you understand it:

You can only grow if you are willing to subject yourself to, and tolerate chaos and confusion. Groups, things and people subjected to stress and increased input either reorganize and improve or they die away.

I am going to explain the deep meaning of this statement to you below. This statement is a foundation of some of the most important work in quantum physics, biology and other disciplines of our time, and understanding this can change your life. The man who first proved this statement, Ilya Prigogine, won a Nobel Prize for showing how this statement governs all things.

“You’re at the airport?” I asked.

“Yes. I left the keys to the truck you let me use at the front desk and took a taxi to the airport. I also bought my own plane ticket home. I left the book you let me borrow on the front desk in the office.”

In my entire career, I had never seen anything like this. In fact, the job this person was quitting no one had ever quit within the first year of starting–much less run away from. I was amazed by what I was witnessing. I had been on the phone with this person until well after 11:00 pm the night before. The person related how we were not organized enough. She felt that we should have had a benefits package ready for her the second she started. She overheard someone say that we had paid a phone bill for one of our companies late. All of the administrators in our company were too busy to speak with her the day she arrived because we were in the midst of a reorganization (we are a job search company and lots of people are looking for jobs). She was on a conference call with about 20 people from the company of ours she was joining and someone was concerned about getting expenses reimbursed that they had submitted only a week or so ago.

“Our accounting department is being reorganized,” I explained to the group who was concerned about the reorganization of our accounting department. ”We’ll get your expense checks out next week.”

This person had come out of an extremely structured law firm environment and was now walking into a very chaotic one where there is tons of activity and things are being reorganized. Amidst this reorganization, an exciting company is emerging that is getting tens of thousands of people jobs in exciting ways. The person had been the only one hired from a pool of over 500 applicants and well over 40 people we interviewed. When she was hired, I was pretty confident the person would be earning at least $250,000 over the next 12 months in her position. Once she started in the position, her job would be to make sense of the chaos not only in our company (if she chose to pay attention to this), but in the actual job she would be starting. Her job would involve her taking up to 40 phone calls per day, writing at least 3-4 five page letters per week, meeting with people and taking all sorts of calculated risks with the chaos around her.

She was looking for something that was more organized, however.

The chaos of our company and disorganization was something that frightened her away. Despite the fact our company is growing at a meteoric pace, the woman took the disorganization we are experiencing as something to be alarmed about. In her world, like in many of our worlds, organization and order is something that is a requirement for feeling secure in a job.

There is no such thing as a secure job. There is no such thing as a secure life. Everything goes away and everything turns to dust. In fact, the only way companies can grow and change is if they subject themselves to constant change and chaos. You too need to subject yourself to constant change and chaos. This is how you grow.

I have seen our company go through numerous periods of disorganization and reorganization throughout the years. What always happens inevitably is that the new company that results after we have reorganized, is stronger than the one before. A year or two later, we may reorganize again. Our company is like a complex organism that adapts to all sorts of environments. It is for this reason that we have always managed to do well and survive regardless of what is happening. We are constantly organizing to take on the world and changing when we need to.

There are numerous types of businesses in the world and there are also numerous types of people. I am going to digress for a moment because I would like to make some observations about some things that I have noticed throughout my life that are relevant to your life and career. This may at first appear to be a digression into a topic unrelated to your job search. However, I can assure you that it will shortly begin to make sense, and the resulting understanding you get from what I am about to share could change your life forever. I also know that I am going to offend some people, but this is a risk I am going to have to take because I believe you can learn a lot from what I am about to say.

I had the privilege of growing up in essentially two types of upper-middle class neighborhoods. One neighborhood, and the school within it, consisted of people I would dare say had families who had lived in this country for hundreds of years. I would refer to it as an “established neighborhood”. The other neighborhood and school consisted of people who were more recent immigrants to the United States but were still pretty well off. What I noticed in the school and the neighborhoods of the more established people was that there was never a lot of emotion. Things always seemed very ordered, and there was a lot of inflexibility to new ideas and concepts. People dressed more or less the same way they had for decades. People were never on the cutting edge of fashion or anything. People kept to themselves more and were very careful and measured with most things they did and said. They did not appear to want to change much. There was a lot of suspicion of anything that was not a certain way (i.e., the way it had always been or was expected to be). The front yards of the homes were very uniform and nothing was ever ostentatious.

People were extremely suspicious of outsiders in this established area. When I would go over to friends’ homes in these areas, I was expected to hold my fork a certain way and could never be loud. People in the established environment had all sorts of problems-the same problems people have anywhere. The thing about this established environment, however, was that no one wanted to talk about their problems, and every issue that people had was aggressively “covered up” and avoided. People would often know about each others’ problems, but the problems would be brought up in secret and behind closed doors. Houses were very well ordered and uncluttered. Inside of the homes was generally very quiet. Not a lot of emotion was ever shown.

