Me, My, Mine

Recently, I came across a young child who was diagnosed with leukemia (a cancer of the bone marrow in which abnormal types and amounts of cells are made). The medical team tries to find a matching bone marrow to conduct a bone marrow transplant and finally found one matching bone marrow donor.

When contacted, the donor is more than happy to save a life and his wife is supportive of his decision to donate his own bone marrow. He went through a series of health check and tests. The final consultation with the doctor was quite positive.

In asia culture, it is considered filial to seek parent’s blessing and approval before donating any part of the body. When doing so, he encountered huge disapproval from his parents. Reason being the patient is unrelated and is not necessary to take the risk and cause harm to own health.

It is so sad but I think to certain extent, we are all selfish in certain ways, especially when it comes to things that we deem to belong to us. My son, my bag, my computer. It is ok for someone’s PC to crash but not mine. It is ok for someone to suffer but not me and my family. We just don’t feel the same pain we will feel if these things or events happen to others versus “me”.

It is because of our selfish thoughts that we tend to forget that we are all interdependent in this world. The bread that we eat came about from the effort of many other people. From the people who sell them, to the people who bake them, to the people who sell the flour, eggs, even to the people who plant wheat and rear chicken. How many people that we do not known of are involved in the process?

We cannot live alone in this world, we are interdependent of each other. Only when we discard our selfishness and learn to be grateful to each other, this world will be a better world.

PS: To find out more about donating bone marrow to save lives, please visit

http://www.marrow.org/

http://www.bmdp.org/

The Best Way

The best way to benefit others is to reduce our selfish mind.

Money is NOT the root of all evil

How many times have this topic been discussed? This is one of the favorite topics that have been widely discussed especially in the motivational and wealth creation, get rich column. Many discussion ends up with the conclusion that money is the root of good and not evil. But from my point of view, money is not the main issue in any good or bad events.

First and foremost, let’s talk about what is money. Money, in short, can be any commodity that is used as a mode of payment. In the past, people can use seashells, cigarettes, metal…. Nowadays, we use coins and notes. These are commodities with a value put to it and are commonly recognized and used as a tool for transaction purpose.

Now, how can a tool be the root of all evil or of all good?

Our intentions propel our life and our actions. And these actions we take can lead to good or bad deeds. People will do bad deed for money because they have greed. People will do good deed with money because they have kindness. These are all internal factors that we need to take care of and not the external factors such as money.

We should not focus too much on external factors for all our problems. A lot of the problem in this world occurs because people do not pay much attention to their inner world. Get our inner right and this world will be a better place.

“God said to me: Your task is to build a better world. I answered: How can I do that? The world is such a large, vast place, so complicated now, and I am so small & useless. There’s nothing I can do. But God in his great wisdom said: Just build a better you!”

Being Alone

Being alone is just being alone.
Being lonely is being unhappy about being alone.