Your Mentors In Life

We all need mentors to guide us through the often challenging journey of life. Mentors come in the form of your parents, teachers, authors, religious leaders and even friends. If you were born with wise parents then you are one of the luckier one. And if you couldn’t find role models in your parents or teachers then you could read books written by authors that you admire and respect.

For me I always listen to downloaded lectures by Ajahn Brahm whenever I face challenges in my life. In fact I’m listening to it right now on “Dealing with Emotions” as this is the part that I find most difficult to manage most of the time. Our emotions can run wild sometimes and trigger uneasiness, insecurity and even fear within us.

When you have mentors you won’t feel lost as you know that you will always have guidance whenever you face any adversity that is thrown upon you. That is one of the reasons why religious people are often more calm, peaceful and able to handle their problems easily. This is because they know that they have something to fall back upon whenever they feel that life is giving up on them.

By having mentors, we don’t put all the loads onto our shoulders alone as we can share some of the load emotionally with our mentors. It is as if they are guiding us through the murky waters of life. That way we feel more confident to solve problems ourselves.

It is important to have role models in life. If you can’t find it from among the people around you, then at least you should try to find them from books.

Don’t let your ship of life to sail without a captain.

Never Underestimate The Small Details Of Life

If you have lived long enough you would notice that things around us happen progressively. Whether it is your health, wealth or relationship problems, they don’t just happen out of the blue. There are always signs there and it is important for us to pay more attention to those signs when they first appear.

In fact it happened to me very recently when I suffered from terrible sore throat. I got sore throat all the time but usually I recovered after visiting the doctor and taking antibiotics. This time around I delayed seeing the doctor due to my busy schedule and I only paid him a visit on the fourth day. By that time the pain in my throat, ears and head were so extreme that I couldn’t actually work normally. The doctor then prescribed a ten day course of antibiotics for me due to the seriousness of my condition (the longest prescription I had before was only 5 days). 

However, it was just too late that now the virus has grown so strong and it started to spread to other parts of my body. I felt tightness across my chest one evening and quickly called the ambulance to my house. They then sent me to the hospital immediately. Doctor diagnosed that my tonsillitis (the bacteria that infected my tonsils) has actually spread to my heart! My heart’s muscle was actually inflamed and that was the cause of my chest pain. I ended up spending 2 nights in the Coronary Care Unit for close monitoring and diagnosis. I was eventually discharged after 3 nights at the hospital.

This incident shows me that trivial condition such as sore throat could actually leads to life threatening situation if we do not tackle the root of the problems soon enough. The same applies to all the other aspects of our life that we must constantly keep an eye on them and making sure that they are in healthy territory.

Never ever underestimate the small details of your life. Bushfire often started off from just a tiny spark.

Don't Be Swayed By Others

The availability of social media has created many instant ‘experts’ in all sorts of fields. Suddenly everyone think that they could just post any of their ideas online and are so proud of themselves as if they are the experts on the subject that they are talking about. 

A lot have expressed their views on politics complaining this and that; giving ‘advice’ as to what the government should do. There was once I came across such people on social media that I immediately told him off that since he has so much ideas about politics, he should join a political party and make his voice heard instead of shout about it on social media. I always have the view that if you can’t do it, then just shut up and let others take care of it. If you could do it, then stop talking and start taking action because talk is cheap.

Most people dine out nowadays and like to share what they eat on social media. It is fine to share good things around so that others could enjoy them too. However, some think that they are culinary critics and start criticizing everything they eat. They think that by giving verdict to what they eat, people would think that they are experts in culinary and respect their views. It is fine if they are invited to give comments to the menu. But if the restaurant owner does not ask for comments, then it is unethical that subjective views are spread around without giving the accused a chance to defend himself. In fact it is a cowardice behavior to talk behind people’s back. 

If you just started a food business, you would soon discovered that a lot of people come to give you feedbacks and advice on how you should run your business. They may say things like you should certain ingredients more or you should have more items in your menu and so on. It is so easy to give comments when you are not actually doing it. Just be humble and listen to them but you don’t have to follow exactly what they told you. You have to think what is right for your business and no one else knows it better than yourself.

Stick to your principles and do what is right for you and your customers. You can’t satisfy the world but you would know it when you do certain things the right way.