In the less established neighborhoods, things were always far more chaotic. There was a lot of exchange of information. People spoke more and were more upfront about what was going on. People wore the latest fashions and changed the sorts of clothes and styles they liked often. People were not as concerned about the same sort of things. There was more emotion. Entire families often lived together, and I would dare say there was a lot more “chaos” and other sorts of things happening in these environments. People were also more accepting and far, far less rigid. Some of the parents did not know how to use their forks and other utensils properly. People were louder. The culture was different. People were also more interested in ideas, for the most part, and did not care as much about what other people thought of them. The houses were messier, and there was a lot going on. People did not really care what others thought as much either. There was far less paranoia, and social norms were not followed. If people wanted to put a gold lion in their front yard, they would. People did not care as much about what others thought.

People in these environments also had problems. If they had a problem, however, they would always talk about it, and a lot of people would end up knowing about it. People around them would console them and debate the problem, and the problem would almost always eventually go away. The person would end up being much stronger in the long run from having dealt with the problem. Nothing was hushed up, for the most part, and everything was dealt with head on.

The most important thing about the juxtaposition of these environments that I noticed is this:

The people who were coming out of the environments with the most “chaos”–i.e., the “less established environments” were by and large always more successful. They went to the best colleges. They did the best on standardized tests. They were happier and had less substance abuse problems. They were in better shape as a general rule. They were more balanced psychologically. They seemed to ultimately enjoy life the most.

Looking back on everyone I knew out of both environments, I can say unequivocally that the people out of the more established and rigid environments have had more problems and have had less fulfilling lives than the people who came out of the less established environments. This is a hugely controversial sort of statement to make, but it is a major pattern that I witnessed. Call me an amateur anthropologist or sociologist–I noticed this pattern and it was unequivocally there.

What I think was happening is that people from the established environments where there were the most rules about the way things should be could not tolerate any input from their environments that was different than what they expected. They made sure their environments stayed as stable as possible and resisted change. People from the less established environments learned to work with whatever came their way and had fewer rules. Thus, they adapted in response to what happened in their environments.

There was more exchange of information and ideas in the less established environments. The less established environments were still organizing themselves and learning the ropes. The more established environments were resisting change.

Here is an important point of how I believe companies and individuals function:

■Newer groups and companies tend to function with less order than older systems and companies, and are more open to change. This enables them to adapt and grow.

■Older and more established groups and companies tend to function with more order than younger groups and companies and resist change. Resisting change hurts them and prevents them from growing and improving.
This makes sense, of course. The longer an ethnic or religious group is in the United States, the more ordered it is likely to become. The longer a company or other group is in existence, the more ordered it too is likely to become. Groups, companies and other organizations have the tendency to become more ordered the longer they are around. The issue is that this increased order begins, at some point, to hold it back.

I love studying auto companies. The auto companies that have done the best in the United States are not the more established ones in this country. Companies like General Motors at one point were the epitome of order. They were the subject of numerous management studies, by people like Peter Drucker, as to how ordered companies could be. Look at what happens with this order, however. The more order there is, the less the organization starts learning and adapting in response to information from its environment. The organization gets static and does not change when the world around it is changing. Procedures take hold and people try to protect things to make sure they stay a certain way. Eventually, this order hurts the organization and it falls in upon itself because it is not interacting properly with its environment. The order that was meant to protect the company actually will eventually force the company either to collapse on itself and die, or reorganize into a stronger (more likely smaller) company that is interacting better with its environment. The reorganized company will be able to provide products and services that people actually want at a given point in time. This process repeats itself with every company out there. Order meets chaos, and the company either responds to the chaos by becoming stronger or it disbands and dies.

In my case, I have witnessed the difference between established and un-established groups with law firms. When you walk into some law firms, you can practically hear a pin drop. The entire environment is extremely quiet and ordered. In these environments, no one typically talks about the problems that the law firm is having. Problems various partners and others in the law firm are having are kept quiet. There is very little exchange of information. No one has much idea about anything.

There are other law firms (almost always much newer and less established) that are chaotic where there is a tremendous amount of activity and numerous things going on. The law firm may be getting tons of new clients and may be figuring out how to make sense of everything that is happening. The law firm may be growing at an aggressive pace. Eventually, the law firm (like other groups) will become organized. As it becomes organized, much of the chaos that formerly characterized it will fall away. What do you think General Motors was like in its early days? What do you think Google and Microsoft were like in their early days?

What happens to all systems is that there is a tendency to eventually move towards organization.

One of the basic laws of thermodynamics is that there is always a certain amount of energy lost in converting energy into work. During the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, physicists thought that ideally an engine that was perfectly efficient could be produced that would convert all of the fuel put into it into mechanical energy without any loss of heat. According to the second law of thermodynamics, however, this is not possible because any heat engine will invariably lose some of its heat input as friction, heat radiation and exhaust. Because no heat engine can be perfectly efficient, the implication of this second law of thermodynamics is that unless energy is added in some way, the engine (like all things) will tend to become disordered and break down. The measurement of the inefficiency in the process and the loss of energy is called entropy.

