dreamers and realists

From the show "Modern Family",

"There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You'd think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground." 

- Cameron Tucker (2011)

Discipline

Image source: http://joelrunyon.com/two3/get-disciplined-not-motivated

Hello everyone. I am pretty much driven to write today though I know some people might find it a little bit boring because today’s post is about DISCIPLINE.

Okay. I am sure that in your head you are wondering “Why discipline?”.

I don’t know. Just feel like writing about it.

As a working woman now (I’m still adjusting to adulthood), what I learn these few months is I have got to be disciplined. Before I begin writing further about it, let us enlighten our mind as to the actual definition of discipline.

According to oxforddictionaries.com, discipline is

the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience

According to thefreedictionary.com, discipline is

1. Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.

2. Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control.

3.

a. Control obtained by enforcing compliance or order.

b. A systematic method to obtain obedience: a military discipline.

c. A state of order based on submission to rules and authority: a teacher who demanded discipline in the classroom.

4. Punishment intended to correct or train.

5. A set of rules or methods, as those regulating the practice of a church or monastic order.

Comparing these two sources, I would prefer thefreedictionary.com for its holistic definitions and the applicability of the definitions to a wider range of circumstances.

All right. Getting back to my original intention of writing this post, I would like to emphasise the importance of discipline in our daily routines. With discipline, I learn to refrain myself from buying compulsively (groceries and books mostly. I wonder why I tend to buy a lot of groceries..), and dining out too much, whilst sticking to my piano practice routines , preparing lessons for the next day and completing other extra tasks even when I don’t want to.

Discipline is not only to control behaviour but also the mind, heart and soul. 

I realize that if I don’t help myself today, no one is going to help me tomorrow.

Responsibilities are responsibilities. I can never get away from them.

As Chopin had quoted,

"Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on."

I’ll take it this way. Every duty avoided will be a cause to disturb my sleep later on.

And I totally hate the idea of sacrificing my sleeping hours. 

The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks

Maybe because I'm a woman. Or simply the fact that I'm a human being. With feelings.

But I love this poem. 

Honesty. Sadness. Frustration. Regrets. Love. Helplessness. 

You can just feel them all. 

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Abortions will not let you forget.

You remember the children you got that you did not get,   

The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,   

The singers and workers that never handled the air.   

You will never neglect or beat

Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.

You will never wind up the sucking-thumb

Or scuttle off ghosts that come.

You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,   

Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.

I have contracted. I have eased

My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.

I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized

Your luck

And your lives from your unfinished reach,

If I stole your births and your names,

Your straight baby tears and your games,

Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,

If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,

Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.   

Though why should I whine,

Whine that the crime was other than mine?—

Since anyhow you are dead.

Or rather, or instead,

You were never made.

But that too, I am afraid,

Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?   

You were born, you had body, you died.

It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.

Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you

All.

One of the things that

One of the things that

COULD make life miserable is having expectations. Expectations just keep pushing you high up into the air, further away off the ground, floating in a bubble, that you start to lose touch with the reality. They set your guard down that you become neglectful of minding your step. You need to remember that bubbles pop and feet stumble. As much as this sounds so pessimistic, try not to expect so much in people. Because when you hit rock bottom, it hurts so bad.

One of the things that

COULD make life miserable is having a clear view of the past. Walking down through the memory lane is not always a pretty picture. You are tied down to images of regrets and disillusionment that you are forever stuck in your own maze. You just cannot move forward although you try so hard to leave behind the traces of your own doings. The least you could do is put on a smiling facade, concealing the frown inside you because some memories just don’t go away. Some just stay, trailing along your steps, all the time.

One of the things that

COULD make life miserable is the inability to forgive yourself. Being haunted by all the ‘what-if’ questions. Looking in the mirror and seeing a sad reflection looking back at you, in tears, asking you why countless times. Walking around with a heavy baggage on your back that no one could lift it off you. Seeing and hearing anything that reminds you of what you wish you did not do. Knowing the path on which you should tread but you are held back by your own guilt. Seeing some light ahead trying to cast its glow on you but you turn your back on it and remain in the dark. With all the smiles and laughs permeating your life, at the end of the day, you just cannot stop yourself from crying. 

I know this post sounds so gloomy and depressing. But we do have some dark moments lurking inside us and at times they seem so impossible to ignore.

With all the miseries mounting on our shoulder, please remember that we have Him by our side. 

And that is what matters the most.

25 things

What Sugar has learned in life so far:

1.  You actually know the right things to do, but taking your own advice is the toughest decision you ever have to make. This is because you are afraid of getting hurt. Plain and simple.
2. You should feel pain. Everyone should feel pain. Life is not all butterflies and rainbows. Pain helps you grow. Pain leaves you scars to toughen you up. Pain reminds you how far you have gone in life and the fact you have survived those hardships.
3. The people who really matter and who really, genuinely love you for who you are will always come back, no matter how much you have hurt them in the past.
4. Life is really different from other people’s points of view. Do not ever think you know how they feel, unless you have gone through similar experiences because life is indeed tough.
5. You can empathize but that’s about it. Some people are so stubborn to let you in that they have this tendency to push you away because that is how they have been all their lives. You can’t really blame them.
6. But what I think is, these people are actually scared, because they think once people know how they are, people will leave them.
7. And in honest truth, they will receive that kind of fate if they continue with their stubborn ways. When they complain how people give up easily, don’t listen. Because every single thing is a choice and they choose to be that way, ultimately forcing you to bid goodbye.
8. Love is supposed to be simple. It is people who make it complicated. You find someone who fits you, and you’re good.
9. You can’t make people love you.
10. Stop looking for the perfect person. A man and a woman are supposed to complete each other. Perfect people do not exist.
11. Relationships are not easy. It takes hard work. If you’re weak, don’t be in one.
12. Know when to hold on and to let go. Discover your worth.
13. Patience is so rewarding in the long run. Don’t have it? Start developing it now.
14. Always be grateful. Even for the littlest things.
15. Some people are just weird. It is really them and not you, so don’t take offence.
16. Never change for the worst just to fulfill other people’s needs. You will feel stupid and your efforts to actually become better have gone to waste. You are back to square one.
17. You make your world go round.
18. If you think you deserve better, you deserve better.
19. If you ask someone your current situation with them and all they give you is a blank stare, or a “uh, I’m not sure.. uh I dunno..”, hit the accelerator and don’t look back. How can they want to be with you and not be sure at the same time?
20. Always put yourself in another person’s shoes. Don’t be selfish. If you do this constantly, you will feel and create a tremendous difference.
21. You are supposed to selflessly give, but please know your limit of giving and realize how much you’re not receiving.
22. When you have the blues, watch Friends. Or exercise your butt off. Hey, instead of wallowing on your bed, you can earn a nice rear.
23. Never stop smiling even when you feel like bawling. You never know how your effort to smile helps brighten another person’s sad day.
24. The importance of Time. We don’t have enough of it, yet we waste it like it’s nothing.
25. Despite what life has thrown at you, always, always love. Never love less, just always love more.

xoxo