Create Your Turning Points: ... when enough is ENOUGH!!!

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Taken from Mr Money Mustache

Page 64 till 80.

Use internet so that it doesn’t use you. Choose the right hardship so that you will live more meaningfully!

If you don’t wise the internet wisely, it will use you and ultimately destroy you!!!

Limitations of words. While living in Malaysia, I got sick and tired of hearing this slogan being cited countless times by political leaders. “We must be tolerant towards other races and live harmoniously together.” How to live harmoniously if you always have to remind yourself to be TOLERANT towards OTHER races??? In Australia, we hear political leaders urging us to “celebrate our diversity”. That sounds much better, at least superficially because the Australians being native English speakers exercise a smarter choice of words to express themselves more positively. But if you really get down to it, you can’t help but wonder - if we are so comfortable with each other, why the hell do we still see ourselves as being different from one another, hence the word ‘diverse’? Aren’t we all one race, the human race, regardless of our skin tones??? If our political leaders are really as colour blind as they say they are, they should not be using words like “others” nor “diversity”, “tolerate” nor “celebrate”. At the end of the day, remember this. Politicians need problems so that they can sell their solutions. Don’t fight your enemies. But why call them your enemies in the first place??? When you say don’t fight, all the listener can think about is fight! Try telling your primary school kids don’t smoke and don’t do drugs now. You’re only putting cigarettes and drugs into their minds before they can even start thinking about it! But isn’t that what our politicians are doing to us everyday?

All the top business schools in the world teach their students to be savvy, train them to be analytical quants, groom them to be polished communicators with the sole objective of helping them out-smart, out-maneuver, out-manipulate, out-shine, out-get, out-profit their fiercest competitors. No wonder their lives are so difficult. This is especially when their customers are also increasingly becoming smarter over the years. But the best secrets for not only business or professional but also overall life success have already been taught to all students back when they were in kindergartens and primary schools. Be kind. Be compassionate. Be respectful. Be honest. Be helpful. Be nice. Be responsible for our own actions. Just use what we have learnt in primary schools and we will be able to do well in life. We don’t need to out-smart, out-manuever or out-manipulate our competition. Because they too are going to do the same to us. Instead, aim at out-doing everyone else in areas they are not even interested in trying at all. Aim at out-caring, out-giving, out-helping, out-democratising our competitors. Treat our customers like we treat our closest friends. Even when you are not the best and the brightest nor the smartest person in town, people want to be doing business with you because they know that you truly care for them. You think people are so stupid they can’t tell the difference just because you have gone to one of those fancy sounding business schools? These savvy MBA graduated sharks in suits today are a dime a dozen. Honest, sincere and caring individuals who may not have MBAs to their names are the ones that are being highly sought after. But no, we don’t think real success can be that simple. We have to make a killing, 'scale' our operations, monetize our followers in social media, milk our 'likes' on Facebook, hit seven figure revenues within two years and meet whatever ambitious KPIs to really celebrate our success. Fight-till-the-other-man-falls, kill-him-before-he-kills-you type of reasoning ... That’s when if you succeed, you’ll fail, a phrase borrowed from Sadhguru. He also said something along the lines of this is no different from trying to “succeed” in cutting the very branch on which you are sitting!

The ‘value’ of a problem lies in its complexity whereas the value of a solution lies in its simplicity. I think a lot of politicians got that upside down. They oversimplify problems and over complicate their solutions. But then again, if they don’t do the above, how the hell can they “justify” their jobs???

Do you want to be a parent who values your children going to the best school and getting the best academic results above all else? Or do you want your children to have the right habits in life such as eating healthy, tidying up his room and being responsible for themselves in general above all else? I see many parents exempting their children from doing the latter as long as they focus on the former. It's as if as long as they do well in their studies, they can be excused for not doing all the things that they should be doing in life anyway. Parents who send their kids to all the 'best' tuition classes after school hours but let them eat junk food all day. Parents who don't make their children wash the dishes as long as they go back to their studies or even if they're only reading some story books. Don't get me wrong, reading is of course a good habit to cultivate. But you need to wash your dishes first before you pick up that book, right??? I see many middle-class professional parents falling into this trap. Very sad - to see 'smart' parents doing dumb things.

However you want to see it, life is hard enough as it is. Now, amplify it, that hardship, by doing something for which you have no passion or even hate. OK, doing what you love is also hard. I get it, we all do. But life is not about avoiding hardship. It's about choosing the right kind of hardship so that the more we persist through it, the more character we will build out of it. This character building stuff will only happen when we choose the right type of hardship. It will tire us physically and strengthen us spiritually. Choose the wrong hardship and go through it for years and even decades and you will see both your physical and spiritual strength deplete by the freaking day!!!

Create Your Turning Points: ... when enough is ENOUGH!!! Welcome to my worldwide collection of real life TURNING POINT stories of individuals from all walks of life. This is also a platform for you to share your TURNING POINT stories to inspire others. When you've dug yourself into a hole, you stop digging. When enough is enough, you turn the situation around. When there's no TURNING POINT in sight, you create your own! When you're going the wrong way, you turn around. When there's no light at the end of the tunnel, you be that light.