Entropy is a fairly easy concept to understand. If you have a gasoline engine and add fuel to it, when you start the engine, some energy will be lost–i.e., not all the fuel that is burned will be converted into work. The engine will give off heat that is not translated into power. The piston will cause friction within the engine, and this will eventually cause the piston to break down. Unless some new energy is added in the form of new parts, an overhaul and so forth, the engine will eventually no longer function. All systems and all machines eventually break down unless energy is added to them. A house will eventually rot away and turn to dust if it sits there long enough and no one does any work on it. A political party will eventually disband. Everything is consistently falling apart and losing energy.

For over a hundred years scientists wondered how it was possible that (a) despite the entropy predicted by the second law of thermodynamics (b) the world and its groups appear to be moving towards increased order. For example, life has evolved on earth into a state of increasing order. Different species have arisen that are suitable for their environments. People have become increasingly sophisticated in how they organize and are evolving and growing. How can this be true, scientists wondered, when the tendency of the universe is for everything to break down and become less ordered? Entropy is one of the fundamental concepts of physics, and the conflict between this and the world to move towards order was something very difficult for scientists to understand.

In 1977, Noble Prize winning Belgian chemist, Ilya Prigogine, proved his hypothesis that order emerges not in spite of chaos, but because of chaos. Prigogine was interested in why systems are increasingly going towards order and becoming more complex when there is entropy, and the universe is consistently losing energy and tending towards disorder and chaos–i.e., the universe is expanding and becoming increasingly disordered. What Prigogine proved was that evolution and growth occur when a system successfully takes in energy from its environment and dissipates that energy into the environment. In order to successfully dissipate energy into its environment, however, systems need to reorganize themselves once the input from the environment exceeds the system’s ability to dissipate the resulting entropy.

The most important point of Prigogine’s study was his finding of what occurs when the input begins to exceed the ability of the system to dissipate the necessary entropy. At this point the system will become very unstable and at some point the input will be enough to push the system “over the edge”. At that point, if the energy input becomes enough that the system is about to break down, it will reach what he calls a “bifurcation point”–a point at which (1) the system either totally breaks down and no longer exists as an organized system, or (2) it reorganizes itself in a new way able to meet the increased energy input. If the system reorganizes itself into a system that can handle the increased level of energy input from its environment the result will be a more complex system than the one that existed before. This new system will be more resilient and functional and will have a greater ability to dissipate entropy. If the energy input increases again beyond the ability of the new system to handle it, it will reorganize again or die.

This is the process by which evolution happens. Everything grows and evolves in this manner. This is one of the most fundamental and important understandings of both physics and how life on this earth works.

People are constantly taking in energy in the form of food, information, light, air, water, stimulation from people and objects in their environment and heat. Simultaneously, people are dissipating energy in the form of heat, waste products, carbon dioxide and the activities they are involved in whether it be movement, speech, or influencing other objects in their environment. The more input you receive and the more stimulation, the more likely you too will reach the point of bifurcation and either fall apart or reorganize at a higher level. It is this point where you choose to either fall apart or reorganize at a higher level that interests me the most. It is also what is going to be the turning point of your life.

Not surprisingly, the woman who called me from the airport was someone whose life had been spent in controlled environments. These environments included having grown up in established environments, with established parents, attending established schools, and then working in established law firms. This particular person was sort of like the law firm that remains static and portrays to the world extreme order. It is like the family that portrays extreme order despite chaos within it. It is like the group that portrays extreme order. This woman was being met with an incredible amount of chaos in her work environment when she started work. This chaos she was seeing was part of our organism as a company and how we function. Her job would also have involved a lot of chaos, and this chaos would have pushed her to grow and become a new person much more able to deal with stress at work and other areas of her life. Learning to deal with this chaos could literally have made her rich financially if she had understood that chaos can be used to make you reorganize how you deal with life and the world.

Due to constant entropy, all things eventually fall apart and die. People all die. Organizations all die away. Nothing can remain stable forever. But we hold on and hope that everything can remain stable and will always be stable. We want stability. The executives at a company like General Motors want to keep earning a lot of money and hold onto the belief the world is not changing. What they need is input from their environment that forces them to reorganize at a higher level–and if they do not accept this input, the company will go away. This is also something that you need as well. It is also something that the woman at the airport needed.

The best thing about chaos and increased input in our environment is that it rapidly forces reorganization. The reorganization that comes out of this is something that gives you the capacity to handle more chaos in the future and also enables you to function at a higher level. The more input and the more insanity we can handle, the better off we can be. This is also one reason you see some of the best executives in the world doing ridiculous things like trying to break records in balloons, sailboats and rockets, or climbing mountains–they are pushing themselves as hard as they can so they can see a new level of stress and force their minds to reorganize at a higher level.

