My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 040:

Bad judgement leads you to bad experiences, now you have choices either to learn or to dwell; if you decide to learn, you might have a chance to get to use good judgement, but if you dwell, you will sink into endless misery, looping back to bad judgement. If you keep on learning, you will eventually get out of the loop. Do not get comfortable yet, if you do, you may loop yourself back to bad judgement, however if you keep pushing yourself to improve further, success will be a vocabulary that describes you.

Mic
12/31'11
Have a great 2012, work while dreaming/dream while working.

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 039:

Ladies, try not to go to other ladies for advices about your man. First, you do not know what kinds of men they are familiar interacting with. Second, there will be too many "he is supposed to be..." in the conversation, which no one can really judge. Calculate the miscommunication between you and the information provider about your man plus the almost always confident "trust me sister, I know" can create expectation problems. Imagine listening to all the other couples' stories and having false mentality of "my man should be like this, why isn't he like that?" Furthermore, if you bring this topic back home and try to "communicate", the dialogue will become a fight, fight will last, because of expectation gap incepted. Every relationships are independent and unique, do not generalize or should I say fantasize. Be grateful with what you already have, listen to HIM not HER, work on problems together not alone.

Mic
12/30'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 038:

Utilize your emotion, even if people say you are emotional. Stay positive, channel your negative emotion into something else. For example, harsh words or comments can be demoralizing and can cause depression. However the negative emotion generated by the input source does not help the situation at all. 

"Goku does not squat down and cry like a little girl when he face strong enemies, he charges up and become Super Saiyan."   Mic

Instead of dwelling upon negativity and having a daunting past, turn the switch, twist the sad sensation into anger, which actually carries somewhat of positive energy. 

When people start judging you: "I want to prove you wrong!"

When your parents think you cannot make it: "you have never seen my true potential yet!"

When you classmate make fun of you: "F@&# you all I'm going to Harvard!"

Dwelling will not change your destiny, unless you change its property into something called Negative Motivation, that has the virtue of rapidly moving forward to prove some point. (Some people take it too far, handle emotion with care)

Mic

12/29'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 037:

Be aware of your wellness, many injuries and/or diseases can be prevented simply by adding/subtracting something regularly. If you smoke too much, subtract it from your life, if you exercise too little, add it to your life. Something as simple as brushing your teeth to 30 sit-ups before you go to work, can provide you the extra-kick than regular body without any "editing". According to the Latte Effect, even 30 sit-ups a day or 20 minutes jog, in 4 months your body can be really toned. The important part is to pay more attention to your body, understand what it needs, so you can do the math correctly.

Mic
12/28'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 036:

Many people do things based on their intuition, and know absolutely everything about what they are doing. However there are too many people out there, trying to analyze and create the perfect plan yet taking no action at all. Be a Doer, not a Sayer.

Mic

12/27'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 035:

Do you enjoy thinking? Have ever thought of thinking as a sport or a hobby? Sportsmen gain full joy out of concentration within the physical and mental nirvana; Painters gain full satisfaction from the dimension he/she created and absolutely dominate the world of imagination. Spontaneously or passively, we think everyday, about numerous matters. Rather than solving complex mathematical problems or trivia quiz, some people prefer spending time thinking of practical solutions for flaws we face each day, that is a thinker. Carry a notebook with you, perhaps a laptop or some device that you can establish your own comfortable "field" for thinking. Thinking is challenging yet/and rewarding, and there are no absolute answers to any problems. Sometimes problems themselves are not quite the "problem."

Mic
12/26'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 034:

Camera, don't matter if it is a point-and-shoot, DSLR, film camera, or an iPhone camera, if you have any of the above, utilize them. Not only they are wonderful for memory keeping and extracting instant stories out from any single photo, they are also brilliant tools for sharpening your observation skills, which later derive to creative thinking, problem solving, and enabling multi-angular points of view. Eventually, you can capture any moment without a physical camera, if you train your mind to work as a viewfinder. They (memories) can be preserved by drawing, music, or words; camera is just the third eye, carefully taking notice of the surrounding. (If the mind is working)

Mic

12/25'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 033:

(For ladies,) Be gentle to your body. If you worry about your pimples, sleep early, eat less greasy food, use less spice. Good health will eventually turn into beauty, but not often the other way around. If you have back and neck pain, stop wearing shoes that cause pain. Try shoes that give you good foot support and comfort, beauty can (always) come second. If your knees hurt, stop wearing high heels, stop going clubbing. It is not worth your knees and livers for crowding in a dirty, smelly basement/club where all men consider you one of their "target of the night". Do not down grade yourself, missing out in night life does not equal boring; even if people call you boring, you still are better than sluts.

