Dream...

I keep on dreaming (a pipe dream) and need to 'swallow painkillers'.. Phew... I wish I wasn't that fragile...

What do you think you're worth?

According to the Bureau Labor of Statistics, the unemployment rate in the US in June 2009 (not seasonally adjusted) is 9.7%. It means if you walk on the street and you see 10 working-age people, almost 1 of them is unemployed. Pretty scary, huh? Although the number is not as bad as that of the Great Depression in 1993 (27%), but it is the worst since 1983. According to the FED, this number will increase up to 10% sometime in this year. However, actually the real unemployment rate can be higher (may be around 14% or more), because the Bureau Labor of Statistics' official number does not include people who part time and people who have given up on finding a job.

The following image was taken from google website:


click image to see a larger view.


People who lose their jobs, sometimes feel worthless and lose their confidence, because probably they can't afford to look after their family (or even themselves). I just want to give encouragement to people who feel really bad these days because of this circumstances.

Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have. - Thomas Alfa Edison

Keep hoping and fighting. I hope the dawn will come soon!!

Logical?

"Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. [Some men just want to watch the world burn]."

Alfred Pennyworth ~ The Dark Knight

Dude!

A Bud Light commercial with 10 different inflections of "Dude!" It's hilarious!!

Roulette?

Gambling is a game of probability, but usually in gambling, the chance to win is smaller for the gambler than for the dealer. Probably the most fair game in gambling is roulette. But, still, the probability for the gambler to win is not 50-50. The dealer always has better/slightly better probability, so in the long run, the dealer will always win.

For detail, please see:knowyourluck.com/roulette.html

In roulette, you can hedge your position. It means that when you put your bets, you can put them in a way that your risk for losing money is smaller, therefore you can play longer with your money, and you can have more chance to win. You can learn more about it from the book below:


Gamble To Win Roulette, ISBN:0818406275.

For you who like mathematics, take a look at this book:

Roulette Odds and Profits: The Mathematics of Complex Bets, ISBN:9738752078

It is all about probability that you can calculate. Test your strategy first before playing.

By the way, recently I think that in God (for you who believe in God) there is no probability and uncertainty, because He knows everything in the future and He controls it. (Although He will not tell you what to bet to win the gambling for sure :P). But probably, the best way is: Be close to God and He will guide our way. Easy to say, huh? What do you think?

Power of The Tongue

Death and life are in the power of the tongue

Words in Struggle

Hardships take my faith little by little. I am struggling but hit the wall so many times. So many weaknesses I can't manage. Make me wondering, why He created me with such weaknesses. Am I really special? Why are there no doors open for me?

Contemplating..

Take time to pray..
Take time to listen..
Try hard, and harder..
Always give thanks and give thanks..
These make me strong..

He promises:
He never sleeps.
He never leaves us.
He never fails.

Patience is only one faculty;
Earnestness the devotion of all the faculties.
Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.--Bovee, Treasury of Thought.

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme
ordinance of a paternal guardian and legislator, who knows us better
than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles
with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist
is our helper.-- Burke, Treasury of Thought.

Do Not Hate Humans

I've never played Castlevania game or read any of its comics. However, I found that this quote is interesting, at least for me:

"Do not hate humans. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm. For theirs is already a hard lot." ~ Lisa, Castlevania

The Search of The Meaning of Work

In my opinion, work is one's activities to produce/create something useful for others. Either, we give additional value to some stuffs therefore we make the stuffs more useful or we give services to other therefore make their life better. The examples for the former category are factory workers, artists, product designers, and programmers. The examples for the second category are teachers, stuff distributors, hair dressers, actors/actresses, pilots, brokers and marketers.

However, I have difficulty to classify some jobs. One of them is traders in financial market. Traders do zero sum game. It means that their profit is others' loss. There is no additional value to the economy or society. Or actually the value of their job is in finding the real value of things and try to take advantage of the misspricing things, i.e., exploit it? What do you think?

What I still don't like in work is unfair competitions. Fair competitions are good, because they can stimulate productivity and creativity. However, an unfair competition hurts other people. For example, for increasing the sales of its product, Intel try to do monopoly in microprocessor market at Europe. This action harmed not only AMD but also consumers at Europe. Fortunately, recently European Commission ruled that Intel Violated EU Law and Harmed Consumers. This ruling stops Intel doing 'dirty' job for winning the microprocessor market.

The example above is an example of unfair competition between two rival companies with the same product. However, I think it is very easy to find other examples of unfair competition among people, coworkers or businesses. A business try to sabotage the competitors' plan, a guy spreads an unethical rumor about his coworker to get promoted, and etc.

I still don't have conclusion for this matter. But in my opinion, if our jobs are hurting other people, I think we need to rethink the meaning of work. If for the sake of money/prestige/career/business/ambition/stomach, other people become our enemies and we do things to hurt them, then, what is the meaning of work? Is my definition of work (Activities to give additional value to society/humans) wrong? Or people just follow the natural selection from evolution concepts? Or is it because the world is under the curse (according to the book of Genesis), therefore people, in order to survive, have to hurt one another?

