7 Ways To Avoid A Garbage Truck Life

First of all, ‘What is a garbage truck life?’ Simply put, ‘A garbage truck life is a life that carries garbage in it.’ Now, what are those garbage? They are anger, frustrations, impatience, disappointments, hurt, resentment, bitterness and a whole long list of others. Sometimes a person with a garbage truck life goes round trying to pour his/her garbage onto someone else. So, be careful! I call such people toxic people.

A garbage truck at Kensington Gardens, London

Life can be quite a madness these days and it is so easy to lose your cool. With the recession not getting any better, it is easier to get angry than smile. Competition everywhere is high. Everyone is holding tight to their jobs. And there are times you probably don’t know who you can trust anymore. But don’t let all these turn your life into a garbage truck life. You can live above the circumstances. But you have to remove all the garbage first. I have here some simple ways to share with you. It has helped me and I hope it helps you or to help someone.

7 Ways To Avoid A Garbage Truck Life

1. Don’t react but respond.
   You can’t control others but you can control yourself. You can’t control what comes out from other people’s mouths but you can control what comes out from your own mouth. Don’t react because very often it just creates more heat. Learn to exercise self control. Take a deep breath and if possible give a smile and move on.
2. Build your character
   Check through the areas of your life that’s doing well and find out why it goes well. It is very likely because you have a very good character that spearheads your success in that particular area. Similarly it works vice versa. Keep exhibiting your good characters like punctuality, attentiveness, humility to name a few. But work hard on characters that hinder and damage the things that you do and eventually your life, particularly anger, impatience, arrogance, etc. Things are just going to become easier if you consistently put in effort.
3. Evaluate your life
   Spend time to evaluate your life. What are your purpose and goals in life? You must know what you want, whether it is your family, children, marriage, careers, business etc. If you don’t know what you want then you have nothing to evaluate. You just let each day passes and let others control your life or dump their garbage into your life. If you are certain what you want in life, you will stay very focused and will not be easily influenced by people around you.
4. Be a problem solver
   When you face problem, don’t be stressed up or worked out. Think and find a way to solve the problem. Be a problem solver. Break the problem down into smaller problems to solve. If you can solve one small problem, it will give you the confidence to solve the rest of the other problems and eventually the whole problem. Be proactive. Channel your energy into the right channel.
5. Seek help and support
   Do not isolate yourself. You need to recognise there’s a problem and really want to get rid of that problem (garbage). Do not live in denial. Seek professional help and support if you need to. Garbage will only accumulate if you don’t remove it and clean it up.
6. Be open to ideas
   Always be willing to listen and be open to ideas and advice. Think through, sieve through, and try it out. Learn from other people’s mistakes. It often works. If you are not teachable and very rigid or stubborn in your own ways, then you are obviously going to be stuck up with your problems and more problems. It will only get worse and not better.
7. Make good decisions
   Good decision-making is a learned skill. Always observe how other people make decision and learn from them. Listen to advice. Think through very carefully before making a decision. Think of the potential problems, your goals and how you can make a very good, strong decision that you will not regret. You can refine your decision-making along the way. When you make good decisions you are able to be in control of your life and not being controlled by others.

Are you going through some difficult times? Are you confused?  Do you find life is a burden? Do you wonder why? Is any of your friends going through such situations? Do share and comment? You need to invest time and effort into your life to make it meaningful and happy, one day at a time.

Remember that it is said, ‘Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!’

Thought of the day…..

“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”

Vince Lombardi

7 Ways To Live A Balanced, Meaningful Life

How to live a balanced, meaningful life? Ever wonder why some people’s lives are very exciting and fun while others are not. Ever sit back and evaluate your life to check the areas that you had done well and the areas that you can improve? To help myself there are several things that I do to make my life balanced, exciting and meaningful. Life is not all doom and gloom. It depends very much on us. Plan it well and you will enjoy each day of your life.

