From this rule, the 80% are the followers whereas the 20% are the creators. Creators gains more wealth by giving and sharing more value and the followers often follows these creators and have less wealth. This sounds very disproportionate but it is a very balanced system.

Accepting Social Conditioning By Default

The reason for this happening is what I call accepting social conditioning by default. Most of us are born with parents, and it is from them that we learn our survival or living skills from. We will accept and inherit by default things like religion, god, behaviour and social practices (celebrating christmas, new year, birthday, etc) from our parents. This is what experts call “external factors” of social conditioning.

As we age, we will learn, accept and inherit social conditions from our colleagues, friends and mentors. Without realizing, you are already categorized as The Follower, and the more you follow, the more uneasy you will feel as this will restrict The Creator inside you from being able to express themselves. Wealthy people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs realized this at a very early age and rebel against the Social Conditioning System, they dropped out of college and went on to fulfill their goal as a Creator.

Dropping Out From The System

I’m not sure what got into me but I’ve always been a born rebel. When I was a kid, I always questioned why my family has a worshiping altar. They have idols like Guan Yin and Guan Gong but I don’t find them cool, at that age (I think maybe 5 years old?), I prefer to worship Ultraman, and I think many would agree with me!

As I age, I saw and found more flaws in the system, very much like how Neo felt in the Matrix. Having lucid dreams was one of those experiences that brought me to the edge. As a result, today I am a person that don’t believe in Demons (I won’t be afraid of them even if they exist), I don’t worship Gods (I will not respect them even if they exist) and I don’t believe in fear (I will try to conquer them one at a time).

What I believe is myself and myself only. I’m not saying that everyone should start worship me instead of God, but what I’m trying to achieve in this lifetime is to have as many people believing in themselves like how I believe in me.

The Follower In Us
Believe me, being a 24/7 creator is a very tough job that even I think isn’t worth it. The reason we are living now is for us to have a chance to enjoy life. We do that by being both the creator and the follower. The follower in me loves Lord Of The Ring Trilogy and still finds that the best movie so far, and I enjoy listening to Rap music. You follow on areas that you do not excel in.

The Creator In Us
Every individual is unique. This statement is true even if you are born as a twins, you might have similar biological structure but your soul and mind is truly unique. Being unique guarantees each and every one of us to have the chance to do something that nobody else is able to achieve. Since I started believing in myself, I’ve shed many fears like fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of approaching females, fear of roller coaster rides (no matter how high, fast or whatever), fear of correcting superiors/customers when they are wrong, fear of losing a job and many many more.

I think I excel in the fear of demons department, so much so that even if they exist they will fled the very moment they see me because I will tear them apart and send them to hell again. The problem is I’m not sure if they can die twice. With this kind of courage, I’m able to help friends close to me to shed their fear of demons and spirits. Even my most timid friends are doing quite well now. Somehow they are able to rub on my fearlessness and benefit from it. One of my dreams are to be able to sleep overnight in a morgue full of dead bodies, so if you know of anyone who can assist me, please let me know. I’m even willing to pay for the experience!

Living Life To The Fullest
In the end, what matters most is everyone is able to live their lives to the fullest. We are all Creators from the first day we live and have the right to create whatever it is that we want, so stop being a full time follower and for once follow your heart and gain the courage to create. It will not be easy, but the Creator will always be there to encourage fellow Creators and will reward those with persistence.

No related posts.

So does that mean that we can live our lives any way we wanted? In actual fact, yes, because we are gifted with free will but is this ‘the way’ or ‘our way’? Well, that depends if you are truly happy adopting this kind of living. For me, I would like to live my life the way that I wanted but at the core of it, I still have my life purpose. That would make me more focused, complete, driven and whole…

The Five Pillars Of Life

In search of the way to live in a congruent and effective manner, I’ve come out with the Five Pillars Of Life. It is the result of all the living concepts that I’ve came across and fine tuned to be compatible with my life. I think after you’ve applied some minor personal adjustments, this concept can be applied to everyone. This is mentioned briefly in my first post The Beginning Of Life but I think this time I should elaborate more on how can we apply them in life.

The Five Pillars consist of Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Financial and Social. You can think of them like your five fingers when your palm is facing up. Imagine balancing a card on your five fingers pointing up, even when all of your fingers are of a different length, you will be able to hold the card by adjusting your palm and bending your fingers, but this will become more difficult if the difference in finger length becomes more or maybe you just simply choose not to use a particular finger or two. Doing this might tilt the card and force it to collapse entirely. This is the analogy that I would use to describe the same challenges in life, maintaining balance.