May be I am just thinking too much..

Social Networking?

I always feel uncomfortable when people say that networking is really important. It's like people always try to take advantage of someone else. They want to use other's resources to reach their own intentions/goals.

However, recently, I want to see it in a different way. I try to see it as a half-full glass instead of a half-empty glass. When we are engaged to some activities with other people, may be in communities or may be just hang out with them, we actually don't try to take advantage of other people, but we make ourselves available to help others when they are in need.

Then again, in the spirit of helping others, we need to be careful, don't let bad/insincere people take advantage of ourselves. Just like old proverb says, "Be wary and wise as serpents, and be innocent (harmless, guileless, and without falsity) as doves."

At the end, probably don't think too much about it, because for the most of us, actually we enjoy being together with other people. But, if you are an introvert person who doesn't feel really happy when you hang out with others, don't push yourself too much to do networking, different people have different style.

Trinomial Tree and Life

Trinomial Tree is a concept in Quantitative Finance. This shows the evolving of the price of something over time. Usually, it's used for modeling interest rate.

Borrowing the concept from Finance, actually we can see similar situation in human life. In every point of time, someone's life can be up, down, or remain the same. You can see this in every aspect of someone's life, i.e.: emotion, finance, career, happiness, fulfillment, etc. One of the tree in the picture has equal downward and upward slope, the other one has steeper downward slope. What do you think about these pictures? Do you think the second one is more pessimistic? I think it may show that it's easier to fall down than to climb up.





Anyway, the ups and downs of life may be really depend on one's attitude.. However, in every stage of someone's life, he needs God's grace. He needs it when he is on the top, so he will not be boastful. He needs it when he is at the bottom, so he won't get crushed and never get up anymore. He needs it if he is in the middle so he won't fall or even can climb up.

In the end, it's not life if there is no ups and downs. Just hang in there if your life seems too difficult to deal with.

Price of Decision

Every decision has price to pay (No matter the expected result).

Sometimes it's not only us who will pay the price, but also our family members or people around us. When the time to make important decision comes, think not only ourselves, but also people around us. Don't hurt them because of our bad decisions.

One's attitude can determine his future

Passion, Patience, Soulfulness...

Just want to post some stuffs from my old and deleted blog:

Passion gives energy and enthusiasm...
Patience gives consistency and endurance...
Soulfulness gives meaning...

Hedgehog's Dilemma (from Neon Genesis Evangelion)

I just finished watching the TV series. I know it's a really old anime. But a new movie based on the TV series (Rebuild of Evangelion 2: You Can (Not) Advanced) was released in Japan on June 27, 2009. I hope it will be released in the rest of the world pretty soon.

This anime is really heavy. It contains so many tweaked philosophic, religious, psychological, and scientific concepts. However, it's just a story. Don't take it so seriously. Be careful though, the story may make you depressed. I need to skip some episodes especially the episodes at the end of the TV series because they're kind of boring and too heavy to deal with. Later, I found out that Hideaki Anno, the writer of the story, wrote Evangelion after he recovered from 4 years of depression. No wonder the story is so dark. The TV series is darker than the movie because there are more hopes in the movie. In the Rebuild of Evangelion 1: You Are (Not) Alone, Misato encourages Shinji who feels that he is alone and scared when he fights the Angels, but Misato says that actually he is not alone, there are so many people who support him in the battle.

The main characters in the story are people with a lot of problems. The center of the story is Shinji Ikari. Shinji has so many problems when he tries to understand so many things: the purpose of piloting Eva, the purpose of his existence, how to deal with praise/ignorance, his bad relationship with his father/others, how not to run from problem etc. In one of the episode, Ritsuko talks about Hedgehog's Dilemma to depict the sophisticated relationship of people. People need to interact and intimate with others because humans are social being, however they will get hurt easily because of the collisions of one's interests with others'. Shinji, who is still a teenager, doesn't understand how to deal with this situation. As a result, he always feels painful.

In 'The End of Evangelion', the Third Impact makes all people in the world lose their A.T. Field (my interpretation of A.T. Field is something that keep one person as a separated individual) and become one living liquid called LCL. Shinji decides to give people their rights to be separated individuals (by asking Rei to give back their A.T. Fields) although he knows people will always hurt one another. The ending scene shows that he tries to hurt or even kill Asuka(probably the only human being other than himself, who survives from the Third Impact). It means that despite his decision of giving back people's AT Fields, he still cannot overcome his terrible pain in his heart. He stops choking Asuka after Asuka shows him some affection.

In conclusion, although I suggests not to take this story so seriously, I found that this hedgehog's situation is interesting. In my opinion, This hedgehog's situation is unavoidable. That's why sometimes I don't understand people's motives. I don't understand why people do this or that. Why people do politics. This situation often makes me feel contempt. IMHO, we can use love/affection to deal with such kind of situation. So, enjoy our life with others, because, indeed, humans are beautiful beings.