A common and traditionally masculine marital problem is created by the husband who, once he is married, devotes all his energies to climbing mountains and none to tending to his marriage, or base camp, expecting it to be there in perfect order whenever he chooses to return to it for rest and recreation without his assuming any responsibility for its maintenance. Sooner or later this ‘capitalist’ approach to the problem fails and he returns to find his untended base camp a shambles, his neglected wife having been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, having run off with another man, or in some other way having renounced her job as camp caretaker. An equally common and traditionally feminine marital problem is created by the wife who, once she is married, feels that the goal of her life has been achieved. To her the base camp is the peak. She cannot understand or empathize with her husband’s need for achievements and experiences beyond the marriage and reacts to them with jealously and never-ending demands that he devotes increasingly more energy to the home. Like other ‘communist’ resolutions of the problem, this one creates a relationship that is suffocating and stultifying, from which the husband, feeling trapped and limited, may likely flee in a moment of ‘mid-life crisis.’ The women’s liberation movement has been helpful in pointing the way to what is obviously the only ideal resolution: marriage as a truly cooperative institution, requiring great mutual contributions and care, time and energy, but existing for the primary purpose of nurturing each of the participants for individual journeys toward his or her own individual peaks of spiritual growth. Male and female both must tend the hearth and both must venture forth. (Love is Separateness, by M. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Travelled)

Sally: how long is your longest relationship with your chatmates?
Arthur: 3 years
Sally: online girlfriend?
Arthur: haha... nothing's wrong right?
Sally: have you met her up close & personal??
Arthur: of course.... why?
Sally: OMG!! You have sex with her???
Arthur: why are you so anxious to know?
Sally: tell me about it
Arthur: well... she told me she really likes my d*ck..... 
Sally: she must be someone's wife right?
Arthur: divorced
Sally: i knew it
Sally: all the best to both of you
Arthur: thanks...
Arthur: in fact I'm not good looking.... yet there are gals willing to be with me... I just can't understand
Sally: let me ask you
Arthur: ok....
Sally: do you consider yourself quite well to do
Arthur: tell you.... it isn't because of my income.... she has never mentioned about it....
Sally: do you bring her to fine restaurants & buy her gifts
Arthur: no gift at all.... of course have some nice meals sometimes...
Arthur: most of the time she enjoys the feeling.... me too.... how about you?
Sally: hmmm......... it's either this woman is very financially independent or weak
Arthur: she is working & has her own car..... Vios!
Arthur: I have 2 other single gals who are quite close to me too.... aged 32 & 29....
Sally: now you are talking........
Sally: all I could say is, women are the weakest creatures on earth
Sally: that's why Eve was tempted to take the 1st bite of the forbidden fruit. Sigh..........
Arthur: please don't say so, honey... we are all humans... need partners... need love.... we have to admit all that...
Sally: there are many ways of loving a person, your way is "shallow"........
Sally: I feel sorry for your wife
Arthur: please don't try to teach others ok
Sally: are you mad at me
Sally: I'm not trying to be smart & teach you what to do
Sally: you are older than I am, I believe you should be smarter than me of what to do
Sally: what I see in you is not important but it definitely tells me SOMETHING about myself
Sally: no offence
Arthur: you should feel pity on your ex I think... rather than sympathizing on others
Sally: why should I? he's happily remarried now
Arthur: you really want me to explain it to you? hope you won't be angry...
Sally: just speak your mind, I can handle
Arthur: when he married you... you were no more virgin... how was it?
Arthur: you had enjoyed your moments with other men without his knowledge....
Arthur: I'm just sharing my opinion anyway...
Sally: haha...... he wasn't a virgin too when he married me

Sally: I had been faithful to him since he dated me...
Sally: but after marriage, both should be faithful to each other, he betrayed me
Sally: would you forgive your wife if you ever found out that she's been sleeping with other men
Sally: do you think she will keep quiet if she ever finds out about you betraying her
Sally: do you think everything that you have now, will remain the same after the truth
Arthur: come on... please don't teach me or ask me further about that... that's it ok?
Sally: why? guilt has made you speechless?
Sally: or my advice has fallen onto deaf ears
Arthur: please drop the subject, otherwise you go & get f*cked.... you have no rights to teach me & call me "deaf ears"! F*ck off....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work like a soul inspired till the battle of the day is won
You may be sick and tired but you'll be a man my son
Don't you remember the famous man who had to fall to rise again?
They picked themselves up, dust themselves off

and started all over again

Life isn't a bed of roses. Everyone knows that. Until today, I still don't have the guts to watch "The Passion" directed by Mel Gibson on how Jesus was crucifixed or any movies with pre-known adversities.