So where does this leave you and your job search? Have you lost a job? You are getting input from your environment that is changing your entire world view and forcing you to change to adapt, just like species change to adapt. You are being given the option to either fall apart or reorganize at a higher level. The natural order of things is that you should reorganize at a higher level. If you are under stress and think you might be about to lose your job, you should do whatever you can to reorganize at a higher level and not fall apart. When the world changes and bad things happen, we are being given a tremendous opportunity to become more sophisticated and better at everything that is going on around us.

“What are you planning on doing?” I had asked the woman at the airport as we chatted late into the evening the night before.

“I need something that feels more stable and is more predictable,” she told me.

I did not want to get too far into it with her, but what this told me was that she had made the decision to take herself out of an environment that was going to force her to grow and change. She had been given a tremendous opportunity to grow, and instead had taken herself out of the system.

■Better schools make people work harder and challenge their students more because they know this will make the students grow more. Some students quit because it is too much for them.

■Better coaches push their athletes harder in practice because they know this will make them better in the game. Many athletes resist being pushed hard like this and drop out of the sport.
Energy input causes chaos, and the more energy input that comes in the better. We need to put ourselves in positions where we are being forced to reorganize and get better and better at what we do. Chaos is a good thing.

One of my greatest strengths is constantly injecting chaos into any business I am involved with. Once chaos is injected into a system, you see more opportunities than you may see without the chaos.

It is for this reason I believe that I have been able to thrive in every conceivable economic environment. When the economy is good, the companies I lead do well, and when the economy is bad the companies I lead also do well. I think I must have learned this from my mother. Everything was always incredibly chaotic with her. There was one problem after another constantly coming up. The thing about my mom, I realized when I got older, was that she used chaos to her advantage. When you make things chaotic, there are numerous benefits. In fact, the ability to create and manage chaos is one of the most formidable skills anyone can have. If you understand how to work with chaos, you will always experience success in your career. Great things come from chaos.

Over the years I have seen a succession of employees of our company be incredibly turned off and frightened by the use of chaos in our companies. I have also seen an incredible number of people succeed when working with the chaos in our companies.

When I was growing up there was a very uptight man a couple of doors down from my house. From the time I was 19 or so, he had watched me start an asphalt business from the back of a Yugo into an operation with numerous trucks and employees that was doing more residential asphalt sealing than any other company in the suburbs of Detroit. For years, I would say hello to him in the morning as he was taking walks. I would frequently notice him looking at my equipment when I would stop by my father’s house in Birmingham, Michigan.

The man had been an architect before he had retired several decades ago. I had seal coated all of his neighbors’ asphalt for years and they had been happy with the work. Each year, when I would stop by to talk to him about his asphalt, however, he would not allow me to do it. He was very familiar with how I worked because he would watch me at the neighbors and appeared to be amazed by how quickly I would do their asphalt despite the work going off completely without a hitch. Each year, he would talk to me about his asphalt and never would allow me to do the work.

“I have no idea what the hell that guy’s problem is,” his neighbors would say to me frequently. I knew what was wrong, though.

When the man would look at my equipment, he would always make one remark or another about how I was not maintaining it properly. For example, he would tell me I had not cleaned my tools properly. When I was doing my work for his neighbors, he would constantly watch me to make sure that I did not spill anything on his neighbors’ houses and that I was very careful. He demanded to know all about the material I used and researched it to make sure that it was perfect. For years, he appeared to be studying me to see if I had what it took to do what was no more than a $300 driveway sealing job.

At the height of my career as an asphalt sealant contractor, I was doing as many as 25 driveways a day in an average neighborhood. I got so good at it that my crew and I would pull up to a house, and using an array of incredibly sophisticated equipment, we would have virtually any driveway done in 15 to 30 minutes. It was an incredible sight to watch, and I got very, very good at it because I had done it over and over again. Because my prices were so good, I could go into a neighborhood and do every single house on some streets. People knew me, and my work was trusted.

That was why I was amazed one day when I stopped by my father’s home and could smell asphalt sealer coming from a few doors down. When you are in the business of asphalt sealing, you can smell asphalt sealer for miles. I still have this ability to this day. About a year ago, I was relaxing on the beach in front of my home in Malibu, and the smell of asphalt sealer was picked up by my nose. My wife could smell nothing. A couple of hours later I was driving to the grocery store about two miles away and there was some freshly sealed asphalt. Once the asphalt sealing business gets in your blood, you look at the world in a different way.

I walked up to the architect’s house and could not believe my eyes. There was a brand new looking pickup truck with a small tidy little asphalt tank behind it. There were also a couple of guys sealing the driveway. They looked like engineers. They did not have a single drop of asphalt sealer on them at all. They were using small little brushes and appeared to think the driveway was an artist’s canvas rather than a slab of asphalt (I typically did my work with a brush that was at least 4 feet across–these guys were using small paint brushes around the edges). I had never seen anything like it. It was the most anal retentive asphalt sealing operation I had ever seen. I had no idea who these guys were, but the entire situation looked very strange to me.

