To survive and thrive, I feel I have no choice but to consciously cultivate and live with a relentlessly optimistic and aesthetic outlook on life. The alternative is unconsciously backsliding into a miserable, depressing, hopeless cynicism. You may rightly point out that there is a middle between those ends. The choices of our outlook are not binary. It is a spectrum of infinite gradations. I acknowledge that. There is a middle, of course. But it …
For me, the one quality that gets anyone hired, liked, nurtured, feted and even championed is indispensability. You can make a persuasive case for your hire if you cultivate this quality. Whatever your profession, employment or job. To be indispensable is to be essential, necessary, and integral to something. Being indispensable is to be part of the nucleus. It is commonly associated with salutary qualities such as reliability, sensibility, competency, credibility, loyalty, motivation and initiative. …
You can do this. Get the pen and paper out. Or keyboard and screen. Or thumbs on the screen. Whatever works. All work. I can do it anywhere, anytime. Just a flat surface, paper and pen. Or my laptop. Get the timer out. Set the alarm. Set it for a minute. Just one. Can’t be writing more than one. Before starting the clock, close eyes and think about something. Breathe. See what comes. Get a …
‘How is it you dare to be so upfront and personal on your blog?’ A friend of mine asked me the other day. ‘Really? I’m just relating what I learned and endured from my personal experience. I suppose it is necessarily personal so I can be sure of the truth I speak or write about. And I am the upfront sort. It keeps things clear.’ ‘Yah. It’s like you let people into your mind. What …
Litigation is a drag these days. For the most part. A primary reason for that is regrettably my colleagues at the bar. Not all of them, of course. There are competent and credible ones who are also reasonable, fair and pleasant. But they are like Malaysian public holidays: they exist, they are celebrated but there’s never enough of them. My sense of it is there is a widespread misguided idea of what it is lawyers …