Burn The Boats

It all started with what seemed to be a great job offer with a friend of mine who was venturing into a business of his own. I was at the time planning to leave my employment as things were not going as smoothly as I had hoped. I was working with the promotion arm of an international advertising agency where I had to coordinate and monitor promotional projects, and conduct training for promoters for several brands. My department was putting in 25 hours a day 8 days a week. In my two years with the company I never had an opportunity to take any real holidays and so I was on a head on collision to burn out. My new employment was offering me a 30% increase in wage and 60% less hours. It was to be a meditation gymnasium or so to speak with a rather interesting approach combining old and new methods of achieving Nirvana. I thought (and still do) that it had potential but unfortunately things did not work out as planned. First like many young and inexperience entrepreneurs who venture into business he swore with absolute certainty that he had three investors pumping in close to RM200K. Much to everyone’s surprise we never saw the initial capital, the investors or Hailey’s Comet that year. Not wanting to loose any dignity after announcing his great plans for world domination; he proceeded to open office without any real funds. Like most business people of today, their main objective in starting a business is to be in control, to be the “Boss-man”, "da Big Kahuna". The office took two months to get into gear and when it finally did we had no funds to proceed for even the simplest classifieds advertisement to hire a sales team. The product was never really conceived as he had a different structure to it every two days and although he was advised to do so in order for Marketing to promote the product, he never came into grips with reality. So everyday he comes in at about lunchtime, gets as much work done as the cleaning lady on a Friday afternoon and leaves at 6pm for a so-called important business meeting at a local Indian restaurant. Just the same, everyone was expected to take him seriously while he insisted that his somewhat non-existing sales team sell imaginary products to real customers. Every marketing plan that was agreed on was perfect until datelines crept up his back and then like an epiphany he would discover a whole new approach – this eventually became a weekly affair. This made marketing about as useful as watching a pair of dogs sniff at each other’s butts. About mid-February, my ex-boss from the previous company offers me a job to run a promotion project that was not going as smooth as he had anticipated. Due to yet another unforeseen financial circumstance coupled together with the lack of expectation management that too was cut-short of its run.

It was in this period when it was brought to my attention that I should start a company of my own and at about that same time I came to realise there were two major epochs in my life which eradicate a large portion of my cosmetic friends. The first was during the reign of my Cleopatra that took me down like she did Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony in 1991. The second time was during my recent financial destitution that I had previously mentioned. During the second epoch, I have had to approach friends for some financial help until I got back on my own two feet. Most of them got very busy very fast - déjà vu. I had to seek for alternatives and I had to find it fast.

Over the next two years I had managed to get myself into a reading habit – a habit not very common of Malaysians. I got into reading self-development books and I discovered that from one book to the next there is not much difference. I was warned about this by friends who were trying to save me from the onslaught of brain-washing that these books supposedly took. Imagine that, a book that controls your mind. I mean – what would a book command of you? As I read these book that repeat themselves, I also realised that as many friends I had known who had ever placed their ocular implants on these taboo books just as many have never practiced anything they read; if at all they had read them. From books I eventually evolved to audio material, and that was a short drive to seminars.

In all this, one story caught my attention.

In the sixteenth century General Hernando Cortés left Spain with an army of less than 600 to explore the Yucatan Peninsular. He was told of great treasures held by the Aztecs but they had a formidable army. He knew what he wanted and he knew where to find it. Now, there were many who had tried to conquer this nation for their gold and just as many had failed. Having only a small naval force, Cortés understood that he had to change his approach in order to achieve his goal. So when they beached the Mexican shores, General Cortés stood before his people just as many Generals had done in the past before a great battle to give an uplifting speech before battle. But he also knew that a great motivational speech was not going to be enough to defeat a strong Aztec nation on their home ground. So, he said three words that would change the outcome of this battle and forever etch his name into history. He said, “Burn the Boats!” Yes, he had his boats torched. “Why?” you would ask. Well if Cortés’s army had lost the battle they would not need their boats anyway. However, if they won the battle they could build new boats or they could stay and reap the fruits of their victory. Burning the boats gave them no choice but to win the battle cause they could not run. And they did win.

Where am I going with all this?