“My god!” I asked them. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Six hours,” one of them said not even making eye contact with me.

“Six hours?” I was astonished. This driveway would not have taken me longer than 12-14 minutes at most. I noticed that they had also done all sorts of precautionary measures that must have taken them hours. For example, they had put newspaper with masking tape all over the garage. This was something they did so that the sealer did not get on the garage in case there was an accident. I noticed that they guys did not have a drop of sealer on them, and they were wearing protective booties over their shoes. It was incredible to me. For the life of me, I could not imagine how these guys could make a living doing this. There was not a drop of asphalt sealer anywhere on their equipment. It was as if they were performing surgery.

“Do you guys do this all the time?” I asked them.

“Yes.”

“Where do you do business?”

“All over Detroit.”

“How many driveways do you do in an average week?”

“Generally 2 or 3.”

To me this seemed liked one of the most unusual asphalt operations I had ever seen. I had no idea how these guys could make any money whatsoever doing their business like anal retentive artists.

“How much did those guys charge?” I asked a neighbor a few days later.

“Around $650,” I think.

They charged more than twice what I would have charged and did the work five times slower. In addition, they had come out to the architect’s house to give an estimate, sent him one, and then waited for him to call them. I typically just showed up at peoples’ homes and asked them if they wanted me to do the work or not. It was disorganized, but it worked. The job I would have done would have turned out the same, but it would have not been as measured and done with as much caution. The retired architect was seeking to have the work done with extreme precision, and after a long time searching, had found people who would do things with this level of precision. He was interested in bringing extreme order to the process of what was occurring. There are never good long-term benefits to incredible order. You need to have disorder to see opportunities and grow. I was able to create an incredible business using disorder and dominate a market.

In our lives, we are constantly faced with incredible amounts of chaos and disorder. People want predictability, and they want things to work a certain way. The search for order often results in missed opportunities, and the inability to tolerate chaos is something that can harm you. The best ideas and the best processes, in my opinion, come directly out of chaos. You can use chaos to your advantage to make things happen. The architect who was seeking order is the sort of person I encounter frequently. People who are constantly seeking order are short-changing themselves. Expose yourself to disorder and chaos, and this will force you to grow. G-Force is going to be shown soon!!! this is way too cool!
Been waiting for another round of good movies since my last 6movie in a row feat last month but i guess that I eally watched finished all the movies in one go that there was nothing left to watch!

Was looking at the trailer of G-Force and realised that as usual, there is a female character!! woo-hoo, our usual dose of girl power!! Coolness!!!

anyway this female character is called Juarez who is voiced over by
Penelope Cruz, that's right!! She is my favourite character amongst the four, she speaks well (the best out of the 4) and the first part that I noticed about ther in the trailer was "where is the bathroom?" hahaha..interesting that they shld be asking for a bathroom even!! But it was cool cos her voice stood out from the rest but most of all, she is the girl power epitome in the show.

Many times in movies, women has been portrayed as weak and incompetent as compared to their male counterparts, where she needs to be resuced by the hero in the show. But I like Juarez cos she is the marital Art specialist and she is the one who is going to save the butt of the rest of the team and the people (or rather..animals?). While real-life, action movies may not give due credit to our heroines enough, this character certaintly will. and it would be great to catch a Babe in total control of herself (literally!) in the show.

Making me look forward to the show even more. Hope that perhaps I would be able to view this in 3D as well!! (:

So, Catch G-Force in cinemas 4th Sep 2009!! (: okay ..I was just commenting on the benefit of owning a phone with a wifi function and wireless@sg being rampantly available that I can be sitting here getting a haircut and blogging and right after that my page refreshed and the whole post was gone without being saved!!

Its Been a rainy afternoon, wrong rainy morning and afternoon and its really extremely good weather to sleep in!!

Of cos as usual, I was tormented by the many dreams that I have been having for the past 1 week to really get any good rest. Th dreams that were keeping me awake at night and level me feeling tired in the day..sigh I was just looking at Pastor Kong's Daily devotion and this 2 really blow my mind.

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Obeying Church Leaders
16 Aug 2009
Hebrews 13:17 tells us that one practical outworking of obedience to God is by obeying the leaders who directly rule over you in church. By saying that, the Bible immediately establishes the fact that God expects us to be planted in a local church. Otherwise, how would that Scripture ever be fulfilled?

The word “church” is used 114 times in the New Testament. Considering that words like “repentance” appears only 58 times, “joy” 65 times, and “revival” once, church is therefore something very necessary according to the Bible. In fact, the church is the only one building project that Jesus is actively involved in. He says, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

Of the 114 times that the word “church” is used in Scripture, only about 10 to 12 times is it used in reference to the universal body of Christ. For the majority of the times it was mentioned, the focus is squarely placed on the local church. As such, there can be no doubt of the importance of the local congregation in Christian living. Just look at Paul’s letters in the New Testament. He was always writing to a local church somewhere: Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse and Thessalonica. Without strong local churches, the harvest cannot be conserved, believers cannot be properly discipled and workers cannot be sent out into effective ministry.

