Being human, we are bound to feel disappointed sometimes. Some that we could sleep over it, and some so devastating that it’s hard not to feel completely torn. And to some (myself included), we just couldn’t help but being swamped by such desperation.

Facing such an obstacle in front of us, it may be easy to feel despair and helpless. That’s just how we were wired, I guess – sometimes when we have our eyes so set on what we wanted, our focus became so narrow that we couldn’t see the surroundings and realities that was slightly beyond the narrow perimeter of our sights.

Probably that’s how life give us reminders – once faced with a dead-end, it forces us to set our sights on the present reality, take a few steps …

Some of us may have little secrets of our own that we wished that nobody will discover. I had a few of those myself.

These little secrets may even have nothing inherently wrong in them, it’s just part of our nature, desires or even dreams, and yet we are fearful: as we are conditioned to conceive these as radical or socially unacceptable. Sometimes the fear could be so strong that we perceive them to be mortally so.

Therefore we kept mum, acting against ourselves and clinging on to the thought that by doing so, nobody will know - so that we can blend into conformity. Sometimes we may succeed in deceiving others; other times not so - but those caring people around us decided to not mention about their observation with the best of intentions.

Either …

Mind chatter: the little monologue that runs through the head, trying to get attention. Usually it wasn’t of much harm until they suddenly felt in the mood to gossiping bad things about the host: remarking the many things that the host lacked or the mistakes and screw-ups that he had created.

And occasionally, I overheard the voice in me; and they, noticing that someone is tuning in, only gets more excited to speak more rapidly and loudly. And with such increasing intensity of the voice, it can get quite convincing.

The great strength about humans, though, is the power of our own consciousness and awareness. Yes, many times I have been finding myself in the deep end of the pool of self-doubt, and was suddenly made aware of the situation. With help and resilience …

Occasionally such things does happen to me: especially at times when my own personal problems overwhelmed me to a point which I felt extremely lethargic to even handle it at all. The thing is that as much sleep therapy does relieves the stress and rejuvenates the weary soul, it doesn’t relieve me off my personal responsibility in making decisions and deal with these issues upfront.

So, at the time when I found out that problems looming over my head even when I wake up, I take that as a really serious warning sign.

Recently I was exposed to Hugh MacLeod, whom is popular for producing cartoons that are drawn on the back of business cards. Apart from the fact that his cartoons are really funny (some of them wickedly so :)), I also liked the idea of drawing behind business cards and really had a strong urge in trying to draw some of my own.

Not to mention that I still have two boxes of “art stock” thanks to my previous employment :-p.

Anyway, this is the card that I have drawn yesterday. Personally have been through quite a rough patch in life and as I was facing the impending challenge ahead of me, I felt small. I mean, after being completely drained out of energy to complete a particularly hard task, the thought of inferiority flooded me as …

Recently I was brought to attention by Eng Lee of a Facebook page that reads “The Felix Leong Fan Club”. Usually that wouldn’t have been interesting judging from the fact that “Felix Leong” was my lame attempt in coming up with an online nickname and there’s lots of Felix’es around. But what he found so amusing is that the group uses my self-drawn avatar as the image for the group!

And the group type reading “Common Interest - Sexuality” and a description of “DJ FeLLIo” added on the laughter it creates for myself and my friends: that’s enough to conjure me having an alter ego of becoming a DJ with a Canadian fanbase… and sexuality comes into the picture for some unknown reason (I’ll leave that to your imagination :-p).

Now …

Personally I’m really a big fan of Marcus Buckingham’s “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, which advocates the importance of focusing on our strengths and harness that in-born powerhouse to achieve greatness. One great thing about the book is that it gave exclusive access to their Strengths Finder online test which leaves you with an accurate profile of five strength themes that you possessed, based on their intesive academic research and a large dataset of individuals who have taken the same test and later studied.

Two week ago, Sam Radford and his readers discussed about my strengths profile, engaging in a discussion as I attempt to explore new territories in explaining how I feel about these strengths and how have I (or have not) utilize them in my own life. In the discussion, I mainly …

Come to think of it, it’s kind of funny that we often tell ourselves to make sure that we live life and yet forgetting about that very advice? We often tell people that we don’t want to live like zombies but yet reflecting back most of us are on the brink of becoming one (well, at least on the weekdays being unconsciously caged in a cubicle facing a radiation source for 8 hours).

What we usually tell people is that “we are earning a living” – sort of indirectly implying that it’s about our own survival. But the irony is that we are working at a living grave towards the grave.

If that’s a scary analogy, well… I couldn’t think of a better way of putting it.

And it doesn’t …

It been months I had it now, but I now had my own paper journal that I’m proud of owning.

It’s actually one of those “way too expensive” things that I found at Kinokuniya which I have adored for quite some time and only recently had the resolve to cough up a premium to get it (and for those who didn’t know, I’m quite a stationery nerd ;)): It’s a fabric bound, bright yellow, B5-sized ring binder file from Kokuyo, which really had sex appeal that immediately catches people’s eye without going blind (yellow is one of those bright colours that I’m quite allergic to, to be honest). Somehow the colour really gave me an feeling of joy, creativity and playfulness and it’s a joy to feel the …