Physical

The Physical Pillar refers to the body, our avatar that we use to interact in this physical world. This is the most important pillar in my life and I am quite confident that it will remain that way throughout the course of my life. If you’ve read Social Omnivore, Excessive Workout Can Kill You and The Cause For Unhealthy Diet, you will notice that I take very much care of the well being of my avatar.

Those who pay no attention to their avatar will make no effort to maintain a healthy and efficient body. There are even some who wants to be fit but they cannot control their diet, simply put, those who’s action are not congruent with what they have in mind. These kind of people needs to strenghten their Mental self first.

Mental

The Mental Pillar is where the mind resides. This is the pillar where you improve on your intelligence, decision making, creative thinking, discipline and anything that relates to the thought process. Even with a healthy avatar, it won’t be efficient if you have a weak mind, after all, your mind is where thoughts are formed. Without a strong mind, you cannot express yourself honestly through your avatar.

A very good practice to improve on your mental self is to go for hiking, the more difficult, the better, especially those trips that needs you to be in the jungle for a few days. For many times, my strong mind is what keeps me going when my physical self surrendered. Your mind provides an energy beyond physical.

Spiritual

My spiritual journey started way before I knew it, as explained in Dream Control . I’m always curious about the universe, the paranormal, life and death, and the way our lives relates to it. I’m also curious as to what happens after life? These kind of curiousity led me to shed away my fears day by day until it got so scarse that looking for fear is one of my hobby now. Without fear, I have the ultimate courage to discover the truth, the answer to life.

Social

The Social Pillar is one of the pillars that I focused on at a later stage in life. I had a very unique kind of childhood experiences (I will explain when I’m ready) that resulted in me having very little (or none) social skill. As life goes on, I have no other choice but to develop them.

If you are still wondering if you can live this life alone, let me answer that now, you can’t. I’ve came to a conclusion that life is designed in such a perfect way that you have no way but to learn to love and live. I also believe in reincarnation and that those who took their own lives (by committing suicide) will be reincarnated over and over again until they finally learn the meaning of life.

Financial

Our society today has given money so much emphasis than they deserve, I have no choice but to include it in as one of the pillars. In my opinion, your financial condition should be very sufficient if your other four pillars are properly strengthened and balanced, but special attention needs to be given to it (a few years, perhaps) should you plan to be financially free before retirement.

Maintaining A Balance

As explained, an effort should be made to balance the Five Pillars to maintain a smooth sailing life with less obstacles. It is very normal for a particular pillar to be chosen as the core pillars and perhaps two other pillars as a supporting pillars, in my case, Physical as the core and Mental and Financial as the supporters. It might be entirely different in your case, perhaps 1 core with 3 supporters, whatever really, as long as it works.

When you begin to feel that there’s a void at a particular pillar, like when I have no choice but to strengthen my Social pillar to move forward in life and also to my Spiritual pillar when I doubt the existence of demons and gods, it is time to focus on them. I encourage for you to pick a pillar to focus on as a New Year’s resolution, different pillars every year.

It is my assumption that most people wouldn’t care about their Spiritual pillars all their life but I think when they are really old and sick, and all they do is sleep on a hospital bed, since they have nothing to do, they will think about it. Imagine, “All my life I’ve believed in God and right until my dying moments I still couldn’t see or feel him/her, have I been mistaken all my life?”.

Perhaps your mastery in balancing these pillars will decide if your life falls under one of these 2 quotes from my Mentor :

“Life is suffering” – Buddha
“The reason to live is to be happy” – Buddha

Related posts:

1. Book Review : Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina

Culture

I’m a Chinese. For those non-Asians, we sort of originated from China and are very well known for cooking. Since Chinese cuisines have many styles and variations, this is where the problem starts. When you have choices, you tend to try. Trying is the problem here. Hopefully staying and cooking on my own can solve this issue.

Besides those domestic issues you have the social culture at large. This is where your parks, towns, states, countries and world falls into. These are influenced by sustained product marketing. Look at Cokd and McG (sure hope they don’t sue me for affecting their market share..:D ) for example, 100 years of promoting their product as hip and convenient is surely a brainwash, and an effective one.

To keep it short, below are the top 10 food to stay away from your daily diet. This list is for those who wish to improve (i think most will use the word “sacrifice”) their diet for a better health and a stunning body. After all, when all else fails, you only have your body to count on.

Top 10 Food To Stay Away From Your Daily Diet

1. Sugar Water

By sugar water I mean everything which is on sale besides bottled mineral water and green tea. A can of soft drink contains 16.5 teaspoons of sugar. Can you believe that? Try eating 16.5 teaspoons of sugar accompanied by warm water, it is inconsumable. How has technology made it so easy to consume sugar nowadays.

If you really need some taste, green tea is the best alternative that I can find so far. You can opt for soy drinks too but most on the market are too sweet to be of actual benefits, keep looking.