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofi table for you.


Hebrews 13:17 tells us that one practical outworking of obedience to God is by obeying the leaders who directly rule over you in church. By saying that, the Bible immediately establishes the fact that God expects us to be planted in a local church. Otherwise, how would that Scripture ever be fulfilled?

Just look at Paul’s letters in the New Testament. He was always writing to a local church somewhere: Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse and Thessalonica. Without strong local churches, the harvest cannot be conserved, believers cannot be properly discipled and workers cannot be sent out into effective ministry.

One of the greatest challenges for a believer joining a church is to resolve in his mind once and for all that he is to obey his pastors and elders. Church leaders are positioned by the Lord to encourage, equip and empower the saints. Sometimes, in order to properly keep watch over their spiritual health, they have to exercise godly discipline much like parents to their children. God is never unreasonable.

If you sincerely believe that God has planted you into a particular local church, then you need to be very accountable to your leaders. If, for some reason, you feel you can’t obey your elders or deacons, then look for another congregation where you can.

Without proper discipleship from church leaders, your membership in God’s house would not be profitable (Heb. 13:17). One more thing: you also need to be submissive. That means obedience must be done with a right attitude—with great willingness on your part. Remember: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land” (Is. 1:19).

So it is not simply going through the motion of doing as you are told, it is doing them with a joy and gladness of heart.

***

Lasting In The Ministry
15 Aug 2009

The Christian life is like a race. And in every race, there is always a crowd of runners at the beginning that, as the race progresses, will eventually thin out. It is often the same in the ministry. It doesn’t matter how you start out in life, what matters is how you finish up.

In 2 Corinthians 4:8, we find a Paul who had every reason to be discouraged. He was “hard pressed on every side.” That means he was literally stretched to the limit, almost to the point of snapping. He was “perplexed,” not knowing which way to turn. He was “persecuted” and hunted down like an animal by his enemies. And using the analogy of a boxer, he was “struck down” many times in the ring of Christian ministries. So how did Paul, and similarly how do we, get the strength to persist in the Christian life?

(1) You need to remember that God loves you (4:1).

Whenever you go through tough times, you must know that God sees everything you are going through, and that He is going through them together with you. He is a merciful and gracious God. When you realize this, you won’t have to prove your worth or manufacture something to impress people. All you need to do is to give others what you have received from the Lord—mercy, grace and love.


Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.


The Christian life is like a race. And in every race, there is always a crowd of runners at the beginning that, as the race progresses, will eventually thin out. It is often the same in the ministry. It doesn’t matter how you start out in life, what matters is how you finish up.

In 2 Corinthians 4:8, we find a Paul who had every reason to be discouraged. He was “hard pressed on every side.” That means he was literally stretched to the limit, almost to the point of snapping. He was “perplexed,” not knowing which way to turn. He was “persecuted” and hunted down like an animal by his enemies. And using the analogy of a boxer, he was “struck down” many times in the ring of Christian ministries. So how did Paul, and similarly how do we, get the strength to persist in the Christian life?

(1) You need to remember that God loves you (4:1). Whenever you go through tough times, you must know that God sees everything you are going through, and that He is going through them together with you. He is a merciful and gracious God. When you realize this, you won’t have to prove your worth or manufacture something to impress people. All you need to do is to give others what you have received from the Lord—mercy, grace and love.

(2) You need to maintain a clear conscience (4:2).

Be transparent. Hide no skeletons in your closet. Integrity produces endurance. Deception never lasts. In many car petrol kiosks, there is always this slogan: “A clean engine produces more power.” That is true about life in general. When you are honest and open, there will be tremendous power and stability in your life.

(3) You need to have the right motivation (4:5).

Why do you do what you do? Why are you serving the Lord? The whys often determine the how longs. If you ask Paul how he had the strength to go through “hell” (being whipped 39 lashes five times, being stoned, being shipwrecked, etc.), he would say, “I did it for Jesus’ sake. I always do it for Jesus’ sake!” That was his motivation in life.

If you build your life on other people’s opinions or affections, then when you don’t get the right words or strokes, you will be devastated. Praises and criticisms are like bubble gum—you can chew on the gum for a while, but you will be a fool to swallow them wholesale!

♣

Monday, August 17, 2009 // 0 comments

As I have mentioned, the pictures!!

I watched a total of 5 movies in the past 1 week, that makes it 5 movies in 7days! That is quite scary huh?? Imagine the money that was spent in this whole week just on movies alone!!