 

A dear friend recently commented that my blogs are simply pathetic & sarcastic. I can understand what she meant. We all like to hear positive remarks to feel positive just like how my eyes would like to watch movies with "happy endings".

 

Many of my published inspiring blogs which I extracted from somewhere may not tally with my own written blogs here, because they were NOT originated from me! They are here for sharing & served as reminders to myself.

 

This is my so-called PERSONAL "trash blog", a site I dump my thoughts. Like it or not, I am not going to sing beautiful songs all the time because I am only a human who is born of flesh & blood & emotions, I will sing accordingly to the notes in my head or in my heart! I'm not going to pretend whom I am not but it's time I learn how to speak for myself. Not like a politician. Not like a lecturer. Not like a pastor. But like a woman who's truthful to herself.

  

 "I do not want the peace which passeth understanding,

I want the understanding which bringeth peace."

 

A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. - Benjamin Franklin

When sickness forced Professor Viveca Hertz to abandon her research at Princeton University, she had reached the peak of her career. The third woman to have ever been awarded the Nobel prize in physics (the first one having been Marie Curie in 1903, and the second one Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963), she was the only woman in history to have won a second Nobel prize, that one in chemistry. Now, however, Professor Hertz was a woman in her early seventies, whom a stroke had left her partially paralyzed. She had moved to the Meyerhof Clinic in San Francisco, where she had begun a series of treatments in physiotherapy involving special exercises, heat applications, muscle manipulations, massages and electrical stimulations. Naturally, these treatments were administered by specialized therapists, most of whom worked in other clinics as well, wherever their patients happened to be. One of these therapists was Fabian Wolfe, and his relationship with Professor Hertz eventually transformed his life.

Fabian was then a young man of twenty-eight and, despite his youth, had travelled much and learned much. Since he had always been interested in the interdependence between soul and body, he had spent some years in India in the company of various gurus, who had initiated him to the practice of yogic meditation. As a result of this training, he had given up his Christian faith in favor of a vague belief in an impersonal Cosmic Force - something like a cross between the Brahman of Hinduism and the progressively emerging God of process theology.

What launched the next phase of Fabian's evolution was an insignificant incident. One morning that he happened to arrive into Professor Hertz room slightly ahead of his usual time, he found the old lady praying her rosary. This astonished him: how was it possible that one of the leading scientist of our era could still believe in that kind of superstition? Fabian asked himself. Now, since he had been the old woman's exercise therapist for some weeks already and had developed a real liking for her (and she for him, apparently), he decided he could risk teasing her about her prayer habits without offending her. He did this toward the end of their therapy session that morning.

"Of course I pray the rosary!" she responded cheerfully. "Don't you pray too, Mr. Wolfe?"

"Yes, Professor," he admitted, "but meditation only, not your kind of prayer."

She grinned mischievously, remembering his long apprenticeship with Indian gurus.

"You mean, you don't believe in prayer understood as asking. Maybe you find it childish to ask something of God. Surely, you think, the human race has outgrown its dependence on God. Probably, in your view, we should do things for ourselves and be ashamed to fall back on God. Is that it?"

He smiled good-naturedly.

"Something like that. Of course, you'll tell me, Professor, that there are no atheists in foxholes and that anybody will ask for God's help in a sudden emergency. Well, I'll grant you that, but it doesn't prove much, only that the sanest and most rational among us often lose their nerves and unthinkingly turn to prayer as a last resource, when all else seems to have failed. But, surely, you wouldn't want to defend prayer on those terms, would you?"