After spending countless hours on self-development book, motivational seminar recordings and a small dive into the biographies of the successful, I have discovered that they all preach the same thing. Now why would so many successful people in unison preach something that does not work for over the last several centuries? Maybe it is how they keep the masses in check so that they stay rich and we stay mediocre and poor – a conspiracy that spans the books from Alexander the Great to Napoleon Bonaparte, from Stalin to JFK, from Ghandi to Bill Gates and from the White House to the lecture Halls of Robert T. Kyosaki. They were all in it. Come on. Get real. They are successful because they had a set of principle that they followed without compromise. A set of principles that is different from ours. There is a very clear line that divides the successful from the mediocre. And the only reason we are where we are is because we covet our existence so much that we never see the big picture. Those materials brought to my attention a habit that I thought was only distinguishable of my own nature and that was embarking on a journey of change but never achieving it. It was frustrating. I know many people who start a diet they never follow through, or an exercise regime that falls short of a ship wreck. We talk about changing our career paths to get better paying jobs and better opportunities but we end up right where we started. Smokers constantly claim that it is impossible to quit smoking because they have tried and failed miserably. Friends saying that they’d love to develop a reading habit so they’d learn new things but can’t seem to get past page ten. I have had that “No Way Out” conversation with too many people.

Someone once quoted that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Understand this – the laws of physic do not change. If you throw a ball into the air it, will come back down – it’s the law of gravity. Throwing it again and again will never keep the ball afloat. You have to change your approach. You need to leave behind the things that you had known and learn new things. Think about it – not more than a century ago, the idea of sending a man into space was considered unreal and childish but today we are planning manned missions to Mars. My teachers used to tell me that I could achieve anything I want if I only set my mind to it. For many years I misunderstood that, and so have many of you. Most of us just think and dream of the things that we want but we hardly ever think about how we are doing it – setting a course to your destination. Most of us set our minds on the things we want (the destination) but never set our minds to it (the path or method). We don’t want to change what we are comfortable doing on a daily basis – rushing to work, chasing deadline, kissing asses, cursing drivers, getting drunk, crashing cars. If you want great things, you have to do great things. Do things differently and you will see different results. That may even include changing the people you spend most of your time with. I’m not saying that you have to leave your friends behind, you might but you don’t have to. Ask yourself, “Who is it that I spend most of my time with and what influence do they have on me?” Yes, thinking about it may sometimes result in leaving certain friends behind, changing your work environment, moving house, or even moving to another city. If you actually spend the time to think about what is important in your life and not flock to the bars like little sheep to their shepherd’s call, you may find a need for drastic changes. So drastic that you may need to ensure a “No U-Turn” sign is firmly placed in order to force yourself to do something different, something that is not normal of you, something that might even scare you but most importantly – stick with it until it is done.

“Success is the gradual realisation of a worthy ideal” – Earl Nightingale

Change will not happen over night but it will happen. It could take weeks to annihilate a bad habit and develop new better ones but you will need to get on with what is necessary not what you have been doing for the last two thousand years. Give up that evening drink at the bar and spend it jogging at the park. Instead of eating fried, oily and hi-carb meals at the mamak, try some wholemeal bread, a thin spread of butter, tomatoes, lettuce, and two slices of ham twice a week. Pick up a book and spend fifteen minutes reading it everyday before you sleep. Cut back on those cigarettes gradually. If all else fails – tell your friends that you’d buy them dinner at La Bodega for a week if you don’t achieve your goal in a given time.

We all want change; but are we willing to take that leap of faith and burn our boats?

Banging Down The House

I was sitting at Starbuck on a Monday afternoon, regurgitating my futile attempts at downloading the non-Malaysian commercial junk music on a bad P2P connection. Sicken with non-progressing music theft, I logged on to my yahoo account and notice an interesting email request from a friend. She works with a local magazine and was writing an article on the topic of how some couples these days living with their parents have sex without waking the household. An interesting topic. I wondered how it never came up in any conversations before. Anyway, for those of you who may be fortunate enough to have a place of your own, you may be wondering why on earth would anybody still live with their parents after marriage. A good question. Well as a 30 years old failure at relationships, I for one still live with my parents and know many who still do. It is interesting to know that there are still some non-MTV generation people out there.

