Sweet Pea Journey

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Category: Life and random things

Words

Life and random things

Words

At 8 pm, I am still working on the project. All of a sudden, I received a message from a co-worker. She apologized for not getting what I needed done for today, and promised to finish it tomorrow morning, because she is very exhausted now. I said OK and thank you. What she said afterwards brought me to tears.

“My guy has passed away in March…. from a rare form of cancer… I miss him so much, I would give anything for him to be here with me…I am not a difficult person, I promise, don’t be worried to ask me for anything…. Work has been keeping me busy, so I am always online…”

I was in shock. Not that I should have known about her personal business, but how fragile a life, a relationship could be, and how much pain separations can cause one another. I told her “I am sure he knows too..” It surprised me that I said that to her, instead of typical “I hope you are OK, I am always here..”

We all have witnessed, heard and been part of so many arguments, disagreements between couples, parents and children, friends, co-workers.. I know I teared up, not just because it is a sad situation, but I also felt her pain, to my core… People say harsh things to each other during arguments, for what? Defending and justifying their own behavior? But how many of us can truly HEAR how the other person is feeling? Frustrating on both ends indeed.

Words are double sided swords, they hurt on the way into someone’s ears, but most of us do not realize, they also hurt on the way out of our mouths, if you truly care for the other person.

I watch people argue, they pick the worst words to say, attacking each other on a personal level. Almost all the time, what hurts the most isn’t the argument itself, isn’t who is right who is wrong, isn’t someone’s pride or ego.. it’s the harsh words coming out of a loved one’s mouth.

I wonder if those moments went through her head, wishing she never said certain things, now he is gone she could never take them back… I wonder if he has ever thought of the same thing, knowing he didn’t have much time left?

People may apologize afterwards, saying I shouldn’t have said this or that, but can you really take those words back? No you can’t. Those words can’t be unheard, things can’t be unsaid.. A nail hammered into wood can be removed, but the hole remains.

We all know we should live like we are dying, but do we also treat our loved ones like we are dying too?

Life and random things

Wake Up and Drive Your Boat

I have been listening to a lot of inspirational speeches, from Tony Robbins, to Mel Robbins, to Oprah Winfrey. Topics ranging from how to live in a beautiful state, to stop procrastination, to keep dreaming big, bigger than you think it is possible and be the best you could possibly be. I can’t deny the fact that every time, I listen to them, I feel pumped, feel what they say really resonated with what I believe all my life, but somehow, most of the time, for most of us anyway, there is always a disconnection between what we know we should do, and us actually taking any action or enough action to put ourselves to the work. There is always some sort of excuse why we don’t take actions we know will change our lives and inevitably, it pretty much always have something to do with past, with others, with why it is not something we can change.

Wayne Dyer has a famous quote about “wake up and drive your boat”. This metaphor is really about recognizing past is merely nothing but the marks of what has happened, recognizing what past is, and understanding past has nothing to do how you should proceed “now”. The quote goes like this:

One of my favorite metaphors illustrates the importance of recognizing the past for what it is. Imagine that you are on a boat headed north at around forty knots. As you stand on the stern, looking down into the water, three questions come to mind.

First, you ask yourself, What is the wake? The answer is that the wake is nothing more than the trail left behind.

The second question is, What is driving the ship? The answer is that the Present Moment Energy that you are generating through the engine is driving the ship.

Finally, you ask yourself the most important question: Is it possible for the wake to drive the ship? The answer is no, of course, for the wake is just a trail that is left behind. It can never drive the boat!

Now imagine that the boat is your life, and the wake is all the things that have happened in the past—what your body is like, what your parents were like, where you were in the birth order, how your mother treated you, whether your father was an alcoholic, and anything else.

Most people live with the illusion that their wakes are “driving” their lives—which is absolutely impossible. In order to nourish your soul, you must be able to “get out of the wake.”

It is so easy to blame others, blame the past, blame everything that’s out of our control that we are where we are and why we are not happy with anything. But all that is just us staring at the wake, and feeling like the victim of who knows what. We quite often lose ourselves in this kind of self pity and lose sight on where we are heading to, forgetting we are the ones controls the heading of our lives.

We, at the end of the day, are the director of our own movie. We, are the only ones responsible of our happiness. Tony Robbins encourages everyone to take control of our own mind, and “choose to live in a beautiful state”.