1. First up is UP! (ok, I know not funny!) But this is the talk of town, the show that everyone has been waiting for. I cried alot during the show, dont really know the reason why but I guess there are certain elements that are really touching. Its a good show overall but I really feel like killing the boy at some instances of time (actually some is really an understatement!! hahaha)

2. Overheard- One of my favourite among the 5 movies, the fact that Daniel Wu is a part of the show does have quite a big part to contribute!! (he is really cute!! hahaha). Anyway, if you like Infernal Affairs and Protege, this is th show for you! The team behind the Infernal Affairs and Protege is the mastermind for this show! Same revolting dark storyline that causes you to think beyond the surface value of the show and make you think about the impact that ONE decision you make have on the society and the world. Pulls at your heartstring really about what is ethical versus what you have to do to survive!

3. Watched the G.I. Joe with the NUS/NTU peeps after the Revitalise! on monday. Interesting graphics but the plot is quite predictable and you can probably guess that the sequel is going to be called: The Revenge of the Cobra..hahahhah..anyway, it helps that the female lead is HOT! so, there are alot of parts of eyecandying whether you like the girl, the Korean guy or the leading guy..take your pick (:

4. Never intended to catch the Orphan cos its really not my kind of show (just like I asked Kenneth to count me out when they are going to watch Final Destination in 3D!!! OMG!). The story unreveals and you realised that there is much more to the surface of things. The girl is exceptionally nice in front of people but she is really really plotting and cunning. She is another character that I totally feel like killing and slapping. But I guess that also tells you that she has been successful in her acting. In fact, I would say that she is very successful cos she is only 12 years old in real life- which makes it that she is not even able to watch the show that she acted in legally!! hahah..

5. This is the other one on the list that I really like. Okay, i think I mentioned this before that I am a total fan of romance comedy. HEHEHe..anyhow, i think that this is a light-hearted and nice show that fan of romance comedy should catch. The Proposal is yet another typical you hate the female boss that you have but fall in love with her eventually over a course of al HOLIDAY trip..typical enough but the world cant get enough of them! hahah..and I am one of those people! hahah

Went out with the girls and Gerald and a new found Senior (from Anderson) who happens to be HT and Gerald's squd mate etc. Went to Crystabelle and thereafter to the nearby steamboat place. Though it was not a long afternoon but we really had fun and I think that Jeffrey really think that we no image after the day even though it was the first time he met all of us (apart from HT and G of cos!) hahaha..I really miss the girls alot since we graduated!! Its at times like that you will think back on the times you have in school, when you are in there, there is no chance of that happening! hahaha..

Anyhow, seeing them and looking at them make me think about how I wish that I have a proper job, a goal to work towards and a vision to live for. Not that I dont have a vision to live for but I just hope that everything will fall into place soon so that I have a better defined path and goal to work for. Thinking back, were some of the choices that I make along the way wrong or a mistake? Otherwise, where could I have been at now? Maybe somewhere where I have better achievements? Sigh, it pains me just to think about it.

And of cos, the past weekend was the graduation of the SOT 2009. Think they did well and they really did themselves proud!! Great job guys for the fabulous job that you have done in the past 5 months!

and here's to:

1. MARGARET KOH XH!!! (: Congras

2. DANIELLE LEE SJ!! (: Well-done!

3. And the many others like Denise, WeiTing, Marg Sng, Chang Han, Jaydee, JiaYing, Celianna, Seng, Siang, Adrian and all the others!! Great Job!! (: Congras and go on to turn the world upside down!! (:

Lastly before I sign off:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DENISE and CYRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (:

Have a great one today!! Love lots! (:

♣

Sunday, August 16, 2009 // 0 comments

下雨天了怎么办 我好想你
不敢打给你 我找不到原因
什么失眠的声音
变得好熟悉
沉默的场景 做你的代替
陪我听雨滴

期待让人越来越沉迷
谁和我一样
等不到他的谁
爱上你我总在学会
寂寞的滋味
一个人撑伞 一个人擦泪
一个人好累

怎样的雨 怎样的夜
怎样的我能让你更想念
雨要多大
天要多黑 才能够有你的体贴

其实 没有我你分不清那些
彻别 接近还能多一些
别说你会难过
别说你想改变
被爱的人不用道歉

期待让人越来越疲惫
谁和我一样
等不到他的谁
爱上你我总在学会
寂寞的滋味
一个人撑伞 一个人擦泪
一个人好累

怎样的雨 怎样的夜
怎样的我能让你更想念
雨要多大
天要多黑 才能够有你的体贴

其实 没有我你分不清那些
彻别 接近还能多一些
别说你会难过
别说你想改变
被爱的人不用道歉

:: 下雨天 :: 南拳妈妈 ::

This is the first song that was on the list when I walked into the room and Hong Ting was singing it and I thought that this is a really nice song! (: Seriously, I think that Project Superstar must be blinded to not allow Hongting to go through the first round- she has one of the nicest voice that I have ever heard before!! Its ok larh girl..be the SPF superstar!!! (:

Met up with the girls after a long time, I guess that it would get harder as everyone is working and wenhui still have school and all. But got to meet up cos the SPF-ers are heading to Nepal for training soon!! *but not bad arh..go Nepal for training!! hahah..anyway, we went for K at Crystabelle and then Steamboat nearby thereafter! May not be a very long but its a nice meet up! Miss you girls!!