I have had many conversations with friends about living out and being independent and to each his/her own. I have however, come to a conclusion that in majority the driving force is sex and nothing more. Yes, I hear the “I need my independence and privacy”, “I cannot stand sharing my house with other people”, “I need my space” and “I have to show that I can stand on my own two feet” excuses, but it always and most certainly ends with “it’s easier when I need a place to bang” and “to bang” being the operative street term for “after party sex with people I can choose not to remember the next morning”. It seems that in our growing Neo-Roma society, one night stands is an “in-thing”, it’s trendy to have sex with different partners and decide who you’d like to go steady with later. At one point in time, in my adolescent mind, I thought that it was a “guy-thing” to have one-nighters but in recent years it has come to my attention that it is ever more common with women. It used to be just guys having a black book, now women have red books, and it’s an even longer list than the what the guys have that some have discarded the book altogether. Since the “burning of bra” in the sixties, the female liberation has gone far beyond equal pay checks and job opportunities. It now includes equal sexual opportunities and it’s evermore blatant when you take a walk down Bangsar, Hatramas, or Sultan Ismail on a weekend night. Most of the time I can’t tell the difference between a hot chick on a prowl and a prostitute; actually I can – the prostitute is not as hot or sexy. Then there is the long term one night stands; a form of interview to see if you can have sex with this person on a long term basis. Need we explore this?

So, when you come right down to it; living it out is simply a sexual drive. So what happens after fifty, sixty sexual partners, when one does meet the right person and settles down?

Well it starts off with fancy dinner dates. Then not-so-fancy dinnerdates. “The-tarik”. Party at a friend’s place. First night of passionate love making. More passionate love making. Sex on the weekends. Her shag-shack becomes redundant; she gives-up her place and move in. Sex every night. Contraceptive awareness. Two years later, the question is popped and the shag-shack is no more. It is now a home to be. Six months later is the expensive wedding ceremony, inviting people you don’t like but are related to, colleagues you don’t care about who can gossip about how great your wedding was, and some friends; the irony of a celebration. Then it’s of to a wonderful honeymoon in some faraway common holiday destination that everyone in your office have been wishing to go to and all fully paid by Mr. Brand New Husband; there goes the independence and equal-opportunity seminar. A week later it’s “welcome home to reality”. The bills start to pour in and Mr. Brand New Husband is getting stressed out evaluating his financial situation. It’s overwhelming. We need to rent out that house we just purchased in Kiara Mas just to pay off the wedding. So where do we live?...

Mum? Dad?

Yes, we fall back on the one couple that can and should never turn their backs on us in our time of need; should they want to see a grandchild. I have actually witnessed mothers asking their daughters when they would see a progeny of their daughter and fathers asking their sons if they plan on continuing the family bloodline. Yes, and there my friend is the key to having sex at home, with your parents next

door. Now, I am certain that you are asking yourself, “How could anyone possibly have sex with their parents in the next room?”

Well, think about it. Several months after the honeymoon, no sex, you can’t go out for a one night stand, no shag-shack, parental pressure for an offspring, friends questioning your fertility, the wife is planting baby pictures everywhere and asking if she is still desirable to you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It is just a matter of time before the idea that mum might have her ear on the base of a glass over the adjoining wall become as important as faecal matter. Some six months down the road, this hogwash goes down the drain and the decision is made to jump the wife and have wild sex. The pressure is on. Now it’s just a matter of timing – when should Mr Husband do it and what is the excuse? You don’t want to come off desperate but you are and you don’t want it to look like it’s a matter of reputation cause it is. The answer - Valentine’s day, the greatest excuse ever created to buy roses at ten times its value only to watch it die three days later and having consenting sex after an overpriced dinner. Valentine’s Day is the mating season for Homo sapiens and a money maker for fine dining restaurants the world over. The only time of the year when you can actually feel the sexual heat while sitting alone in your apartment twenty floors from ground zero, watching reruns of “Sleepless in Seattle”.

