Sarah Tan – Personal Development

Saw Jeanette’s blog about Top Ten Great Pleasures on things that make you happy, and I came up with a list. I did my own list when I gave a writing assignment some time ago, but I’ll type them out here. I got greedy and came up with 30 things.

1. Seeing a beautiful rainbow in the urban area. (just saw one recently and everyone was crowding to see it)

2. Buying new books. (my job allows me to buy hundreds of books, so I also love the process of choosing them!)

3. Receiving magazines I like in the mail. (love 8 Days for the latest TV show synopsis and gossips, Time and Economist for their current affairs, and Fortune for money)

4. Reaching home on time to catch my favourite drama serials. (I’m a TV addict.)

5. Chatting on the phone with my husband. (Sometimes we chat for an hour before I go to bed)

6. Finishing an entire drama series within 3 days. (TV junkie alert – Desperate Housewives, Jumong, The Legend, and this year alone)

7. Surfing the net. (Especially excited when I check out the deals, and the tips and everything else)

8. Reading a book lying down. (Bad for eyesight, but I love reading)

9. Getting the resident stray cat’s attention. (I’m a closet Cat Lady. Only I don’t feed them. I like to tease the cats by making some sounds, and it’s cute when they turn their heads to look at me.)

10. Getting great response from the people I work with. (Sometimes I have great ideas, and I try them out at work, and they enjoy the sessions.)

11. Laughing at jokes. (Some of my friends are very interesting people.)

12. Helping my friends analyse and visualize their dates. (I get so excited doing this.)

13. Eating cheesecake, warm chocolate cake or chocolate soufflé. (Yum, yum.)

14. Seeing my face or my article in the newspapers. (twice this year already. The next I want to see is my own book published. And lots more!)

15. Seeing my favourite car – Daihatsu Copen. (even if it’s not a good idea to own it)

16. Working out at the gym. (get to exercise)

17. Chatting with my brother and coming up with funny and cool suggestions. (too bad we seldom see each other even though we live in the same house)

18. Watching people’s pets on the Internet. (I used to sit in front of the computer and watch people’s pets on webcam. I don’t own any pets, so I compensate by looking at others’. Plus I even made a video about a friend’s Schnauzer playing.)

19. Reading my favourite blogs. (Quite a lot of favourite blogs such as Beverly, Karen Cheng, Valska, Jeanette among many others)

20. Listening, playing or doing something with music. (I want to write music. Maybe when I get my own work studio when my new house is ready. I’m a lazy singer who only sings once a week at my teacher’s place)

21. Travelling to beautiful places by aeroplane. (I like taking the plane, since I was a kid.)

22. Listening to waves lazing at the beach. (been to Bintan, Redang, Tioman, Hua Hin and Sibu, resorts in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand)

23. Having a massage. (lots of money spent on these.)

24. Discovering something interesting or new. (From internet, or my books. Love self-improvement books)

25. Getting room service at the hotel. (Coz I don’t have to tidy up. And I like eating in the room, plus I like having food delivered to my doorstep. I like staying at good hotels)

26. Checking my bank accounts, investments and other streams of income. (I love money! And having money to spend!)

27. Chasing celebrities from different fields from Asia. (My favourite is Ryu Si Won, Korean actor, I even appeared in some Korean entertainment show because I went to his fan club gathering. And another thou shalt not be named Asian Champion in some sports.)

28. Getting flowers from my husband! (When he has time, he will get them for me from the nursery.)

29. Getting a parking lot in a crowded place. (How can I forget this? 95% of the time I get the lots I want quickly and near to the place I’m heading.)

30. Working on my blogs. (I love blogging. Check out my main blogs at Singapore Profit, Wedding-Breeze and a few others.)

Tell me about your great pleasures, and leave a trackback to your blog! What makes you happy? What are the little things in life that cheer you up?

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Every time my parents ask me where I have parked my car, and I tell them somewhere nearby, they always seem to view me with suspicion, as if I have just told them the largest lie. The next question they ask will always be, “You mean there are parking lots here?”

My parents always seem to have the impression that it is hard to find parking lots, especially at crowded areas. When I used to sit in their cars, I would always feel the frustration they had and they would have to circle round the car park a few times and wait for some time before getting a lot. So whenever I wanted food from a popular hawker centre such as Chomp Chomp, the excuse about how difficult it is to get a parking lot will come.

Yet, when I go there on my own, I will find a parking lot no matter how crowded the place is. That’s because I use the power of visualisation and the Law of Attraction. I will attract that parking lot even in a crowded place. My parents used the same technique, but they had only visualised the crowded area, and felt the frustration in waiting. Hence, they got what they wanted!

Initally, I met with some problems. I would always find another car right in front of me getting the lot that I had visualised. After wondering why it was not working, I realised that I had not been clear about how I had visualised my parking lot. I only visualised an empty parking lot. That visualisation benefited the car owner in front of me. He got the empty lot I envisioned.

So the next time I visualised the empty parking lot, I added something to it. I visualised my own ice metallic blue car reversing into the empty lot. Instead of just any parking lot, I also visualised it to be near the lift lobby, so that I did not have to walk far.

It has been working great for 90% of the time, when I bothered to visualise, especially if I know it is a crowded area. So, I tend to spend less time at the car park, and the other car owners who were also waiting for a lot, but had chosen to wait elsewhere would fume quietly about my “luck”.

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I was watching The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith last night and I was very impressed by the determination his character, Chris Gardner, showed as he made decisions that changed his life. He was extremely broke, and depended on selling expensive medical scanners. His wife left him, and he demanded the custody of his son, due to his childhood experience of growing up without a father.

His wife mocked him for being unrealistic in getting an unpaid internship at a prestigious stockbrokerage, and was extremely upset when he persisted in that as he was not bringing home money. Though it was not shown, I think from the wife’s perspective, it was important that the husband bring home money, and she was pushed to the limit for she had been working two shifts for a few months to keep the family going.

However, what made me sit up was the continual effort put in by Gardner to follow his dream. He had clear visions of what he wanted. He saw a stockbroker getting out of a sports car, and when he found out that a college degree was not necessary to this job, he was inspired to join. He kept persisting in getting through the door to get his internship, and an arrest due to parking violations did not stop him from getting what he wanted.

With lots of obstacles, including being booted out of his home, and lack of money, he still persisted. Many people would have given up long ago. Many would blame everyone else for the problems instead of themselves. He believed he could do it. There was only one position at the end of the internship, and he really had no choice but to get it.

I really admire his tenacity.

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