2. Rice (especially nasi lemak)

I’ve reduced my rice intake by 80% since a few months ago and I don’t see any different on my body weight at all, so I’ve come to a conclusion that rice is not needed in my diet. Try to reduce your rice intake, especially nasi lemak. They ain’t called “fat rice” for nothing.

http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/restaurants/pantry/nasi-lemak.aspx
http://www.malaysia-hotels.net/food_dining/malay-food.html

3. Cut Down On Meat

I was a pure meat eater previously so I know how it is. Try to do your part instead of indirectly causing the slaughter of animals. Animal lovers who eat meat? Yeah right. Take fish instead if you wish to start things off slowly because they don’t cry while being butchered, it can really heal your conscience, seriously.

4. Bread ,Buns and Donuts

Hoho! I called them the deadly trinity! Enough said. If you must, choose whole wheat bread instead of white bread.

5. Junk Food (sweets, crackers, fries, cakes, chips, nuts, etc..)

They come in all ways and seems to appear always. Just choose and eat wisely. I found the low fat raw almond nuts to be quite inviting sometimes, just don’t chew off the whole packet!

6. Alcohol (beer, wines, liquor)

You’ll be safe if you are able to prevent yourself from crossing the thin line between casual drinking and senseless drinking. I couldn’t, which was why I ended up shying away from most drinking gatherings. The word “health” gets a whole new meaning after a few shots of liquor.

7. Chocolate and Ice Creams

They should belong to the junk food categories but I gave them a special slot since they were once my favourite food. When I was a kid I swore to never turn down any chocolate and ice cream offers. Looks like it doesn’t turn out well.

8. Caffeine

I was thinking of taking less coffee but caffeine is the culprit here. Checkout the link below for more details on the pros and cons of caffeine :

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?id=1378

9. Whipped Cream As Toppings

Any kind of whipped cream as topping is a sin. Get it and you’ll be whipped.

10. Milk
This one is kind of personal. I’ve had stomach discomfort for many years and I struggled to find the cause. Since replacing milk with my protein supplement, the uneasiness seemed to disappear. I also read that 75% of the world’s population has problems digesting cow’s milk, maybe that could be your problem too?

Now I ate less than 50% of the portion that I used to eat 2 years ago and I’m feeling better than ever and I believe that things can only be better!

No related posts.

Since my last entry in January, I’ve experienced and gone through some major tuning in both my sleep cycles and also my diet. For a start, my personal trainer’s recommendation of 4 days training per week almost destroyed my physical body. How is that so? It took me almost 3 months to realize it! I’ll explain.

Personal Training

For those who’ve been through the personal trainer’s torture, you will understand the true meaning when I say that they DO push you to the LIMIT! Not able to turn your steering wheel properly, not able to scrub your back during shower and unable to walk straight are common side effects. The first month was bad, returning to workout after a year’s break was painful. I quickly adjusted having a 3 days per week workout and an extra day with my trainer. I started off by taking GNC Pro Performance® Mass XXX™, a weight gain supplement since they are having a buy 1 get 1 free promotion at the time.

It increases my weight from 65 to 70kg from the 2 X 6lb(s) container in the course of 3 months. The taste (both chocolate and vanilla) was not great but it worked, I guess.

The 2nd and 3rd month were the same but I can see and feel that I’m having results, weighing more and growing stronger knowing that I’m carrying heavier weights. At this moment, I started to feel lethargic during work as I go to work after workout in the morning. It got worse from week to week until I fell sick at the end of the 3rd month of workout in March. That really surprised me as I rarely get sick. With the fact that I’m exercising regularly it made it even more difficult for me to find the cause of my sickness. I took a week’s off from gym to recover and I continued my usual workout routine after that.

The Transition

I resigned at the end of April. Having the knowledge that I might need to work late in the future, I’ve decided to have a normal sleeping cycle (12.30am to 7.30am) compared to previously. During this period I finished my weight gain and my trainer adviced me to take MuscleTech® Nitro-Tech Hardcore, a protein supplement.

I would really recommend this if you plan to build you body. Besides the protein it has enough nutrients for your body. You can practically drink a scoop of this and forget everything else for your breakfast. It tastes good too, both chocolate and vanilla. I’m taking 2 scoops during workout day (1 before and 1 after workout) and 1 scoop for breakfast during non-workout days. Most importantly, drink with cold water as hot water will kill off the protein.

I’ve been consistently having my 4 days workout (sometimes 5 days when I can make it!) throughout April and May until I broke down again during the last week of May. This time it freaked me out, getting sick twice in 3 months is unacceptable. Something is very wrong! As with the first, I could not find any reason apart from the rigorous training schedule. So I have no choice but to reduce the frequency to 3 times a week. I took 2 weeks off from training to fully recover. Few weeks down the road as more projects came in I dropped my frequency to twice a week. I’m free from sickness since then..