Mic
12/24'11
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 032:

Have an open mind, try not to follow rules all the time, try not to follow popular trends all the time, and try not to think of things as "ways they are supposed to be" all the time. If you only have one purpose in life - to have fun, then an open mind would definitely be the best rifle for the game. If you become too rigorous on things, you are missing on great opportunities to see world through different lenses simply because of your unwillingness to try, adapt, and overcome the new. So what if the guide says this? so what if the crowd say that? This is your life, do not change your perspective and belief merely on vox populi.  Celebrate diversity and cherish curiosity.

Mic
12/23'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 031:

Limitation is a powerful switch that enables your true creative capacity. Limitations could be rules, could be some type of constrains, but one sure thing is that, just like the word itself, limitations give you short term obstacles, headaches to test your will. Randy Pausch, author of his book The Last Lecture explained this concept the clearest:

"Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. They are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people."

Some examples of making creativity live under limitations: Classical Chinese poets followed strict rules such as symmetrical patterns, number of words, and more restrictions; however Chinese poets also utilized these limitations to create epic pieces with just a few words with few lines. My friend Ruwando built his very own Cardboard City to entertain himself at his parent's basement when he was little because he did not want his parents to spend fortune on new toys. Creativity is an internal power, that eventually overpowers everything else that are external, like limitations.

Click to watch Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture

Mic
12/22'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 030:

Clean your house, even if cleaning probably is not the most exciting activities on your list. Make your environment so clean that you would hesitate to create any mess, I remember my high school teacher said something like this: "Few things in life define a person: handwriting, words, money handling, and domestic cleanliness." Some people pay extra details to certain things just to see how you treat your life. It is quite common that employers look at things like how an employee takes care of his/her car, table manners, even tiny things like drying hands after using the bathroom. You will be surprised how much little things can passively explain a person.

Mic
12/21'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 029:

Be patient, especially with your love ones. By no means they will harm you with bad intention, by no means they will hate you for no reason. When they are not acting as you wish they have acted, give them time. We are all parts of a perfect whole, therefore none of us are perfect at all aspects. Sometimes we just wish they (our loved ones) would listen to our advices and act on it as soon as they could, but we often forget we must treat them like we pamper ourselves. Some pardons, some exceptions, some little giveaways.

Mic
12/19'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 028:

Just like certain job requires specific experiences, an unique character requires certain personal traits. Besides, it maybe more fitting by saying an it is a combination of your personal experiences. Ways you have been brought up, friends you have been interacting with, things you believed in; the happy, the sad, the angry, the exciting; all count. Do not be ashamed of the way you have been living, do not feel bad about your past, they are important components that make you who you are, because present is merely layers of yesterdays.

Mic
12/18'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 027:

A continuous movement of object(s) without creating any impulse. Flow is a higher degree of efficiency, you no longer have to choose between confrontation or avoidance; once you start the process, it agilely does all the work for you like how momentum works.

Mic
12/17'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 026:

Keep an open mind, many wonderful things would never had happened to me if I never took the chance. Imagine if you step out of your homeland, begin a soulful journey. What if you quit the job that you hate, start doing something you love for part time? Ever tried fighting back to your parents and tell them boldly what you believe and what you stand for? No one knows what your true potentials are, only through constant confrontation with your insecurities and fears, other people's humiliations and doubts, you will slowly realize your true self within.

Mic
12/16'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 025:

Be flexible about plans. Most people complain about how they have no time for nearly anything; busy, is what they live for. There are three types of people: Time manager, time struggler, and time waster. I would like to say most people are time struggler, who is not satisfied with current time use and demand a change but do not know how; very little are time waster or time manager. Time managers account fragmented time into normal course of a day, so if anything unexpected comes up, needless to panic, instead, situations can be handled in ease (and with style).

Mic
12/15'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 024:

Read biographies, it is simply the cheapest best way to learn from other people's experience. If you are among the ones who said "I've read that when I was in elementary school!" Go back, read again, your memory retention is far less reliable than a piece of paper and a pen.

Mic
12/14'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 023:

Hobby, like a loyal partner on your grand journey, it will direct you towards the path you always wanted to pursue; maybe the adventurous, maybe the impossible. The rigorous path that others want you to walk on based on what they "think" is best for you? Respectfully turn them down, but thank whom provide advices. Acquire new hobbies, sharpen new skills once in a while, research shows mastering new skills have significant impact on improvements in person's brain potential.