"Of course not," she answered serenely. "There's much more to prayer than that. For example, when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he didn't teach them sophisticated methods of meditation; he told them to ask, to seek, to knock. and the only model of prayer he gave them, the Lord's Prayer as it's called, is a series of petitions, nothing else. Of course, you probably don't believe in the divinity of Jesus any more, but surely you may grant that he was a man of genuine spirituality, a man who knew a few things about God and about how we should deal with God?"

"I'll grant you that," he conceded, "but it doesn't solve my difficulties concerning the practice of petitionary prayer."

By this time of their conversation, their session had come to an end, but the professor was interested in following up on this topic, for it was something she had had to come to grips with in the course of her career as a scientist.

"Next time, young man," she told him in a tone of mock severity, "I expect that you will articulate your objections against prayer in a clear, objective, and scientific fashion, so that I may be able to poke a few holes in them."

He bowed in feigned subservience.

"It will be my pleasure, Madam."

Thus began an odyssey of the mind which the young therapist was to remember for the rest of his life. For indeed, even if at the time he was not always convinced by everything the old woman told him in the course of their exchanges, nevertheless he found it a great thrill to wrestle with a first class intellect such as hers.

Their next encounter began with Fabian trying to formulate one of the age-old objections to the advisability of practicing the prayer of asking.

"Doesn't this form of prayer," asked the young man, "imply a naive idea of God, as some despot who can be coaxed into intervening in the affairs of the world and change them to suit our whims?"

"Not at all, Mr. Wolfe," the professor answered, because God's purposes can only be good, and so he never acts arbitrarily. If ever he does listen to someone's prayer, it can only be because that prayer already conforms to his good purposes."

"And so Professor," Fabian insisted, "you don't see prayer as an attempt to manipulate God magically, to influence him childishly?"

"Quite to the contrary," she answered. "You see, prayer has rather the opposite effect. Far from bending God's will to ours, he invariably brings us to bend our wills to his, if we persevere long enough in our asking."

"Is that so?" he queried, surprised. "Why would that be the case?"

"Because, when we come to prayer with a particular request, we often view the situation we wish to be changed in a rather narrow and blind way. In fact, because of our sinfulness, we often find ourselves at cross-purposes with God's intentions. If, however, we persist in prayer, gradually God purifies our motivations and removes the blocks we oppose to his will. So much so, that after a while our wills become harmonized to his will, aligned on his. In other words, Mr. Wolfe, we don't have to persuade God to seek the good of his creatures, because that's the only thing he seeks. It's rather God who has to persuade us to assist him carrying out his good purposes."

That idea was something Fabian never considered. And so, during the rest of that therapy session, he remained silent, plunged in his thoughts.

The following session, though, found him in a more combative mood. He was ready to propose another objection to prayer once he and his patient had settled down to their exercise routine.

"You know Professor," he said, "I've been thinking a lot of what we've talked about concerning prayer of request. And I've just realized now that one of the reasons why that form of prayer leaves me so uneasy is that I suspect it encourages laziness."

"Laziness?" the old woman echoed. "How is that?"

"Well, the prayer of asking often makes us rely on God to do things that we ourselves should be doing. For instance, I half-prepare an exam, and then I beg God to help me pass. Or I don't date any girl, and I expect God to find me a wife. Things like that."

"Hm - I see what you mean, Mr. Wolfe. Well, your fears are groundless, because true prayer can never encourage laziness. Rather, it inspires and energizes us to become God's instruments for the fulfilling of the prayer itself. For example, if I'm asking for success in an exam, prayer will prompt me to take all necessary means to achieve my goal - the first of these means being, of course, to study hard. It's all a question of honesty, really: I cannot honestly ask for God's help if I myself am not striving to reach the objective of my request."

"I see," Fabian said thoughtfully. "Your explanation certainly clears away a misconception I had in respect to the danger of laziness. But," he added with an impish smile, "don't go away, dear Madam. I have other difficulties. "

She laughed delightedly at his clowning. How she was beginning to like this fine young man, she thought!

"Where would I go with these wooden legs of mine, pray tell me! Anyhow, what are those other difficulties of yours?"

"One of them concerns the object of prayer. How do we know what to ask for?
After all, we're all rather self-centered, and consequently our requests are bound to be restricted to our limited horizons, perhaps even feeling our narrow concerns, our personal preferences, our prejudices, what do you say to that?