Listen To Your Body

I’m sure you have experienced a different feeling after eating some particular food, be it spicy, sour, sweet or whatever. Observe and pay attention to your body before, during and after eating and see how your body respond. Most of the time your body will be telling you something, it just depends on how you respond to it. Whatever you do, just treat your body well because your life depends on it, naturally.

I’m quite proud of my body overall but I always feel ashamed every time I’m able to squeeze a chunk of fat from the area around my abs. I did some observation and research on my eating pattern and I found out the cause. I will reveal this in my next article…

Related posts:

1. Being An Early Riser

I’m an efficiency freak. I’m a freak that refines every processes everytime I receive a job. I’m always thinking of ways to reduce the time spent on a repetitive job.

New Year Resolution

With being healthy as the first priority in life, I made myself a new year resolution for 2009. To buff up myself physically with a “social omnivorian” diet, which basically means half vegetarian.

The previous community gym that I went to does not have proper equipments for weight training. So as a sign of commitment, I registered myself for a 2 year membership in a well known club with additional personal training package.

My trainer recommended me to train 4 days a week, which was a 100% frequency increase from my previous workout routine. This will really disrupt my activities after work like overtime, freelance meetings and work, social gatherings, casual dating and most importantly, time for myself. It will simply turn me into a hard working moron! This just cannot be the way forward.

Challenges

From all of the methods that I came to know, rising early seems to give me the best fit. But the issue is that I’m not good at waking up early, all these years, I developed a habit of staying up late (on average until 5am) if I’m not working (or studying) the next day. In essence, I’m the exact opposite of an early riser, I’m a late sleeper. However, the benefit of total freedom after work far outweighs any cons, which was why I gave it a try anyway.

My plan was to wake up at 5.30am during gym days and 6am during non-gym days. I haven’t decided if I want to wake up early during weekends. Most probably I’ll shift my sleeping hours few hours in front, allowing me to sleep later, I’ll play be ear as time unfolds.

Waking up early one week before the start of my training schedule was actually for me to get used to it. As expected, I got some physical readjustment symptoms like slight headaches, mental fogginess and a weak body. However to my surprise, I was able to internalize the habit within 10 days.

Natural Highs

My overall mood skyrocketed since my first day of training. I got back the natural high feeling that I used to get during my previous training days few years back. If my body would allow me, I felt like working out on a daily basis.

Going to the gym in the morning is a further boost as there are not many people, giving me the opportunity to use any machines or weights without having to wait. Therefore, I am able to complete my training routine with less time needed, further increasing my efficiency.

The Results

Honestly, this is just the third week of the year and my trainer estimated that I will only see results at the end of 3 months. Perhaps I will write a different article with more details regarding my gym routine when the time comes.

Besides having a better quality of life during the day, I also have extra hours each day to pursue the things of my interests. These interests will change the course of my life in the coming months, hopefully for the better.

So stay tuned and expect more out of the norm articles from me at Selfmod.Net!

Related posts:

1. Excessive Workout Can Kill You

Ghost Oppression Phenomenon

I think I had my first sleep paralysis at the age of 10. The chinese called them the ghost oppression phenomenon because they believed that you are not able to be awake because spirits are lying on top of your body causing you to be paralyzed.

It was around 5pm in the evening when the sun’s position was just right where the ray was able to reach where I was sleeping. I woke up and heard some noises in the living room but I panicked when I was not able to move! I knew that the sun’s ray was right on my face because I can see them through my eye lids, not unlike what you would see when you direct the flashlight to your eyes with your eye lids closed.

As a member of a very superstitious family or race to be more precise, ghost oppression was the first to came to mind. I started to think which spirit is doing this to me and for what reason. After much thought, I decided to force myself to be awake, but to no avail. After spending around 5 minutes figuring out a way to wake myself up, I finally gave up trying. I went back to sleep out of exhaustion.

I woke up around 20 minutes later (as an estimation based on feelings) and I was still in the same state. This time I was getting more pissed off than fearful and I started forcing myself to be awake out of brute force. I tried for around 10 minutes and I finally managed to break out of paralysis. I was sweating when I woke up, mostly due to the direct sunlight and also the amount of energy I used. If I would put it into words, the feeling of waking myself out of sleep paralysis is like lifting a refrigerator that is lying on top of your body with sheer strength. I call this method force wake.

Sleep paralysis still occurred to me from time to time after that but I dealt with them with totally no fear as I already have the solution to deal with it via “force wake”.

