Piggy’s Blog - Journey of Success

Imagination is a mental capacity that’s enabled by our ability to think. No doubt, it’s a double-edged sword, but used correctly, it can greatly enhance our ability to learn.

Not that I have scientific proof, but it is something I picked up and found tremendously useful when I practice fencing, singing, basketball, piano… especially piano, there is such thing called “mental-play”. Supposedly Beethoven is a master of that, which is he can play perfectly blind!

It is pretty simple, just requires both mental strength and awareness to observe your own thoughts. Whatever you wan to do, be it a physical movement, a goal you want to accomplish, try to imagine yourself doing it.

Now, can you see yourself doing it?

If you can, keep repeating it and most likely, your chance of success will be enhanced. If you CANNOT, that is fine too and it is time to explore what is holding you back.

If it is a physical movement/exercise, you need to feel your own body. How are you breathing? How is your posture? Which part of your body, down to specific muscle, is tense? You need to be able to feel your body to make progress.

If it is a abstract goal, something you need to do, then it is time to examine what is holding you back. What are your values? What skills you need to learn? Why are you not confident? What kind of friends do you keep? How many things are you doing? Maybe you are watching too much TV?

According to Craig Harper, before he opened his gym, he has been running his gym in his mind for years. Before he trained his first client, he has trained thousands of clients in his mind before. I believe him.

I took what I learned from physical activities and applied it in my work settings when have important meetings or presentations, it is quite helpful. Think of imagination as a sub-version of you doing the actual things. Practice makes perfect, right?

Let me wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I will be spend it with my sister’s, and I will forever be grateful that we have each other.

Another thing we can be thankful for is the falling gas price. I was driving through Easy Bay and saw gas price starting with the digit “1″. I had to rub my eyes twice and look again to believe it. I must be 10 when I last saw that! Even though this is like a dying high blood pressure person being happy about having low blood pressure, it is still something to we can be thankful for, besides the people around us :)

Alright, stay safe and try not to overeat!

The drywall people came today to paint the ceiling, so my living room ceiling is finally 100% fixed, yay! After much inconvenience of having water dripping down and scheduling myself to work from home for people to come fix the ceiling, I am very very relieved that it’s fixed now.

There is one more thing, which is for the carpet cleaner to clean the living room carpet because of stains caused by the dirty water originated from the roof on this coming Friday. It was supposed to be last Friday, but they never showed up at the appointed time and thus rescheduled. My fingers are crossed.

I am thankful that I had the opportunity to install the recessed lights. Even though it costs me $870, I saved on the drywall repair had it not for the roof leak. The lights turns out really well and remove the clutter of floor lamps. It’s a joy.

Something has been on my mind — the fact that everyone seems so busy. You ask someone how they are, and the likelihood of them saying “Oh good/fine/not well, busy…” is like 99.99% of the time. Flip that around, the chance of you hearing someone is not busy is equal to the chance of you running through a wall successfully.

It bothers me because I really wonder, how did we become so busy? Can we really all be that busy? What do people do?

You want to spend time and hang out with friends, and everyone seems to be busy.

I mean, look, I have a lot of things to do too, like my job, side projects, choir, singing/piano lessons and practice, workout/exercise routine, writing for the blog, reading to keep up with learning, spending time with my niece as much as I can (I live in South Bay and she’s in East Bay). Despite all that, I don’t think that I am busy. At least, I do my best to not get stuck with a I-am-busy mindset. I mean it in the way that I will allocate the time to be leisurely and to spend with people I enjoy. Of course, it’s tough when everyone else is busy!

It is at the point when I want to spend time with people, and I feel like I always need to give 2+ weeks ahead notice to make arrangement and setup outting. How tiring! Can we just hang out, if I call you on the same day? Maybe not… but how about I call a day or two ahead? And I don’t mean doing anything fancy. Maybe just sit and chat (hopefully not about work)? Simply zipping tea or coffee? Talk about a book? Talk about life? Sit together quietly enjoying some scenery?

Are people being busy for the sake of being busy because they are modern people, because they have to be doing something? Is doing nothing a crime?
Maybe we don’t always have to be accomplishing something.
Are people busy because they spend so much time working, and then commuting, being tired, and being couch potato the rest of the time?
Are people busy because they waste so much time on toxic relationships?

Could being busy be just a mindset?
Here’s what happen when people are always busy or think they are busy
They neglect their health.
Not being healthy, they have even less energy to do other things.
They neglect the people around them, people they love, or who they *think* they love.
They forget to breathe.
They forget about being happy.
They forget to live.

Perhaps it is not about how much you do, but what you choose to do every moment.
Can you help me answer?
Maybe I am just whining too much.
You can tell me, but obviously, I am not a fan of the concept of being busy.

When a person buys a house, he does not just buy the house. That’s coming from me after two months in my new home. You get something called the Pride of (Home) Ownership, a.k.a. Big Ol’ Headache — maintenance to do to keep your home in-shape and upgrades to make it pretty.

My HOA scheduled roof replacement for the complex units including mine about 2 weeks ago. Week before that, Bay Area got the first batch of rain, so you can guess what happened (See bucket of dirty roof water on left). It is annoying to have a ceiling in living room that rains on you, even though I cope with things calmly in general.

I am not, nor I want to, complain because the HOA has been responsive, and we all know that is not a guaranteed quality of HOA. I am lucky. As a result, last week, the ceiling got removed to air dry.

Afterward, I got suggestion from friends to take the opportunity to add lighting. I decided to go for it and get recessed lights. There are couple reasons. First is the fact that the ceiling is already opened and hence, I save on the cost of drywall repair. Second is because the floor lamps can be removed giving me the space that I enjoy. I like simplicity. Third reason is once again the Big Ol’ Heada… uh, I mean the Pride of Ownership where the recessed light should uphold or upgrade the house price, when I sell in the future.

But alas, electricians are not cheap, and it took me $870 to install 4 recessed lights. Once again, if not for the saving of drywall repair cost, I would not have go for it now. Along with property tax, it hurts. Now that I am also done getting most things I need to settle in, I will take the next couple months to smooth out my cash flow and reserve. Though, I must say, I am getting more used to money flowing in and out faster than when I was renting.

There are always two sides of a coin. It is great to have a place of your own, but there’s also setbacks.