So hubby calls the local florist and sends an extravagant bouquet to the eagerly anticipating wife at home. He reconfirms the restaurant reservations he made last week. He calls home and asks his darling to dress up for a surprise. Mr Husband leaves work early to beat the traffic and fetch his wife who is half way across town only to drive back into town to that fancy fine-dining restaurant. They arrive at the restaurant at half past seven. He is looking smart and melancholy. She is looking divine and perky. The waiters are scurrying all over the place. The maitre d' is extra polite. The couple have a lovely candlelight dinner for two as soft jazzy music channels through the speakers. He has a conservative well-done sirloin while she selects the fresh Scandinavian Salmon Steak Tarragon, the most expensive dish on the menu tonight. He glances over the wine list and selects a 2003 Pinot Noir – fruity, floral, lightly spicy, a little dry but most importantly, affordable. After dinner they have casual conversation, she does most of the talking while he compliments her through the night and agrees on everything she has to say. At half past nine he calls for the bill, a slight shock hits him but then he remembers the credit card. By ten they are at a bar, having more wine and adding dance to the night’s escapade. As eleven passes through, she whispers into his ear that she is tired and would like to go home. A soft lingering kiss on his cheek tells him that he has done well and a reward is well on its way. They head home with a passionate revival in their relationship. He enters the house with a slight clumsiness and she signals him to be quiet and another kiss hits his lips. They make their way as quietly as possible to their room upstairs. They take their turns in the washroom; her first then him. The heat is on. He starts off with soft nothings like how he loves her and how beautiful she is then he tells her how much he desires her. He kisses her gently on her lips, she kisses back. His hands start to slide down her back for the first time since the honeymoon and she lifts her body over towards him in surrender.

That night you’d have the best sex you have ever had – passionate, soft and mostly silent. Mum and dad heard nothing but the creaking bed and the two a.m. shower. You'd think they didn’t know, but mum passed down the hallway an hour ago and noticed the candlelight flickering through the door of your room. The next morning, honeybuns is up early and cooking breakfast for you. Your body is aching but you are still raunchy from last night. Mum notices the smile on her face and gives her a nudge; you try not to notice, half-finishing your breakfast you dash out with a flush on your face. That night you come home and find your wife waiting over dinner, you get control of the TV remote, a bath is drawn, she give you a rubdown in the bedroom, and it’s round two. By the forth day, you have gotten used to mum’s flamboyant remarks and dad’s nonchalant manly advice. It’s now acceptable. You are a healthy, proactive, productive couple on your way to family-hood. By the end of the week, you are both exhausted and together you decide to slowdown. Let’s do it on the weekends. Then it goes down every fortnight and eventually only once a month. You and your wife master the art of quick and silent sex, but mum and dad are not stupid. The unscheduled three minutes wash an hour after you had gone to bed is a dead giveaway.

And there you have it – sex next to your parent’s bedroom. It’s all about getting past the first night from shear desperation, being nonchalant to the idea the mum and dad are next door and remembering that the passport is the grandchildren.

Ritualistic Holidays

It was September 2002 – the first year anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy. For a country that was viewed by the rest of the world as a terrorist haven, our nation seemed to have openly joined in the mourning of the thousands who have died on that dreadful day. Widely publicised over air, print and local ISPs, I was beginning to wonder if I was still in Malaysia or that somehow unwittingly I had been teleported to the United States. Radio deejays spoke of 9-11 and terrorism throughout the week repeating themselves in a thousand and one ways. Bill Clinton and Osama jokes wore my ears out. Emails flooded my Microsoft Outlook with comical graphic depictions of Clinton’s rage and Osama’s hiding places. Just for that week I wished I was Osama – underground somewhere far, far away from media bombardment.