I am in, are you?

Life and random things

Wonderful Surprise

Finished our meal at Panera, one of my all time favorites. Time for dessert.

It’s closing time at Panera, the ladies are piling up the leftover bagels, breads, muffins, cookies… What a waste! I mumbled under my breath. I know, right? Imagine how many people all these breads can feed every day! He replied.

I want to ask if we can buy these leftovers at a discounted price and give them to the homeless… I looked outside, it’s so cold and wet outside!

Soon, it’s our turn to order. “What do you do with the leftovers everyday?” I asked the lady behind the counter.

“We actually give the leftovers away daily to local churches and shelters.” Proudly, she said, with a smile.

Our faces lit up – What a wonderful surprise!

Life and random things

Do Something that Makes Someone Smile

The other day, on my way to work, I pulled up to this traffic light on the slow lane, as usual, sipping my coffee, thinking about random things. At the corner of my eye, I saw a man jogging on the side walk, towards me. Everything is so normal, so routine.

The car quite a distance in front of me quickly swirled to the left and then back into our lane. A large black object appeared on the road. That’s the reason the car in front of me was trying to avoid. It was a blown tire.

The man jogging picked up his speed and ran into the road suddenly. He quickly pulled the tire off the road and onto the side walk, and kept on running.

I watched the whole thing happening in front of me. He didn’t have to do a thing about it, but that nice thing he did, certainly put a smile on my face. There are good people all around us. Can we all do something that lights up someone else’s day?

 

Life and random things

Love is in the Air

Valentine’s day, is normally over rated, overly commercialized. You can bet on hours of waiting at restaurants, overly priced flowers and chocolates.. After all, you don’t have to wait till V day to show some love, right? If you are in love, everyday is sweeter than Valentine’s day chocolate, prettier than Valentine’s day flowers, what difference is this one day going to makeBut it did not stop me for showing some love to my loved ones 🙂 I call it just because, I love these people in my life. And me? I am loved by people around me every day, that puts a big smile on my face every day 🙂

Super plush ombre throws for kids

Flowers for mom, cookies and biscotties for everyone

New shoes for dad

Life and random things

Optimistic

I had a frankly, quite boring Webinar at work the other day, talking about emotional intelligence. The presenter did have quite a bit of discussion on the definition and history of emotional intelligence in a monotone voice, which put most of us to a interesting stage of dozing off with our eyes open – we were at work after all.

One interesting statement the speaker made, however, got stuck on me. I was quite touched with it:

Optimistic is not hoping for the best in the future, it is making the best of the situation right now. Isn’t that right on the spot?

We all hope things will get better somehow in the future, if we are aware of it or not. We start our sentences with “I wish”. But all of that is day dreaming of something we probably don’t have any control over, not right now, and we forget right now, right this moment, something we can control, we can choose, to be happy, to look at the bright side of a bad situation. Things may not be clear, may be beyond of our comprehension, why me, why like this? We tend to think we are the victim. But, what can we do about it, if we don’t like it?

We need to learn to make the best out of “now”, regardless how terrible the situation seems like. That means dance in the pouring rain, enjoy a “dressed up” bag of ramen when money is tight, take time to notice the birds and flowers walking to the post office, make lemonade when life gives you lemon.

I have my own personal taste of this when the speaker said that. It immediately hit me. I still remember how sad I was and devastated I felt when I lost my job last year, but now looking back, that truly was a blessing. It took me quite some time to make peace with it, and accept it was not that bad, but just a few months afterwards, I realized why it was not that bad, not bad at all as a matter of fact. I could accomplish so much for my parents, my kids, even myself, when family needed me. I would never be able to make it happen otherwise, not risking losing my job anyways. As a matter of fact, if I knew what I know now, I would not trade those few months to keep my job. Perfect example of we handle things based on what we know at the time we handled things. I didn’t know any better. Self improvement can never stop. Only with wiser mind, we could be better human being, handle things better, and have better out come of our own action. If I was a bit more aware how I could focus less on the negatives back then, and focus more on “making the best out of now” part back then, the difficult time for me would be shorter.