"That's certainly possible, unfortunately, " she replied. "And that's why, in the public liturgical worship, requests (what is called the Prayer of the Faithful) are formulated only after the congregation has listened to the Word of God and meditated on it. This process enables the faithful to immerse themselves into the mind and will of God. Once they understand what God wants for his people and which constitutes the true good of His creatures, then they can formulate their requests in harmony with God's will and the danger of unworthy or egoistical motivations is much reduced. This process can be duplicated in one's private life, naturally."

"I see," said Fabian. "that was very enlightening. Now what about this other difficulty? Why should we pray if God already knows better than we do ourselves what's good for us and for the world at large? What's the point of petitioning Him for anything in a situation like that?"

She smiled. How often she had heard this objection!

"It's true, of course,"she answered, "that God knows all about what we are asking for. It's really we who have to become more aware of our needs and of other people's needs. By spelling them out to God, we are deepening our desires, enlarging our hearts, reaching out to our brothers and sisters. If we never took the trouble of expressing our desires to God, our hearts would remain underdeveloped, as it were, stunted in their growth."

"Fair enough," he agreed, "I can connect with that. And now a last question - my most important one: do our prayers make any difference in the scheme of things? I mean, do our prayers have a real influence on people and events?"

"I'm convinced they do, Mr. Wolfe, although their causation is not easy to establish. After all, the world isn't a laboratory in which we can conduct experiments of a scientific nature, experiments where the variables are carefully controlled and where the environment is completely manageable."

Fabian smiled ironically.

"That, dear professor," he said teasingly "sounds to me very much like a cop-out."

"A cop-out? What's that, Mr. Wolfe?"

"A cop-out" It's slang for: give up, withdraw, forego. In other words, you seem to be saying that we can't measure the influence of prayer; yet at the same time you assure me that prayer works. In other words, you're asking me to believe you on faith. Isn't that asking a little too much, Professor?"

"Well, perhaps it is. I'm an old woman, and I can easily believe in the power of prayer because I've witnessed too many strange and unexplainable `coincidences' accompanying prayer not to believe in its potency. But you - well, you're still too young to have witnessed enough such phenomena to agree with me."

A thoughtful silence settled upon the two of them. Thus ended the therapy session of that day.

The following day, Fabian entered Professor Hertz' room in a flurry of excitement.

"Professor!" he exclaimed, "I've found it! I've found a way to verify whether or not prayer can have a real influence on people and situations."

"Really?" she asked, immediately interested. Her scientific mind was already engrossed by what lay ahead.

"It's very simple," he said, "but I'll need your cooperation, Professor."

"You can count on me, Mr. Wolfe. I'll do anything I can to help you on your - little experiment." She smiled in conspiratorial way, delighted to find herself again in some sort of scientific adventure.

"Thank you. Your help will be invaluable, in fact indispensable for what I have in mind. You see, I have exactly twenty patients in physiotherapy at this moment, six in this clinic, and the rest in other institutions. As you know, I see some of my patients an hour a day - like you in your case - and others once or twice a week depending on their needs and their phase of rehabilitation. Now, suppose I divide my patients in two groups of ten. I'll give you the names of one group, along with a general description of their conditions. You'll pray for that group for one month. then, at the end of that month, I'll compare the two groups. If the group you've prayed for is significantly improved in comparison with the other group, then I'll believe in the power of prayer. What do you say?"

Professor Hertz had no hesitation.

"Agreed," she said merrily. Then she reached for her rosary lying on her night table. "It will be a great battle between these simple beads and your sophisticated skepticism. We'll see what will happen, Mr. Wolfe."

For a month after that, the old woman prayed intensely for the ten names entrusted to her. At the end of that month, Fabian was amazed at the discrepancy between his two groups of patients. The ones prayed for had made astonishing progress in their recovery, whereas the other patients merely progressed at a normal pace. When he faced the old woman after he had measured the results of the experiment, his attitude was no longer one of patronizing superiority. Obviously the young therapist was in the process of completely revising his notions about a personal God and the role of prayer in relation to such a personal God.