Mic
12/13'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 022:

Treat your family members with respect and care. Go back to your roots, you may or may not realize how essential it is for a person to seek knowledge in family heritage. Life, like trees, the larger you wish to become, the stronger the roots you will need.

Mic
12/12'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 021:

Experience self-discovery, the sooner you go through self-realization period to reach into yourself, the sooner you will be likely find happiness in things you do everyday. Learn to be more purpose driven, it definitely makes things more fun.

Taken in Eternal Flames near Buffalo

Mic
12/11'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 020:

Be on a wheel chair once, be on crutches once, go blindfolded, live in a different country where your verbal communication is completely disabled. We take way too many things for granted that we no longer see the values behind each senses, of which we will be dysfunctional without. Starve for a day, stay out of technology for a weekend, practice vegetarian for a month, read scripts from different religion for once; you do not have to love it, nor to hate it, simply appreciate and understand the differences. By exposing yourself to higher levels of divergent schools of though, you may enable the most powerful combinations of applied knowledge and practices. Again, challenge yourself, we are such shapable species that we can endure almost anything as long as we have a steady and robust mindset. 

I love living life, I am happy - Nick Vujicic

Click image to watch Nick Vujicic's motivating speech

Mic

12/9'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 019:

Forgive others, it takes courage to do so. Throughout life, people are going to hurt you, intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes even friends turn their backs on you, some backstab, some make use of you, some just plain talk too much. Whether you are prepared for it or not, it will come; some might later apologize, some won't. But there are just too much more in life, that you should not have time to store these unpleasant bundles in your backpack. If we can be larger than our past and forgive, learn a lesson and move on, why not?

Mic
12/8'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 018:

Travel, even if it's around your own town. No matter where you go, there are always something new that might surprise you, that might inspire you. Though seemed less desirable, local budget trip could sometimes be far more interesting than overseas travel. Do a solo trip from time to time, I've gotten to discover myself through numerous travels. Relax your mind and body, observe the surrounding, understand the surrounding, derive unique thoughts, and finally, record progress. Traveling is learning, and all learning happens when you are at uncomfortable state. Challenge yourself while traveling, breakthrough your comfort zone.

Mic
12/7'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 017:

Do not get comfortable too soon, we live in an environment that is designed to feed us excessive information without real effort. Taking instant information for granted will result in skills declined in independent reasoning. Be conscious, especially if your work/study involves following orders and completing low-skilled task, think for yourself: why should I do what I am doing? what is the purpose? what is the idea behind? how can I do better?. Live in office once, but leave before it makes you a slave. A quote from one of my favorite songs:


"Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft."

Mary Schmich - original author of The sunscreen song

Click image to listen to The Sunscreen Song

Mic 
12/6'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 016:

Having difficulty saving money? Think from the fundamentals. If you drink coffee everyday, $3x20 days = $60. If you go to bars every weekend, $15x4 weekends = $60. If you like eating at restaurants every week with friends, $15x4 times= $60. If you decide to switch on a saving mode, $180 a month can be saved. Others like bank fees, parking tickets, cigarettes, shopping... You can avoid paying and start saving simply by reducing unnecessary expense. Live minimal, be wise with monthly spendings.

Mic 
12/5'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 015:

Go back to your elementary school and middle school materials. You will discover gems in that whole pile of dust-coated, untouched boxes of memories. The simple concepts that you used to just copy from blackboard will become useful all of a sudden. The ethic discipline that nobody seemed to follow will start to make perfect sense. All this years we are unconsciously repeating the process of learning fractions of the same information acquired, but until you discretely review them as conscious signals and find use in them, they will always just remain as untouched boxes of memories. Go back in time, treasure hunt, be a child again.

Mic 
12/4'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 014:

Sleep early, don't let the exciting night life bubble lure you. Ask yourself, do I really need that right now in the prime of my life. Have plenty of rest for your body, it worked hard for you during the day, let it have time to recover. Wake up early, work while others are still snoozing, get the best, undistracted quiet quality time for work. Do not pull all-nighter, which makes you dumb, drains your energy. Live like human, not bat/vampire. 

Mic 
12/3'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 013:

It is a beautiful thing to help others, but ask yourself, are you in a position of giving? If you are not steady yourself, do not selfishly think that you are helping, sometimes you are creating a bigger problem, because when you face obstacles, and if you are weak, you might withdraw, you might quit. Then what happens to the person that you left behind? "Oh, sorry I can't help you anymore I have my own problems to solve" Then why help at the first place? To satisfy your saintly sympathy? The worst thing is helping someone halfway, where the person cannot proceed nor fallback. That is evil not good, that is selfish not kind. A hiker's wise quote: "secure yourself first, then offer a hand, or else both of you will fall, then you really need help."