I plan my life and invest into it for excitement, relaxation, fulfillment and meaning. My goal is to live contented, healthy and happy. Here I have:

7 ways to live a balanced, meaningful life

1. Health

   The most important area of my life is undeniably health. You are never going to enjoy life if you have poor health. Sickness has no respect of person. If you abuse your body, it’s just a matter of time before sicknesses and diseases catch up with you. I take great care of my body through a healthy diet and lifestyle. Live nutrients like freshly made juices and raw salad are power packed with nutrients that your body needs. I keep myself active and play a lot of badminton, at least 3 times a week, and some gym workouts for exercise. Practicing and training hard for a badminton competition next year keeps me very excited, focused and disciplined to exercise.

2. Knowledge

   It is highly important to keep learning. If you stop learning you stop growing. Lack of knowledge is powerful enough to destroy, whether it is marriage, parenting, your career, your business, your health, friendship and so forth. Read widely and in depth. I love to read. There are always books or articles in my bag or car wherever I go. I read while waiting for my appointments, read while waiting to pick up my children, read while waiting for food to get cooked, read when relaxing in the garden, read while having a cup of tea at McDonald and many other places. Some places are more condusive to reading books while some places are more condusive to reading short articles. You will be amazed at how much you read in a week, a month or a year. Besides reading, I listen to a lot of good messages from my iPod - messages that motivate, inspire and so on. Ipod is great. You can listen to it even while shopping. Knowledge is treasure to your life. We need to be knowledgeable. I share a lot of what I read and listen to my children to entertain them and teach them the many important things about life.

3. Friends

   Friends are like desserts to your life. They sweeten up your life when the going gets tough. You need to take time to build up friendship. You need to know what type of friends you want in your life. Do your friends support you, cheer you on, encourage you and be real to you? Or do your friends disappear when you go through problems, make use of you or betray you? I am always thankful to have lots of friends. I have many awesome friends who are always there for me to cheer me on, to celebrate my life and to bring comfort when I plough through tough times. Such friends are more than diamonds in my life. But I have experienced difficult friends. What did I do with such type of friends? I forgive them and move on. To keep friendship fresh, I love to invite friends over for coffee time or for a simple meal or I’ll bake some of my favourite food to give to friends if they are staying nearby.

4. Laughter

   Laughter is the best medicine. Never go through a day without laughter. Don’t take yourself too seriously and don’t take things too seriously too. I always have things to cheer myself up. Sometimes I laugh at my own silliness. I read jokes, watch comedy shows, joke with friends, tease my family and laugh and even have some funny pictures to laugh. A 6 year old boy yesterday really made me laughed. He told of a boy named John who has no hair because he went through an electric wire fence, then he met a tiger and was so frightened his hair all fell off! He told it sounding so serious that every one laughed so much. We wonder whether John’s hair fell off because of the electric wire fence or from sheer fright of the tiger……haha. Children just have a way to warm my heart.

5. Relaxation

   Take time to relax. I love to relax with the music on. It sort of tickles and eases my mind. When I am at home, I just enjoy listening to my daughter’s piano pieces on the grand piano. It’s so soothing and relaxing. It is often during those times that I get a lot of crazy ideas which really excites me. I also play guitar and sing, not good enough to join ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ but lovely enough to entertain myself and relax. Music is very powerful and therapeutic. When your mind is relaxed, it is capable of churning out many new, fresh ideas. A relaxed mind is a productive mind.

6. Inspiration

   Inspiration generates desires and confidence to achieve. It generates creative thoughts. I get a lot of inspiration from real life incidences, from things, people and animals. If you want to be a champion, read up and get inspired by people who have gone through the journey to become a champion. I read a lot of cooking books and watch a lot of cooking shows to get inspiration to cook like a professional chef which later helped me to run a successful food shop. I drew a lot of inspiration from some of my greatest school teachers. That helped me to become a successful Maths teacher, helping many pupils to love and gained fast improvement in Maths and later pioneered a successful Maths Tution Centre. I also gained tremendous inspiration from children’s shows on TV which gave me a lot of great ideas to organise and run 3 successful children’s camps. All these achievements further inspire me to embark on bigger and greater things. Inspiration builds upon inspiration.