Towards the end of the year, three holidays passed us by without even a littering sign on the streets that they had been in town. The Hari Raya went by without a trace even after the Muslim celestial Ramaddan month (the ritual fasting for 40 days much similar to the Christian’s month of Lent). Then came Christmas the week after, and that was more like an extra long shopping spree weekend that spanned a week into New Year’s. There were bargains on every corner as retail outlets attempted to clear their eight months old stocks that have been sitting on their shelves collecting dust due to the economic downturn. Even during the holidays, people are still working as hard as ever. It was almost as if Santa had gone on vacation this year. You’d be a lucky buzzard if you saw Santa Claus rushing on the local electric rail commuting from last minute Christmas shopping to the office because his boss wanted the report which Santa was going to present to the clients the week after New Year. Damn those clients. New Year’s Day was not far from different, as the most exciting thing to happen was a two to three hour traffic bout to watch fifteen minutes of fireworks extravaganza. And after that, another couple of hour’s worth of traffic to get home to catch the next soccer game on the local cable. The only other exciting thing on New Year’s Day was going out onto the night spots and paying an extravagant three times the usual entrance charge for the same amount of rotten music mixing by a half drunk deejay (reminiscing the radio deejay) and booze you’d get on any other weekend. The way I see it, New Year’s countdown is just an excuse to hug and feel up the girls you never had to guts to talk to on a regular night. A few hours later we’re up and fighting a Wednesday morning traffic and it’s not so bad as all upper-management took the week off in Europe. The rest of us have to meet deadlines set just before Christmas day. Don’t upper-management and clients ever realise that it is simply inhumane to set a deadline within a week of New Year’s. My annual ritual like most and in no specific order mind you, is:

1. Christmas eve dinner with family;
2. Christmas Mass normally ending at midnight;
3. Fight traffic heading to night clubs;
4. First Christmas party right after being a good Christian;
5. Avoid police roadblocks while trying to find my way home;
6. Entertaining guest on Christmas day with a hangover;
7. Christmas dinner with friends which normally ends up being Christmas at the bottom of a bottle;
8. Christmas parties and post Christmas parties that span the week into New Year’s;
9. New Year’s eve dinner with family and semi-hangover;
10. Fight traffic into the city to watch senseless fireworks;
11. Fight traffic again heading to night clubs;
12. Give up night club idea and call all friends to find out who’s having a house party;
13. New Year’s party that most will never remember;
14. Avoid police roadblocks; and finally
15. One week’s hangover recovery period.

That is one busy schedule. And yet like sheep we all flock to the offices and pretend that we are actually doing something useful while management lazes around Orchard road drinking beers thinking they are being very intelligent by not giving out a paid holiday week to their employees and hence being very efficient. Everyone else knows that hardly anything ever gets done during this time of the year and yet we waste it rushing into the office only to drool over the keyboard recovering from a hangover, having two hour lunches cause it took half an hour for everyone to decide if anyone’s going out for lunch then another half hour to get up and walk over to the elevators and finally spending the remains of work time discussing yesterday’s party or planning tonight’s. Nobody seems worried as we all know that the bosses will return next week and spend the next fortnight screaming their head’s off from the stress of having seen the itemised bill of the supplementary credit card that their wives’ so happily busted while playing Julia Roberts on Rodeo Drive.

Ah, the holidays. It just brings out the best in us.

If You Don’t Know Me By Now

I am sitting here in La Bodega with two of my best friends on a cool Wednesday evening listening to an excellent live band entertain the mundane lives of the citizens of Neo-Roma who have come to take a breather from the long day’s toil at work as I fork through an overpriced whipping of Caesar Cardini’s most famous dish, sipping off a glass of ice lemon tea and chatting about the weather. The service is laudable and the cute petite waitress tickles my fancy. The slices of lemon arrive at my table and I squeeze them over the salad to neutralize the salty chicken pieces. A group of young ladies sitting at the table next to us were revelling over the unfamiliar melodies of songs from around the time they were born. A gentleman politely approaches the bonny lass in the blue halter top. A brief exchange of words and soon enough he was back in his sofa seat sipping off his one yard Danish brew telling himself, “No sweat. At least I tried” while his euphoric lady friend takes humour with the situation. Shortly after, the band arrives at the end of the first session as I forked at the last piece of crouton on my plate. The lead vocalist joins us with a glass of beer and lights up a cigarette. We have casual conversation, as the bonny lass in the halter top, unwittingly listens in. A couple of passing remarks were exchanged between the debonair middle-aged vocalist and halter top. The waiter drops by to exchange the ashtray for a fresh one. An order of ice lemon tea and coffee was made. I excused myself and treaded my way to the lavatory. I get a lovely smile from the hostess as I pass the doorway. A dozen or more souls were laughing away at the high tables by the bar. I look around for familiar faces but familiarity eluded me.