Sequential Nightmares

Practicing force wake benefitted me in other areas of sleep, which is nightmare. I can always force myself out of a nightmare at will. So nightmares had little impact on me until when I was 12. Even though I had mastered force wake, somehow my subconscious mind are able to find a way to counter it, by forcing me to experience sequential nightmares.

During this period I was having very vivid nightmares and the worst thing was that they were sequential, meaning to say that those nightmares continue from where they ended prior to waking up. The was a time where I ended up having 6 sequential nightmare even after force waking myself for 6 times in the same hour. It goes like this :-

I took a bus and went to the back seat. It was around midnight and I was the only passenger. The bus went according to the route and then it went off into the woods. I started to be on alert but said nothing. The bus suddenly stopped in the deep jungle, and I stared at the direction of the driver. He turned off the engine and got up from his seat, heading towards me. It was dead silence. He started walking towards me. I had nowhere to escape as the only entrance was just next to the driver’s seat, so I forced wake myself.

Prior to this, after a force wake I will either not dream or in the worst case land myself in another different nightmare. So naturally I went back to sleep. To my surprise, the driver continued walking from where he left off before I woke up. I got really scared at this point and forced wake myself again. I repeated this cycle for 6 times where in the end the driver was only few feet from me. I could see his face clearly, he was an undead with a soft green aura around him.

I was tired of it and I knew he will get me on the next one, so I get off from my bed and joined my other family members in the living room watching TV. After 30 minutes of watching something I had no interest on and due to the fact that I need to go to school the next morning, I gathered enough courage to go back to sleep. Luckily for me, it didn’t continue, but it remained as my worst sequential nightmare in my life.

Joker Demon

At the age of 16, something more disturbing happened. I was having the same nightmare for 2 weeks. All of those nightmares were masterminded by the same joker demon, having the face of a joker.  This joker demon sent all kinds of creatures to attack, torture and even kill me as I was rooted to the ground, not being able to move and defenceless. Towards the end of the 2 weeks I got so mad I thought to myself, “Why am I allowing a demon, which is my own creation, to torture me every night causing sleepless nights?”. I told myself that I will do something the next time I see this demon, just something.

True enough, I met with the joker demon again that night but this time a very strange thing happened. Upon recognizing the joker demon, it confirmed that I was actually in a dream, it worked as a dream cue for me. It then activated the logical part of the brain which is usually shut off during a dream. This allowed me to have totally no fear for the first time in a nightmare. Instead of struggling for survival which I always do when I met the joker demon, this time I managed to stare right at his eyes without any signs of fear. I stared for a moment knowing that I was in control, and then I smiled, in the dream. The dream slowly faded and I was still smiling physically.

Lucid Dreaming

Since that day, I had similar experiences but it is not related to nightmares anymore. I call them dream control due to the lack of vocabulary.

I only found out the correct term Lucid Dream in 2001 when I was doing a research on dreams. I found a forum where people exchanged their experiences with lucid dreaming and also on how can we improve this skill. It lead me to have a lucid dream that week itself. In a lucid dream, everything in your dream construct sparkles with life. It is like you are connected to everything. Bring that mindset to the physical world and you will understand why am I behaving the way I am.

Download and listen to this podcast from Erin Pavlina here for a better understanding on lucid dreams, how to practice them (yes, anyone can have lucid dreams!), and how to improve them.

Angels And Demons

Lucid dream changed the way I look at reality. I began to believe that fear is never needed in our daily lives, which led me to begin my quest in eliminating fear from my life.

By eliminating demons from my life I also removed god from the picture. Angels and demons are only a different side of the same coin, one could not exist without the other. Gods are not needed when there are no enemies and vice versa. I ended up throwing the coin in exchange for total freedom, freedom from fear and worship.

Religion is also the cause of the worst war between humans. It forces us to look at others differently.  I prefer to look at everyone as a family, without borders, without fear. I don’t have any particular belief but I think being an atheist is natural for the time being.

The Reason Behind

Why am I having these experiences when I can find no one in my country who are having the same experiences as mine? It is not like someone introduced lucid dreaming to me and I started practising it. It just came out of nowhere. Whatever it is, I am actually grateful that I had such experiences. If I do not, I can imagine myself being afraid of ghosts, believing in god who does not exist and believing in superstitious craps.

Please don’t get intimidated by the effect lucid dreaming will have on you. Today I remember the joker demon as a spirit guide more than a demon. I will never be who I am without him. I can guarantee that lucid dreaming will be the best ride in your entire life! 1080 degrees cork screw is piss in comparison! But you will need a lot of work though. Good luck on that!

“Monks meditate daily hoping that they can wake up from a dream we called life”

References :-
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/stevepavlinacom-podcast-010-lucid-dreaming/
http://www.dreamviews.com/

No related posts.