Mic 
12/2'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 012:

Make use of time while performing simple daily tasks. You can squat down and increase tension on your abdominals while brushing teeth or washing face. You can listen to motivational speech or language program while commuting. You can stretch or do push-ups while waiting for your car to warm up. You can read 1/4 a book while waiting in the DMV. Allocate the time you save into activities you always wanted to start. Start a blog, pick up guitar, write a letter to home, cook a nice meal. Let efficiency bring you happiness and prosperity.

Mic 

12/1'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 011:

Every night I die when I fall asleep, every morning I live when the light enter my eyes. I am celebrating death, to allow more in life to arrive. If life itself is a full cycle, then decade is within life, year is within decade, month is within year, week is within in month, and day, a micro unit of life. Once the connections are made, you can direct life, because you made sure each cycle is maximized with endeavor. It has been 10 days since I started practicing death, I feel like I am in a cinema. I am the director, actor, and audience.


"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." -Jobs 2005

Click photo to watch Steve Job's commencement address at Stanford University in 2005

Mic 
11/30'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 010:

Be patient with yourself. Sometimes you just could not see what other people want you to see, no matter how hard you try. It does not mean you are limited, you just needed time. Fine wine takes years to ferment, fruits take months to ripe, so are your thoughts. Do not mind the criticism and humiliation you receive today, they are awful tasting medicine that cures. The day of true joy will arrive, people who bashed you will eventually stay silent, apologetically accepting the beam of your success, brightening their shadowed dim world. Time is a high-powered multiplier for all insignificant yet constant improvements.

To my dearest and beloved, happy birthday Lynnie!

Mic

11/29'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 009:

Be inquisitive, ready to question things that used to be called facts. Not exactly everything you learnt in school, in life are written truthfully. People will challenge you with ignorant attitude like "Oh, how can you say that, in college we learnt it that way and that's the only way it will ever be." Read more, trace sources on your own, talk to people, defend your stance, educate others. The only way to seek truth is to return to zero, humbly accept different points of view, allow existence of multiple stories in a single event, deliver the words without packaging it with your own emotion.

Mic
11/28'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 008:

Take notice of your surroundings, take notes whenever and wherever you can. Organize them in discrete fashion, keep the ones you want, toss the ones you don't want. Organizing notes = organizing records of thoughts = organizing and reliving time = organizing and summarizing your life at the cleanest, most efficient state.

Mic 
11/27'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 007:

Sometimes it's the struggle that makes a battle epic. Don't give up the fight yet, your crowd is still cheering for you, your coach is still pushing you forward, get up! Stay strong! One last round, make it count! Do not expect every fights to be won, but be damn sure when everything is over, nothing is left inside you. Only the toughest fighter can redeem the glory of that hard earned belt. Life is a beautiful struggle, fight your way out!

Mic

11/26'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 006:

Minimize your distraction in life. Buy your same favorite shirt in bulk so you don't have to worry about how you look, you'll always look great; keep the same books you were so fascinated by; drink the same Scotch you always drank. Keep life simple, so you can focus on things you really wanted to do. The trade-off game with time is not always romantic and favorable.

Mic
11/25'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 005:

Spend your leisure time wisely, instead of popular soap opera, visit TED.com, quality blogs, or other sites that constantly generates inspiration and prosperity.

Click image to watch collection of inspiring videos

Mic
11/24'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 004:

(For guys) Masturbation drains your strength and makes you feel weak. Avoid sports injury, try not to exercise excessively. Do some squats, push-ups, kettle bell snatch in stead. Meditate, do Yoga, learn martial arts, and eat healthily. 

Mic
11/23'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 003:

One thing that I am really blessed: having great, meaningful friendships. One thing that helps to have that blessing: visualize yourself being that great, meaningful friend of others.

Mic
11/22'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 002:

Record important thoughts, cluster different ideas, utilize your phones, emails, physical notebooks, voice recorders, cameras...etc. Organizing notes are like shaking gold, toss the dirt, keep the gold flakes. Let these little habits work for you.

Mic 
11/21'11

My last words to you if I must die tomorrow 001

Cherish food, eat only what you need, buy only what you can eat. Work hard, if you really want it that badly, hard works always beat obstacles eventually. Say no to effortless fortune, it is the only known shortcut to misfortune and misery. Live strong, you are blessed enough to be among ones who enjoys long life expectancy, you don't have a right to give up on life. Exercise, maintain a healthy mindset and strong body, protect yourself from diseases and unexpected threats.

Mic
11.20 '11