7. Creativity

   I believe that everyone is creative. The more you do something the more creative you become. If you have never tried out something new, you will never know how creative you are. Many of the workers who worked alongside me to run the chilldren’s camps were shocked to realise how creative they were. Many of them came out with extraordinary ideas, worked hard on it and achieve what would have just been their wildest dreams. When I burned my brain thinking hard how to make puppets, my first puppet came out to be utterly ugly. But from there, my creativity continued to flow and I improved on each puppet that I made, ending up with about 20 puppets, much to my amazement & utter delight.

The above 7 areas are what I engage regularly to build my life into one that is fun and productive even in the most busy and challenging of days. It gives my brain little room to get into the negative mode, more of a fighting mode when the going gets tough. Read Who is Mary Moh to know more about me.

What do you build into your life to make it meaningful and fulfilling? If you don’t have, you can start doing something. Things will only get better if you keep learning. It may not be easy at the start, but stay focused. Choose to enjoy it and keep smiling at whatever little progress you make until it becomes part of your life.

Do share and comment. If you like this article, you can subscribe to my RSS (orange button on top right) or through email for free so that you don’t miss out on any future articles.

Thought of the day……

‘People create their own success by learning what they need to learn and then by practicing it until they become proficient at it. ‘

Brian Tracy

Characteristics of Good Friends

What are the characteristics of good friends? We all know that ‘no man is an island’. Simply put, you cannot isolate yourself and avoid others. We all need friends. We all want good friends. But how do we tell? How can we learn to become good friends?

One of the cartoon shows that I loved to watch with my children when they were young was ‘BAMBI‘. I still like to watch it. It’s such a nice, touching movie. There are a lot of things you can learn about friendship in ‘Bambi’.

Watch this short video clip first.

The video clip shows the:

Characteristics Of Good Friends:

1. They surround you and support you when you are confused.
2. They show you the way when you don’t know where to turn
3. They encourage and cheer you on to achieve your dream.
4. They are patient with you and will always be there to help you.
5. They accept your flaws and mistakes and correct you in love.
6. They laugh with you and celebrate your achievement.

Are there any other characteristics of good friends that you can see from Bambi?  Are there any characteristics that we ourselves can improve on to become good friends to others? Do share your thoughts in comments below.

Thought of the day……

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

George Washington

Related Article

5 Easy, Simple Ways To Keep Friendship Fresh

5 Top Reasons Why Everyone Must Learn To Cook

I am really glad that I learned to cook over the years. I am convinced that everyone must learn to cook. Being the second youngest in a family of 6, I was really ‘lucky’ to be very well pampered and taken care of. My mom is a great cook who cooks without any recipe books - still amazes me. She was very popular in our neighbourhood. Our neighbours often asked her to help cook for festivals.

Mary's cooking : Best Turkey Rice Porridge

From Zero Cook

Besides my mom, my eldest sister loves cooking and I love eating, so are the rest of my family. Little did I know that later in life, I would wake up in utter shock. That happened right after my honeymoon! I was married to a man who loves to eat, in fact, lives to eat. My nightmare began! The word ‘STRESS’ has never been so real. Boiled eggs came out too hard, vegetables overcooked and too salty or tasteless, fried fish turned out like fish crackers and loads of other culinary disasters. Worse, Steven must have soup every meal. I still fail to understand why he needs to run down his food with soup. It’s so bad for digestion. However, I have successfully trained him to be happy with just a glass of plain water and soup will only be on special occasion. It works quite well so far.