Penang is one of the most developed island in Malaysia. It was announced as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in July 2008. Besides being one of the most popular historical cities in Malaysia, it is also a food heaven. Me and my friends ate practically everything we can set our eyes on! As usual, we went to a few visiting spots and the highlight would be Bukit Genting. Besides it being my first visit I also enjoyed the sunset styled Thai food.

All in all it was a great trip! Or so it seems…

Losing Hunger

I went to work the next day. During lunch, my colleagues noticed that I ate less than usual. My usual would be twice their portion so it was quite obvious. I told them that my stomach might still be digesting the food from Penang.

I went back home feeling tired. It got worse during dinner time, I had no appetite and started to have cold sweat. Those symptoms reminded me of the worse food poisoning that I had few years back. I slept real early that night.

To my surprise, nothing happened when I woke up in the next morning. Except one thing, I’m still not hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch the day before. At that point, I’m freaking out. As a big eater, that never happened before in my entire life! I decided to see the doctor. He couldn’t find anything wrong with me and gave me some salt sachet to help restore my body’s proper electrolyte balance and vitamin C tablets.

It took around a week or 7 days for me to get accustomed to the new food requirements. If my previous level of hunger is placed on a scale of 1 to 10. I would say the highest achievable level of hunger after losing hunger would be on the scale of 3. In other words, I don’t feel hungry anymore. Scary huh?

I’ve always wanted to try being a vegetarian as part of my self development exercise. I never got to do it due to my enormous appetite for food and also being a meat lover. Since I’ve already accepted the fate of losing the sensation of hunger, perhaps this is the best timing to be a vegetarian.

Vegetarian Detox

To tell you the truth, the first few weeks after losing hunger really felt like I don’t need food for survival. I felt that having enough fluids is enough for my daily diet. I’ve even contemplated on the idea to go on a fluid diet and see how long I can survive. If losing hunger was the first wave, I’ve even considered the possibility of a second wave where I will lose the need for liquids. I think my fascination in Breatharianism and Sun Gazing is taking its toll.

I ended up eating for the sake of eating, just to prevent myself from collapsing. 5 years ago I will consider myself being vegetarian a joke because I was such a pure meat lover. So pure to a state where I can eat only meat in meals, I can even skip drinking water. So I’m considering this a divine intervention.

Going vegetarian was quite easy without the hunger factor but a few detox symptoms can be observed. My head felt foggy or floaty after the 2nd day. Minor flu started on the 3rd day, it was not serious enough for me to apply sick leave but irritating enough to affect your daily job. I would say that the cumulative effects of these detox symptoms decreased my efficiency by 20%. All detox symptoms, mental fogginess and minor flu was gone after 2 weeks on a vegetarian diet.

Pros And Cons Of Being A Social Omnivore

Pros

- Preventing heart diseases or diseases in particular

I consider myself very healthy, judging from the average of 1 medical leave day per year for the past 5 years. Since my father died of cancer, I have no idea if I am inheriting it in my genes as well,  so I am a very health conscious person as a result of that. Better safe than well, dead.. right?

From the many articles I’ve read, reducing the consumption of meat will reduce the level of saturated fat and cholesterol in your body which will prevent the blockages in the arteries that will lead to a heart attack. I can’t really prove this one but so far my diet hasn’t failed me.

- Save the animals

It removed the dread that I sometimes get when eating meat, it’s more joyful now knowing that I don’t kill on a daily basis. You might not know what the animals that you eat has to go through in life to end up in your plate. Without much imagination I can guess that it isn’t pleasurable or fun to be put into this world and be eaten before their premature death.

I’ve even heard some people declared that they are animal lovers but they still eat meat. How unconscious can they be? I mean, it’s okay to eat meat. Do whatever you want with your life, I’m a supporter of free will, but please don’t contradict yourself.

- Help reduce waste

Since turning vegetarian I don’t need to dispose of animal wastes like bones, heads (as a kid I do eat chicken brain) , etc anymore.

- Losing fat

It was very difficult for me to reduce stomach flabs with my enormous appetite before. So turning vegetarian has given me a second chance in eliminating stomach flabs.

- Breaking addiction

Besides the health and social reasons, going vegetarian is also a test for me to overcome addiction, the addiction to meat. I’ve seen friend’s and colleague’s mixed results in quitting smoking, most of them failed, unfortunately. Since I’m not a smoker I need to give myself similar challenge. Breaking the addiction to meat sounded difficult, so I took it.

Cons

- Social outcast

Only about 2% of the people I know are vegetarian. So it’s a real challenge for me to keep up with this practice. So in order for me to “blend in”, I allowed myself to eat meat during social gatherings. On average I eat meat about once a week.

