Lesson 1: Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

No good reason for this picture. I just thought I've changed to a better person. *I think.. wink-wink =) *

It has been quite a while since I posted my last thought on this unglorified blog of mine. Not that I didn't have time, but I have people around me to talk to. Which makes me think less of the things I've talked about earlier and left this blog outdated. Out of the blue, I decided to post something that have been lingering in my mind for the last 3 hours.

For the past 5 years of my life, I have gone through a tough process of growing up. I encountered hard situations which involves facing weird and bad people, failures, financial problems and etc. However, what impacted me the most were my social problems, which forced me to do a lot of thinking and a post-morterm on my inner social behaviour.

Ever since my first time staying outside of the family house, which was in Labuan Maticulation College dormitory, my father, who have always been my reference regarding to any social problems I've encountered, he have taught me the importance of social logic skills. I was always thought to read body language together with voice tone and reacted to it. I learn to stay away from people who talk bad about other people on the first meeting, so as ending the conversation when the person looks at the time on a frequent basis during a conversation.

For once, I also believed that it was OK to voice out my bold opinion towards another person regardless the possibility of hurting other people feelings of what I said, as long as I'm being honest and un-hypocrite. It took me quite a while to teach myself that blending in isn't the same as being hypocrite. I often think that socializing is all about logic, that I'm forgetting the fact that I'm dealing with creatures of emotions not logic.

I was *possibly still am* the kind of person who could easily point out others mistakes but mine. It's also easy for me to talk bad about other people than to talk about their good deeds towards me and others. I also tend to react negatively towards negative things instead of neutralizing the situations to it's stable state. These things are very easy to be done because all I have to think of are my own feelings by simply being selfish. The thing I forgot behind all this rude behaviour was that other people also have the tendency to correct and condemn others and justify themselves afterward, exactly like me. Eventually, all my criticisms will return to me just like the homing pigeons, and then I'll get hurt again and then fight again and.... leads to a never ending story of hatred and pointless arguments.

How many people will just sit in silence when they are being attacked by others? Take the old Chua Soi Lek sex scandal before he won the president of the MCA chair as an example. When his inappropriate video was brought up and had his presidency credibility questioned, did he just bow down and succumb to his mistake humbly without questions? No, he didn't. In fact he raised up and fought by stating that it was his personal life matter and had nothing to do with his presidency whatsoever. He was right.

Another example, lets take the facts on last years war between Israel and Gaza. Worldwide nation are all against Israel when Israel launched numerous attacks on Gaza. Did Israel just sit put and accept negative comments from the worldwide nation? No, Israel simply brought up the "self-defense" reason, which by the way was true yet terribly wrong on the humanitarian grounds.

See, very little people are willing to admit themselves wrong without justifying themselves, unless they are being threatened with their family held hostage in their opponents hands. This is the behaviour that would normally caused arguments and fights. Too bad I too have this behaviour. Not that it's a totally bad thing, but it causes lots of problems when it strikes in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example arguing with a traffic police when I was caught speeding recklessly.

There are many sayings that helped me realize that I'm not perfect just like everybody else. As hard as other people have to accept me for who I am, I too have to do the same. I shouldn't just be giving myself to others and refuse to accept others in my life. There should be a fair share of give and take. There are several quotes I'd like to share here that have been my guide for the past 3 years during my internal growing up process *up until now*.

1. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Abraham Lincoln
2. "Don't criticize them: they are just what we would be under similar circumstances." Abraham Lincoln
3. Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof, when your own doorstep is unclean." Confucius
4. "Sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility" Dale Carnegie

Since this post is getting longer and longer, I think I better stop here before I get too carried away. So, good night and thank you for reading. :)