*I wanted to load photo here but something wrong with my blogger template! so..next time larh!*

Went for yet another writing test on friday, just that this time, it is not in english, rather, it is in CHINESE!! Seriously, I have not written so many chinese words since my last JC exams 5 years ago!! It was crazy, there were many words that I dont remember and there were many other sentence strutures that you no longer remember. and it was 4 hours long and the best part, it was not long enough for us to finish the 3 sections in the paper. its really an experience though. A normal person uses and even the news paper uses only a fraction of the chinese words there are in the world- think that we need to learn more chinese words (well, you can learn a couple more just by singing Jay Chou songs when you are at KTV!!)

Alright, need to get some work done badly!! sigh

♣

Friday, August 07, 2009 // 0 comments

Driving Practical Test in 5hours!!!! Woo-hoo!!!

I know that if I pass its not me but its God!!! So Lord, I pray let your presence and Holy Spirit be with me that I will not be over nervous but I will have the peace of God to do everything right!! I pray for your alertness and sharpness, coupled with your grace and your anoiting and favour to be upon me. So that not for my glory but for yours!!!

I thank you in advance for the good things that is to come!!! Amen!!!

Happy Birthday VINCENT!!!!! (:

N397 is having our annual National Day Outing cum Vincent's Birthday cum Liwei pass driving (prayerfully!!) celebrations tonight at the Heeren's Shokudo!!! (: Cant wait to meet everyone again!!! Love you guys lots!!

GTG!!! Ciao!!! (:

♣

Thursday, August 06, 2009 // 0 comments

Was just thinking about this word "value", perhaps partly cos of what Mr. Tan shared with the SMU Caretalysts during their Day 1 of camp today. And I was just thinking about what Yuzhen and Daniel say as I was walking downstairs and saw people sleeping at the fitness corner and there are rubbish on the floor. There are many times that we think that we are more "atas" and that the other countries (aka. the third world country) are the ones who need help but the thing is, there is a whole group of people that we can help here in Singapore.

When we think about the underprivileged, we think about the needy, the homeless, the children, the woman and what have you. I was just thinking that there are many other social issues that you need and you can address amongst those who seemingly appear to be well as well isnt it. These are "hidden" needs that is not so easily met, thees are "hidden" hurts that cannot be ment so easily and if you are not observant, they will just go unnoticed and it will affect the person for life.

Went for a run and did an hour of walking and praying and seeking and asking God about life, questions and just plain listening to my ipod and be amazed by the works of God in His people and in my life. My mind wondered to the word "value", how do we view this word? There are people who places the value/ their worth in life on 1. the things people say about them/ view them as 2. their achievements in life 3. their talents, gifts and abilities etc. But as you begin to look at your own life, you begin to realise that there are many things and areas that you are lacking in, so does these lacks in your life bring down your perceptions and worth about yourself? Or are we so caught up in our self-admiration that we dont realise and see our own weaknesses? Either extremes are not good, as usual, cliche as it may be, there must be a fine balance between humility and confidence in our self. But really, at the end of the day, the world is so caught up in this rat race that no matter what we do will not be good enough, then where do we get our ego food and build up our lives? The assurance that comes only from God, that's what i really think!

Driving Test on Friday- which means tomorrow, given that its 1.28am on a Thursday. Really need the grace, the strength, the anointing and the guidance of the Holy Spirit as I take the test. Remember that when I pass, it is not me but it is GOD!! Seriously!! (: I pray that it will go smoothly as I want to better utilise my time and efforts and MONEY to better use!!! (: God be with me as I take the test and cause everything to go so smoothly, You know the things that can go wrong, send Your angels to protect and divert all the things that can be a hindrance! Thank you God!! (:

Good nights!

♣

Wednesday, August 05, 2009 // 0 comments

She wraps her tragic moments tightly around her neck
Then she hangs herself with them as I try to disconnect
Cuz she wants to choke on her life again
Breathing it in like a deadly poison.

She cries cause she's lost and she doesn't even know what she wants
Her eyes go cold as she begs the world to just let her go

She lives and breathes in a world that brought her to her knees
And now I'm addicted to her cuz that girl is just like me
And I'm gonna choke on her life again
I'm breathing it in like a deadly poison.
I just want to get through to her,
Before her last breath.

She cries cause she's lost and she doesn't even know what she wants
Her eyes go cold as she begs the world to just let her go

She cries cause she's lost and she doesn't even know what she wants
And she hides all alone inside the pain that she wont let go
Watching her life pass her by, watching it all through her watering eyes
But I'll be chasing dragonflies from her darkest skies until the day she dies.

:: Adalia :: Madina Lake ::

This is random but i found this song while I was surfing the net for something. Think I was talking to someone about names and their meaning and ta-ta, here is another meaning to my name! hahaha

Quite sleepy now, so dont think that I am going to blog much le..2 days from Driving test!!!! Jiayou!!

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