Mary's Cooking : Pan-fried Meat Dumplings

To Hero Cook

All the shock and stress stirred up a desire in me to learn to cook. On top of that I learned very quickly in life that ‘The way to a man’s heart is through the stomach’. Hmmm….that sure sounded easy and achievable. There in the midst of my misery, my cooking journey began. I bought loads of recipe books to learn and also for inspiration - could be at least 300 copies by now! Today, I am proud to say that all my time and effort paid off very well. I am a happy wife, a happy mom and a happy self-taught chef. That explains my:

5 Top Reasons Why Everyone Must Learn to Cook.

1. Cooking a healthy meal for your family is your greatest way of showing love.
   There is nothing better than a nice, clean and healthy meal for your family. Ready meals should be out of your dinner table. When you cook yourself, you can always choose high quality ingredients (fresh and organic) and avoid all the additives or preservatives. Nothing is better than a healthy family. The kitchen is the source of your family’s health. If you love your family enough, then start cooking healthy meals. You can cook restaurant food right from your kitchen. Just keep learning and don’t give up. A lot of people these days just don’t cook. Their reason is always, ‘NO TIME’. I would say most of the time is LAZINESS and not because of no time. If health is important enough you will make time. You just need some organization and time management. If you like, you can check out my  recipes section for easy, simple and fast cooking.
2. Cooking is a great hobby. It is fun and can be relaxing to the mind.
   There are lots of types of food you can cook. The list is endless. You can give a twist to existing recipes or even create your own. The sky is the limit. I am always amazed at how my friends enjoyed all my food which often came out different from what I expected even though I followed the recipes in great detail. I realize that people don’t know even if you make mistakes, one of the few things in life that mistakes is fully acceptable and even works on the contrary. Many of my culinary mistakes actually ended up becoming my own signature dishes. I find tremendous joy and relaxation in cooking and true satisfaction when my food goes down well. On top of that, food and cooking are always great topics for conversation in building friendships.
3. Cooking saves money.
   We all know that it’s very expensive to eat out. A plate of fried noodles in an Asian restaurant can cause you £8-£9, depending on where you eat. I can feed at least 10 people for that amount if I cook myself and it probably comes out nicer, without MSG some more. I remember being invited to a Chinese restaurant for a dinner one day. There were about 10 of us. The food were rather simple, the normal food that we would cook at home. The amount served was not a lot. The bill was a shocking £300+! That can buy at least 2 week’s food for a family of 4.
4. Cooking adds sparks in your marriage/friendship
   Like I mentioned, ‘The way to a man’s heart is through the stomach’. I think it’s not only the man’s heart, but everyone’s heart. I find that food has its magnetic power of drawing people to you, whether your spouse, children or friends. Nothing is better than home-cooked food.  All the amount of time and effort you put in to create that wonderful meal for someone always touches his/her heart. It’s also a good time to train your children to cook as they observe and help along.
5. Cooking has great potential to make money from home.
   While many shops close down especially during this economic downturn, food business generally still survive well. The main reason is people need to eat and there are still a lot of rich people around and there are still a lot of people who don’t know how to cook or just too lazy to cook. I met a man many years ago . He had a food business from home and he was earning thousands of dollars every month. Today, he has 2 shops and a big house. He achieved all of this within a matter of about 7 years. I met another man a few years ago. He is an established engineer working in a big oil company. He told me that his brother, who had little education, has a small restaurant. He added that his brother earned a lot of money and drives big cars while he is an engineer, earning quite a lot of money but drive small car. He said food business always makes a lot of profit. The best thing is that the customers pay you immediately while in many other businesses, they often run into difficulties because of too many credits by clients. 3 times I tried it out, one time from home and 2 times from shop and all 3 times I made good profits.

I hope that my 5 important reasons above will motivate and inspire you to get started cooking if you haven’t, to continue to learn more cooking if you have. Just keep learning, keep cooking and keep smiling.

Thought of the day…..

We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

Owen Meredith

5 Ways To Plug The Emotional Leaks In Your Life

The word LEAK can refer to many things. We often hear of bottle leaks, news leaks, cash leaks, energy leaks, profit leaks, data leaks, tire leaks and even gut leaks. I would say that all these leaks can be dealt with quite easily. But there’s one leak that is the toughest to deal with and that is Emotional Leaks.