- Stereotype

Most of the people have a stereotype about vegetarians looking pale, weak & sickly. I really have no comments on this but I will go on a weight training schedule for the next 6 months to see if I end up pale and weak. Most of the time I learn from personal experiences and I find these stereotypes highly inaccurate.

Darwin’s Theory And Vegetarianism

Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. His theory :

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.

Being a social omnivore for 3 months now, I began to imagine what would be the next step in human evolution. I consider Darwin’s theory observed the physical side of evolution and I think we’ve almost reached a stage of perfection, judging from our current physical ability and the number of World Records being broken every year in sports. If our physical structure has been evolving through natural selection all this while, I think the next step in mental or spiritual evolution will be based on conscious choice.

If nature chose the more resilient species to survive, I think now it has reached a stage where we must dictate our next evolution as nature is dwindling down in numbers, so to speak. Using our diet as an example, humans are omnivores by nature but herbivors by choice. It is really interesting if we would choose to be herbivors as a species as a solution to the impending global disaster such as global warming.

Is This Permanent?

I really have no idea if this is permanent and I have no idea if I will turn full vegetarian, vegan or even a raw foodist in the future. Being a pure meat lover is definitely a no. Most probably I will stick to my current eating habit for awhile, eating meat socially or being a social omnivore. But one thing is certain, I will surely aim to improve as time goes by, definitely by conscious choice..

Related posts:

1. The Cause For Unhealthy Diet

Perhaps you can call it Law Of Attraction that lead me to have the review copy of this book. I did not plan to buy it, I just knew that somehow I will end up having a copy of his book. A week after announcing that his books are in the printing process, he gave out an opportunity for bloggers to get his free review copy of Personal Development for Smart People. I sent in a request and to my surprise I got it. That was totally unbelievable! This will be the rare opportunity for me to repay Steve for his relentless effort towards self development.

The Universal Principle To Conscious Growth

Steve’s book will explain the three core principles that defines a conscious effort towards self development which are Truth, Love and Power, and their extensions Oneness, Authority, Courage and Intelligence.

Truth – All forms of expressions and communications must be rooted in truth. To start of your growth you must first accept who you truly are, even if you do not have enough strength to overcome your weaknesses at that moment.

Love – Is the strength of the connections that we have towards other human beings, animals, places or even things. The stronger it is, the more you are aligned with conscious growth.

Power – Refers to your ability to alter reality. This includes your ability to create your unique personality, successful career, wonderful relationships and anything that you desire.

Oneness – Is the combination of truth and love. Love is knowing that you can connect by choice. Oneness is knowing that you are already connected. Oneness is pure unconditional love.

Authority – Is the combination of truth and power. Truth without power accomplishes nothing. Power without truth generates wasted action. The principle of authority teaches you to purposefully blend knowledge and action to produce intelligent results.

Courage – Is the combination of love and power. Courage allows us to see through short-term challenges to achieve a long-term goal.

Intelligence – Is alignment with truth, love, and power. Every step we take in the direction of truth, love, and power is a step toward greater intelligence.

Once you understand them (or even if you haven’t), Steve provide substantial practical application of his principles in areas such as habits, career, money, health, relationships and spirituality.

Habits – With the proper alignment with truth, love and power, you will gradually drop those habits that no longer empowers you, for example, cursing, smoking, drinking and speeding. You will then pick up empowering habits such as being punctual, organized, like helping others and reading.

Career –  Your career has two components: your medium and your message. Your medium is how you express yourself, but your message is what you express. For example, a doctor’s message could be about healing, compassion, scientific discovery, education, vitality, or a variety of other possibilities.

Money –  Money is the primary social resource. Money is essentially social credit. It’s an IOU from society, enabling you to extract a certain amount of social value whenever you spend it. The more money you have, the more society owes you, and the more value you can extract.

Health –  Your body is your avatar (the image that represents you) in the physical universe. It’s the character you control, and you’re the consciousness that controls it. All of your experiences in the physical universe come through your physical body. It’s your primary vehicle of interaction here, so it makes sense to take proper care of it.

Relationships – Human relationships are a tremendous source of learning and growth. Sharing your life with others is one of the best parts of being human, but it doesn’t come without risk. Unlike other aspects of personal development, the stakes are higher with relationships because your mistakes could potentially hurt someone deeply. There’s no getting around that risk completely, but the decision to align yourself with truth, love, and power will help guide you through the major stumbling blocks. When you make mistakes, do your best to forgive yourself, forgive others, and move on.

Spirituality –  Spirituality refers to your collection of beliefs about reality. As you use the power of conscious choice to bring your life into greater alignment with truth, love, and power, the long-term result is spiritual wisdom and peace. Your life reaches a new level of clarity where all the parts begin working harmoniously together.