Life and random things

Simple Happiness

If you live in Houston, you know this past weekend was freezing cold and windy. None of the Houstonians is used to this kind of weather. So, like everyone else, I was all bundled up, shivering, had my  hands deeply tucked away in my hooded jacket pockets. It was so cold and windy, even the bums took the day off. The intersections were empty, only dead leaves and occasionally plastic bags were dancing in the wind along the walkways.

On my way to the store, I took a turn under the freeway. At the corner of my eye, I noticed a couple lying under the overpass. It’s a wind tunnel under the freeway here. The couple had a blanket or something laid on the ground, and they were cuddled up and covered in some cardboard and rags pieced together. They were happy, smiling. The man had his arm around the woman’s shoulder. He was looking at her, she was smiling at him. Her hair was messy, puffy, flying with the wind.

But the happiness was contagious, the smile climbed up on my face, as I made the turn. They literally have nothing material wise, but they have each other, unconditional love and companion. Isn’t that what love is all about?

This couple may be homeless and don’t know where their next meal will be, but they are happier than a lot of us, who have a roof on top of our heads, have a car that can take us places, but we don’t know how to be happy with what we have in life. A lot of think about and learn for life.

Life and random things

Home Made Noodles

I received this pasta machine as a Christmas gift, frankly, probably the best kitchen related gift I have ever received!

We made home made noodles several times in a couple of weeks. Today, this is THE breakfast kids wanted.

Instruction is super easy, measuring cups are provided with markings on them, it really is fool proof. So the kids and I had some fun making fresh noodles for breakfast.

Kneeding Cycle, they can’t wait to take turns to cut the noodles

Kids loved taking turns to cut noodles as they come out.

Jade’s turn
Zander’s turn
Home made fresh noodles!

Life and random things

Moving On

New year, new resolution. Based on my track record, I don’t usually seem to be very successful with these. We tend to get stuck in the rut of setting new goals and failing these goals within weeks. Losing 5 lbs, reading more books, quit smoking… how many of us really made it through January without cheating? So, I stopped making new year resolutions a long time ago, just quietly encouraging others keep up with their goals. To me, a resolution is not about having to have a new year to have a new start, it should be a constant mind set of constant eliminating negativity in life and looking forward and making changes that will positively impact life.

Recently I was finally able to sell the house of 6 years, the one many people joked about being a mansion, casa de Ting. Sure, lots of life happened in that house, I had two wonderful children and had many many sleepless nights where I lost track of what time of the day / night it was. Watching them growing up was the best feeling. When I put the house on the market, some asked if I was sad or sentimental about selling it. After I moved out, some asked if I would want to go back and take another look. The answer is, not a bit. I don’t think about anything inside the house, nothing really triggers any sadness. I am not emotionally attached to any of it. Maybe I am weird, but I am one of the fortunate that I don’t keep looking back and play back the good and bad over and over in my head. I simply want to move on.

In my mind, what happened in the past belong to the past. There are many moments I do not ever want to look back, because there is no point of wasting my precious present on the past, especially if those moments do not bring me any joy. But, to those who may have sad past, don’t beat up yourself over your past either, you had to go through what you went through to be where you are today. Every single thing you suffered molded who you are today. You are stronger than ever, smarter than ever, wiser than you have ever been before. One day, you will be able to say “thank you” to those who hurt you, betrayed you or broke your heart, because of those devastating moments, you are able to break free from miserable life, you are able to find true happiness, find yourself, and not wasting a single more minute on someone or something that doesn’t help you find your happiness. To those had wonderful memories, they definitely showed you what happiness can be, and embrace that. The future will be better.

Life and random things

LOVE

One day at a restaurant, a couple with 2 kids are finishing up their meal. The couple ordered a dessert for the kids to share.

When the dessert came, kids were super excited. The couple pushed the plate between the kids, they started devouring. With a big smile on the couple’s face, they were happy to see their kids excited. Soon, kids started to fight over who had a bigger bite.

The man pulls the plate back. Surprised, kids looked up, little one was a bit upset. The man looked at both kids then looked at the woman. He said:”Guys, stop fighting, you should want each other to have more.” Puzzled, kids stopped arguing and started listening. “We love you, that’s why mommy and I let you eat first. Love is not about saying it, love is about showing it. Just like I love mommy, if we were sharing the dessert, I would not fight her over the dessert, want her to have it all.”

She looked back at him in his eyes, tears moistened her eyes.