Life is like a boat or a vessel. There will be times when it leaks. Emotional leaks happen in everyday life. It’s either you emotionally leak on someone or you are emotionally leaked on by others. Emotional leaks just mean expressing your unpleasant, negative feelings in a bad way that is much felt by people around you. A classic example is when something bad happened to you and you just go round throwing your frustrations, diappointment or anger around. Or, you are angry with somebody and taking it out on another person. You know it is unfair and you shouldn’t but you still do it.

Like the boat, take time off to find and repair the leak.

Remember life is like a boat or vessel. If you allow yourself to continue to leak, no one can get into the boat with you. Who wants to get into a leaking boat? You can’t sail in deeper and more challenging waters if your life vessel leaks. You can’t stand the waves, the tides and the storms of life. One day you are just going to sink altogether. Marriage sinks, business sinks, relationships sinks, integrity sinks and even your kids sink. Your emotional leaks have the potential to cause extensive damage.

My dad in trying to teach me about friendship and relationship when I was young, threw a plate onto the floor and broke it into many pieces. He explained that friendship is very important and that I must always treasure a good friendship. But if at anytime you do wrong, you cause cracks or breaks in the relationship. You can ask for forgiveness and do everything that you can to repair the cracks or breaks but it will never be the same again because people will always remember the incident. That’s such a wonderful lesson he taught me.

You must always look out for emotional leaks in your life and plug it before it gets out of hand.

5 easy ways you can do it.

1. Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do to you.
   Recall the times when others leak on you emotionally. How did you feel? That will help you not to do it to others. Remember that emotional leakage causes cracks in relationships, though repaired will never be the same again. People may forgive you but they will always remember the incident.
2. Exercise self-control.
   Exercise self-control takes time and discipline to learn. You can’t exercise self-control on the spot if you have never learned to exercise self-control.
3. Take a deep breath.
   Taking a deep breath helps you to relax and sober up your mind. It has to be a deep breath from the depth of your tummy.
4. Talk out your problems with someone.
   Seek support and help to talk out your problems. Usually just talking with someone will lighten your burden. Don’t think that you can carry every burden yourself unless you are bionic.
5. Respond, don’t react.
   When you respond to a situation, you don’t blow your head off. There’s usually an underlying problem that causes a problem. Respond to that problem first before it adds onto another problem. If you react to it, you just increase its dynamite effect instead of diffusing it.

Do add and share your experiences whether you emotionally leak to others or emotionally leaked on by others.

Thought of the day……

“What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not do.”

Aristotle

Seth Godin said, ‘All Marketers Are Liars!’

All Marketers Are Liars!!! That’s right! All Marketers Are Liars!!! I didn’t say it BUT I absolutely agree with it. Seth Godin said it. Do you know who Seth Godin is? He is known as America’s greatest marketer, an extremely intelligent guy who has written 10 best seller books and always speaks to large groups on marketing. His messages on marketing are absolutely awesome which can change the way you think and do things.

This video here is about Seth Godin on ‘All Marketers Are Liars’! There are 3 videos here. I’ll put the first one here and you can click to continue with the second and third ones. He talks about the system that is broken. Think about it for a moment. Is the system in your country broken? Look at the school system, legal system, human rights system, medical system, pharmaceutical system, banking system, police system, political system, army system, transport system, communication system, etc. They are all marketers. They promote and market their services and products endlessly. There have well-written rules and guidelines but are they really working?

Newspapers and TV panoramas are filled with news and stories of broken systems plaguing the nation. I still remember a professional friend told me, actually warned me, ‘Mary, know the system!‘ Ever wonder why there are many rich lawyers? Because of a broken system! A kind lawyer once told me, ‘Mary, I want to tell you the truth. We lawyers make a lot of money from people like you and others.’ That statement really hurts. But then it’s true - I can’t beat the system. Do we have laws and systems? Of course we have. But it is broken. What is the result? In too many an occasion, ‘Hard Work And Heart Work Don’t Work.’ Like what my professional friend said, ‘Know the system.’ Learn to be discerning and smart.