My Personal Thoughts

Honestly, Steve helped me achieve self development to some degree even before I read this book. It includes :-

- Reducing coffee
- Reignite my passion in developing lucid dreams (more to Erin on this one)
- Being a vegetarian (not completely yet due to social conditioning)
- Quitting alcohol (I still drink socially, again due to social conditioning)
- Started blogging

Personally, I’m not a fan of forms or structures, I prefer to go formless and be free of fixed rules. However, Steve did a great job aligning them to a point that it makes great sense. I felt a tingling sensation after finishing reading the book, a feeling that’s always there when I discover something insightful, and I smiled. I’m elevated by Steve again!

Personal Development for Smart People is a great package that includes a very structured approach and also filled with very practical exercises that you can start working on to create a more conscious world to live in. I really would recommend it to anyone who wishes to enhance themselves, to find their purpose in life and even those who need just that little motivation to start improving.

(Click here to download his free Intro & Chapter 1 of Personal Development for Smart People)

Coupled with his online contributions/articles in www.stevepavlina.com , the value that you are getting far outweighs the money that you are paying for this book. This guy is really devoted to raising the world’s collective consciousness to a higher level. Let us join him to create Oneness World!

Improvements are contagious. Modify yourself!

Related posts:

1. The Pillars Of Life

Bruce Lee was an American-born Chinese in the year 1940. Those who are not familiar with his work or philosophy might only think of him as a great martial artist and a famous actor. He shot to international stardom when he was featured in “Batman” and also a season of “The Green Hornet” in 1966-1967. Little is known about his spiritual side which forms the foundation of his fighting art or more accurately, his life. He studied philosophy, drama and psychology during his university years. Perhaps that explains why it has a major impact on him apart from his knowledge in martial arts.

He also describes that the body mechanics works best by unifying the body and spirituality in one of his quote :-

“One of the extremes would be unscientific, another end of it, will turn you into a mechanical man, no longer human. It is through the combination of both where you can express yourself truthfully.” – Bruce Lee

His Teachings

Bruce Lee teaches martial art as a way for his pupil to express their emotions through body movements. He does not believe in any kind of form or structure, he sees them as obstacles to achieving natural expression. His best quote follows…

“Be formless… shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be water, my friend…” – Bruce Lee

Law Of Attraction (LOA)

You might not believe this but Bruce Lee is actually one of my spiritual masters. For me, his teachings are the old school way of practicing Law Of Attraction (LOA) and The Power Of Now (PON) or perhaps he is the only person I know that practices LOA and PON in an entirely different way. He mentioned that to honestly express one’s self is incredibly difficult, it might take years of training, most of the time, a lifetime. The new age LOA teachings describes how we can attract or create the things that we want into our lives. The better you are in LOA, the less time it takes to create or attract the things that we want.

From Bruce’s perspective, he is trying to achieve perfection in expression. I would imagine that his ultimate goal is to achieve a state where he can react in lightning speed to his opponent’s advances countering all possible attacks. We know that this is impossible, he knew that too but he can do one thing, which was to improve every part or components of himself which were his belief, strategy, confidence, physical strength, edurance and speed. This way, he can become closer to his ideal self (the things that he want), very similar to the concept of LOA.

The Power Of Now (PON)

The Power Of Now encourage us to focus on the present moment, and ignore the past and future because ultimately, the present moment is the only time where creation takes place. This can be seen from Bruce’s belief to detach from any form of structure, for example, the attachment to a particular form of martial arts like boxing, kung fu or karate (the past) and also to ignore all related fear, for example, the fear of the unknown which refers to the unknown strategies or moves that the opponent will execute (the future). He focuses only on the “Now” moment, gathering only the existing information that is “present” and come out with a solution or action. This way, he will be super efficient because he has less information to process (only the present data, compared to past, present and future) and he will not have worries or fear in executing his moves.

Closing

“I think of myself as a human being, under the sky there is but one family, it just so happen that people are different”. – Bruce Lee on whether he thinks he’s Chinese or North American.

Bruce Lee will always be remembered as the most efficient fighting machine of all time. Besides that, his work in martial arts will serve as a guide to anyone who wishes to glimpse the ultimate level of physical expression, which can be viewed either from a physical or spiritual perspective.

While doing some research for this article, I found out from Wikipedia that Bruce was an atheist. When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied “none whatsoever,” and expressed disbelief in God.” Hmm, exactly what I would answer if I were given the same question. Perhaps I’m on the right track to achieve honest expression?

Please view his rare interview in “The Pierre Burton Show (1962) : Real Media format”. In it, he explains his life, views and methodology on martial arts from his personal perspective.

No related posts.