"You win, Professor," he admitted candidly. "The patients you prayed for are now far ahead of the other group in terms of their rehabilitation. And -" He faltered, plainly embarrassed by what he was about to say. "And I cheated in the experiment."

"You did?" she asked incredulously. "How? What did you do?"

"Well, I didn't divide my patients impartially. I gave you the ten worse."

She laughed at his penitent air.

"Well, don't feel too bad about that because, you see, I cheated too."

It was his turn to be astonished now.

"How on earth - what do you mean?" he asked, bewildered.

She had an elfin smile.

"You see," she explained, "I'm just an old sinner and I don't rely too much on the efficacy of my own prayer. So, I took the liberty of asking two friends of mine to help me in this little project. Do you mind very much my duplicity, Mr. Wolfe?"

He laughed at her air of feigned contrition.

"Not at all, Professor. In fact, if you could mobilize more of your friends to help me, I could become a wizard therapist overnight. What do you say? Do we become partners from now on?"

She beamed at him.

"I would be delighted to undertake such a venture with you, Mr. Wolfe," she said.

And that's how a former skeptic became one of the most successful representatives of his profession - so much so that his colleagues wondered at his extraordinary rate of patient rehabilitation. Where did he get his healing power? No one knew.

He knew, though. He even carried a rosary in his pocket now.

I never like the thrill of the game. I don't like the feeling of hiding & never be found or worse, never be seeked for. But here I am, as I grew another year older today(yup, Happy Birthday to me), I became a year wiser to discover that my life now is a game of Hide & Seek.

 

There are people we wish to meet yet they show no interest to have us around or vice versa. When I show up, he hides. When he appears, I vanish(because I don't want him to feel that my presence annoys him). And guess what? The worst part of the game is, when both happened to bump into each other, we pretended to play invisible!! What could be next? "Hey! I'm Dory, I'm suffered from short-term memory loss, who are you???"

 

Sometimes life is so dramatic. The roles we play on this stage of life seemed to be so predictable. But there are extra-ordinary artistes who could really put on fantastic shows........ I can never be a good one. Guess my low EQ is to be blamed. I could cry for my girl's school principal who was terminally-ill & had to retire, I could cry when a man told me his love stories, I could cry when a kid came to me for comfort & I could even cry for a man whom I have loved but never met. Perhaps I have to agree with someone that love is too "troublesome", that I am too, unfit to fall in love again???

I know! You are not alone! I may call mom to tell her that I'm not coming home for dinner & go for happy-hour & sing my lungs out at karaoke ALONE ~ all the love songs, to be dedicated to the love birds! Maybe I would just go home pretending I'm having Alzheimer & have an early night & probably wake up in the middle of the night soaking my pillow........ till I'm tired & fall asleep again! No BIG deal huh (since I'm not the only one!)??? 

A toast to singlehood!!

All this while he knows that she is there, at a distance.

 

She's adapting to her utmost not to invade his privacy of who he's with, where he's & what he has been doing because she has finally realised that she's neither his wife, girlfriend nor his mother!! Much more to her comfort, she has stopped hearing news about him. It wasn't because she has cared less about him but he seems to be contented not to be disturbed, that's her concern.

 

Who's the first person that comes across our mind of sending wishes during festive seasons via traditional mails, emails, calls, sms, mms, etc.? Well, she thought of him but despite the strong urge to send warm wishes to him, she held herself captive of her own feelings. She was hoping he would have at least remembered her as one of his dear friends & initiated to wish her well. She could have wished him first but she just hates to think that she's intruding or maybe fearing of receiving no response from him??

 

Finally his well-wishing came 4 days later at 3:04a.m. but it was never late in her time. She cried with joy that he has not completely forgotten about her. She wasn't sure why he could only remember her at such wee hour but it really means 'something' to her. She responded, thanked him, thanked God.

Little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter, "Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don't fall into the river."

 

The little girl said, "No, Dad. You hold my hand."

 

"What's the difference?" asked the puzzled father.

 

"There's a big difference," replied the little girl. "If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. BUt if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go."

 

In any relationship, the essence of trust is not in its bind, but in its bond. So hold the hand of the person whom you love rather than expecting them to hold ours....