Enjoy the video. It is very thought-provoking and hilarious at the same time.

Thought of the day……

Take Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Mark Twain. Combine their brains and shave their heads. What’s left? Seth Godin.

Jay Levinson

That just shows how intelligent Seth Godin is.

Have you suffered from a broken system? Is there a lesson to learn? Have you become wiser? Maybe you have benefitted from a broken system. How can you protect yourself from becoming a victim of a broken system? What advice would you give to people to help them from falling victim to a broken system?

In the mean time, keep learning to be wiser.

Do share your view and thoughts.

14 Key Principles For Success And Happiness In Life

Is your life fulfilled and meaningful?

Is there a way to find fulfillment, meaning and happiness in life? Do you find yourself engulfed in the waves of confusion and depression that is sweeping through the world right now? Are you losing grip and control of your life? Have you come to a point not knowing what is right and what is wrong anymore? There are times when I do wonder.

You can ONLY change yourself.

But instead of questioning and feeling disappointed, confused, angry, helpless and hopeless, you can do something. There are a lot of things in life that you can’t change but what you can and should do is to change your own attitude and perspective about life and the situation that you are in. Instead of reacting negatively, you can respond positively. You don’t have to follow the crowd blindly. Dare to be different and confident even in stormy times.

Dare to be different

You need keys for life

As for me, I have a set of principles guiding my life to stay focused as I trudge along life’s journey, be it mountaintop or valley experiences. They helped me to be courageous, dare to be different and dare to break out of my comfort zones to touch other people’s lives and to dream and see my dreams come true.

Character training for life

From very young, my parents spent a lot of quality time with me, tirelessly teaching me about life, crafting all the important principles of life to build up my character. While my mom taught me much how to grow up as a lady, a mom and a wife, my dad taught me how to live life wisely and successfully outside in the society.

Mistakes are stepping stones to success

I have made mistakes in life but all the principles that guide me through my life have helped me to learn from my mistakes and come through a stronger, more mature and better person. I am so thankful for my parent’s love and training that has brought a beautiful balance in me and made me who I am today, a contented mother, wife and friend. In similar ways, I devote my time to train my 2 lovely daughters.

Here are the Key Principles To Success and Fulfillment in Life that you can adopt and use. They will also help you to dream well and see your dream come true.

1. ABCDDD and the boomerang effect
   Life is like a boomerang. When you Avail yourself, Believe that you CAN do it and be Committed to doing it with Dedication, Diligence and Determination, it will return with the fruits of your labour like a boomerang.
   Read more

Stop Worrying. Hakuna Matata.

Are you one that is always anxious and worried? Are you one that’s addicted to your worries? I can safely say that 90% or higher of your worries never come true. But yet, why are people still worrying and worrying. Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but never get you anywhere.

Yes, the economy is bad, unemployment is on the increase, bank is not lending, house may be repossessed and graduates come out jobless. You have every good reason to worry. But by worrying, is it going to help?

I met a successful businessman recently. He told me,’Mary, when times are bad, it’s the best time to do something, maybe start a business. You stand a high chance to be successful because you can only go up and not go down.’ He said many people are too frightened to do anything. He was one who was made redundant in the previous recession. Instead of joining the crowd feeling depressed, helpless and hopeless, he started a small business. Today he is the director of 3 businesses. Well, there’s so much we can learn from this man………don’t fall into the trap of worrying but do something. Bad times can be opportunities for success.

So, stop worrying and do something. It’s time to learn something and dream a dream. Learn how to dream a dream and how to make your dream come true. Remember Hakuna Matata from ‘The Lion King’. If you are a constant worrier, maybe you should consider changing your name to Hakuna Matata which means ‘No Worries for the rest of your day’.

Watch the video here and be inspired not to worry.

Welcome your comments.

Thought of the day……

‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.‘

Aristotle