Few stories and points to share today.

Firstly, it's a short story shared by a facebook friend, which is about these 2 camels, the mother and son, on a desert. So both of them got thirsty and the son headed into one direction. At that instance, due to the eye problem the mum has, she told her son not to waste effort because of her experience that normally that direction would not have water. Note that in this point in time, the son did not say anything, nor justify his reason for heading there, I mean in real contacts, he might be seeing mirage or some signs of water existence. So in the end both the camels died, and it was found out that the oasis is certainly in that initial direction.

The point he was trying to point out is that, the mother is experienced, thus, just like many professional, tend to overlook possibilities and miracles that amateurs would find and want to try, due to her own bias-ness and knowledge. The son, due to lack of knowledge, is ignorant, thus did not continue searching in that direction.

The points I wanted to add on is that it reflects the personality of the 2 camels. The mother are blinded not only physically, but mentally, as she did not open up possibilities and perspectives that the son might discover and point out. The son, on the other hand, does not have mind of his own, and didnt stand up and question his own decision. As power of blink shows, sometimes instincts is more important than intuition.

有对骆驼母子在炎热的沙漠中行走，行至途中，牠们感到十分干渴，就决定去找水喝。

小骆驼正准备朝一个方向去找，但骆驼妈妈那一侧眼睛瞎了，什么也看不见，就断定那边一片漆黑，什么都没有。于是牠告诉小骆驼：“不要去那个方向白费力气 了，那边什么都没有。”小骆驼听了妈妈的话后，就朝另一个方向去找，找呀找呀，找了半天也没有找到水，最后两只骆驼都渴死了。

其实小骆驼一开始准备去的方向就有水，而且离牠们不远。

故事的结果是告诉读者：没有经验的小骆驼找不到水，是因为无知；经验丰富的老骆驼找不到水，则是因为偏见。有时偏见比无知更危险、更可怕。如果我们一味的 以旧经验形成自以为是的观念，而不试着学习从更宽广的角度来判断是非，那么恐怕会错过沿途风景、陷入荆棘危险之中而不自知。

作者：如真 摘自：The Epoch Times (纪元副刊第9版)

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Next, is 3 simple short stories.

1) Once, all villagers decided to pray for rain, on the day of prayer, everyone gathered and one boy came with an umbrella. That's FAITH.

2) When a baby was thrown up on the air, he/she smiled, because he/she knows that he/she will be saved/caught. That's TRUST.

3) As we go to bed every night, we have no assurance that there will be tomorrow, but we have tons of things to do. That's HOPE.

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Was listening to a talk by Shawn Achor, and he mentioned about his childhood, where he was playing with his sister, and accidentally pushed her. She fell, but at that instance, to avoid all the negative consequences of getting scolded by his parents since he broke her arm a week ago due to pushing her away from an imaginary bullet, he blurted out: hey, dont cry, you know what, no one can land in 4 limbs like that, guess what, I think you're an unicorn. And that made his sister not crying, but rather boosted her the self esteem as someone special.

So the point is that happiness is determined by our brain. By tweaking this little perception, we can change the mood of a person, as well as the reality, in the view of the person. As such, happiness is not measured by the tangibles, not intangibles, but simply by the perspective of our own brain. It is through the lens in which our brain views the world shapes the reality for us. So if we can change this lens, we could enjoy a happier life in a happier world.

乐观中，看见机会；悲观里，只见苦楚。
In happiness, you will see opportunity;
In sadness, you will see only sad things happens - lonelyreload.com

This is true, just this morning, as I gave 2 bucks change to a person, suddenly the world sort of light up. I see people giving directions to foreigners at bus stops, I see a lady helping an old lady to pick up something she dropped, I see people giving way at the entrance of the bus, and I see cars stopped to let people cross the road first despite the rights to continue driving.

So though getting in into a prestigious school might be a joyous thing, but after some time, many of the students there would start to feel unhappy, due to the stress of the workload, the lifestyle, etc, and they simply forgot about the honor and joy they had by getting into the school. They would make a graph, find the mean, and would feel that those below the mean are not good enough, thus unhappy.

Similarly, in a graph, we are always taught to have experimental errors, because the data doesnt go in line with the rest of the data, so we were taught how to eliminate this data. Then another one is that we normally used to get an average data, thus in cases of creativity, or learning absorption rate, or potential, we get the average, then would conclude that those under average are "problematic".

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Next, is some good questions posted by my tutors.

1) How do you rate the Quality of Life of your old folks?

Quality of Life is defined as the complete state of well-being - in physical health, mental, cognitive, psychological and social, with positive life satisfaction, good environment and activities.

Then, in 50 years time, would you like to have the same state of Quality of Life? If not, what difference would you like to have? How would you impose this in the Quality of life of your folks too? Did you give enough opportunities for them to achieve better Quality of Life? Did you just say: "No need to know larh", or "Let us handle", or "You wont know one larh"?

2) What motivates you to wake up every morning.

It is a purpose, a sense that we have lots to do, duties to fulfill, responsibilities to burden, work, sch, but what if all these are taken away, what will be your purpose then? Self-Fulfillment? Or nothing?

I suddenly thought of a nice quote that I will definitely share with people in future when people around me gets "bored" of life already.

"Life" as itself is meaningless, it's your actions and involvement, with objects and people, that is meaningful. The world is a better place, because of you~

Then I will think of the lyrics:

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me~~