I return to the table and pull out my computer to update my blog site. Michelle and Namita were not too pleased, but I have been rather busy of recent and have hence neglected my blog for sometime now. At the back of my mind, a constant concern for a certain young lady that I have only recently commenced a journey of companionship with. A lady of twenty-nine, independent, strong-willed, determined, and most of all caring, a lady with whom I have developed a deep fancy for. We had a tiff on Sunday and I have not seen her since, we only spoke briefly over the phone and her troubled voice disturbed me. There were things brewing inside her mind that eludes me, things she has chosen not to speak about. So, somewhere in between my Caesar Salad and Vijay’s flamboyant elocution with the three musketeers of Neo-Roma, I gave my lady a call and lo to my pleasant surprise she was in a chirpy mood. Her interview had gone well and she was feeling good about herself for the moment.

Just as Vijay lights up his next cigarette, it was time for the band to play their second set. So he takes several quick puffs and he was off to the mic. They start off with a slow number from Lionel Ritchie, followed with another slow one from Simply Red. One of my favourites, “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” – a song that always stir me deep and often makes me wonder about how my relationship with the people around me has been. It’s a song with a deep meaning that many have heard but few have listened to. As the lead vocalist sings the lines, I reminisce on my past – relationships that have long become history and had moulded me much into the person I am today.

All the things, That we've been through
You should understand me, Like I understand you

How we tried to understand each other.
One might think that after going out with someone for many years you may know them. Unfortunately this seems almost as rare as seeing live pandas in the wild. Too often I encounter relationships that lack the basic level of understanding, relationships that have reached a comfort level where blindness takes over logic as frustrations seeps in and takes over the relationship like moss.

Cos we only act like children
When we argue fuss and fight

And then the arguments start and it continues because it was never resolved and it goes on and on until we forget what we started fighting for. We say things we don’t mean and overreact towards each other’s actions even when the intentions are true and noble, we overreact.

We've all got our
Own funny moods
I've got mine,
Woman you've got yours too

We forget that we began as individuals from different experiences, likes and dislikes. We have each had our share of happiness and pain that altered our perception of thing that are, things that were and things to be. What was once a painful experience, we now laugh it off and what was once an idyllic memory can now bring tears to our eyes. Yes, we’ve all got our own funny moods.

Just trust in me like I trust in you

What pains me the most in my relationships was the lack of trust, and how can trust be built if we don’t first communicate with each other, and that my friend is the foundation of a relationship. The root word of communication is “commune” – to be intimately receptive, to share and to live with each other. Acceptance. Yes acceptance of each other’s nature – thoughts, believes, likes, dislikes, fears, and everything that makes each and every one of us who we are. We need to share these things with each other instead of separating them as these are the very fabric of our being, past present and future. Take the water away from the boat and it is no longer a boat.

As long as we've been together
It should be so easy to do,

Not as easy as it sounds. In fact most people I know would rather a car wreck over communication. The sight of a bar brawl is ever more interesting than listening to our partner’s dreams and desires. The displacement of 1.6 million live and the death of over 180,000 strangers, thousands of miles away worried our tiny little brains to sleep for months but we cannot spend thirty minutes of our time to listen to the person we say we love.

What good is a love affair
When you can't see eye to eye

I just want to say to the people that I love, particularly my darling, my sweetheart, my rose – I cannot love you if I don’t know you. I cannot know you if you don’t let me listen. I cannot listen if you don’t talk. And you cannot talk with your mouth closed. Your past is yours to keep and cherish and regret and so is mine. Each day of the past can build us or destroy us. That choice is entirely up to each and every one of us for the present and the future has nothing to do with the past unless we take it along on our backs. Everyday of our lives is a present from God and that is just why it is called the “present”. Each sunrise and each sunset is God’s message to us reminding us that it is a new day. So stop, and smell the roses. As for the future, who is to say?

If we are to have a relationship, let us embrace each other’s past and know that if it were not to have existed we may never have met. Let us greet each morning with the love and knowledge that we are still alive with yet another second chance. And finally let us build a future together – family, friends and lovers. Our future is ours and ours alone to make.

The choices have always been in our hands.