. . Life of Pi . .

Pity Mukmuk. While his friends Quatchi, Miga and Sumi gallivant off everywhere entertaining children in the lead up to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, Mukmuk the marmot is left to pick up the trash and tag along behind. For those of you who don’t know poor Mukmuk, he’s the virtual reality sidekick to the Vancouver 2010 mascots. He lives mainly in cyberspace. Well, cyber jail, really, because he doesn’t get out much.

Unlike his friends, who are real mascots, Mukmuk’s parents, the Vancouver Organizing Committee, see him as a pint-sized tag end whose place in the Games seems akin to an afterthought. The end of a sentence. Or, as they say in their literature: “Sidekick to the Vancouver 2010 Mascots.”

Sort of like “secretary to the president” or “official sweeper upper.”

Instead of being the Vancouver Island marmot that he is, Mukmuk has become something of a gofer. As in “Hey Mukmuk, go for this” or “go for that.” And the pity is, he’s the only real animal of the lot.

As a Vancouver Island marmot, he’s one of only an estimated 205 that have survived wolves, eagles and loggers. That makes him almost as rare as Quatchi the Sasquatch, Miga the “sea bear” and Sumi, the thunderbird-like “animal guardian spirit.”

I’ll bet many of you thought when Vanoc unveiled the mascots, “hey, what about that little guy at the end? Why isn’t he also going to be made into a toy?” At least now you can buy little MukMuks with the red olympic gloves at London Drugs. That sold out in about a day leaving tonnes of the “other mascot” toys around. Doesnt that say something?! The Mukster is popular! (or maybe they just stocked 1/8 of his toys vs the other ones.)

So far, all we’ve seen of the little furball is a cameo appearance in the video introduction of the Three Amigos. He’s the poor sod shivering on a mountain top, skiing down to Whistler on a para-ski thrown to him by Sumi, and handing the hot cocoa-drinking mascots an invitation to attend the 2010 Games. He’s had to bring up the rear every time The Officials head off anywhere, holding up a “We’re No. 1” mitt.

The only thing he’s missing is the broom with which to sweep up the confetti at the end of the tickertape parade. Oh, and he takes out the recycling. Vanoc gave him the job of throwing around boxes of recyclables like curling rocks in its interactive game “Operation Recycle” while the headliners lounge on the sidelines.

This is what I see Vanoc describing the little homie as: Mukmuk is a small and friendly Vancouver Island marmot who always supports and cheers loudly for his friends during games and races. When he is not hibernating or sunbathing on rocks and logs, he enjoys getting out to meet other types of marmots and animals. In fact, this is how he became friends with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic mascots.

They also say his hobbies are “eating, burrowing, eating, making friends, eating.” Sounds like me… but not a ringing endorsement of his capabilities, I’d say. Won’t get him any contracts for any other kind of work.

Even I’m not really sure what he is. I mean, I instinctively like him just because he’s the outcast (I have a soft spot for Kogepan too). I know he’s got great things going for him. But what does he like to do? What would he like to do if he was a full-fledged mascot? Where does he live, and with whom? What’s his favorite sport? Does he have any fears (like flying or getting caught while sunning himself on a log?) Apart from Quatchi, Miga and Sumi, who are his friends? Does he have any stories of his own he wants to tell? Poor little guy. All I know is that this Friday when the torch lights the last flame to start the Olympics, I’ll be cheering for Canada just as loud as the little dude.

Check out this site. It’s got 50 Life Secrets to live by and they’re pretty good tips. Here are my top 10 favorites, check out the link at the bottom for the rest of the list!

1.                               Constantly try to reduce your attachment to possessions. Those who are heavy set with material desires will have a lot of trouble when their things are taken away from them or lost. Possessions do end up owning you, not the other way around. Become a person of minimal needs and you will be much more content. 

2.                               Develop an endless curiosity about this world. Become an explorer and view the world as your jungle. Stop and observe all of the little things as completely unique events. Try new things. Get out of your comfort zone and try to experience as many different environments and sensations as possible. This world has so much to offer, so why not take advantage of it?

3.                               Learn to focus only on the present. The past is unchangeable so it is futile to reflect on it unless you are making sure you do not repeat past mistakes. The future is but a result of your actions today. So learn from the past to do better in the present so that you can succeed in the future.

4.                               Don’t take life so seriously! Learn to laugh at the little things and this whole “existence” thing will be a whole lot easier. Be amused by your mistakes and failures and be thankful that you learned your lesson and won’t mess up like that again. And most importantly do things that you enjoy! Life is not strictly business, it can be mixed with pleasure.

5.                               Help others. I’ll just give you a plethora of reasons why this is a MUST

• Helping people has a ripple effect. If you help someone they will feel more obliged to help someone else, and so on. Pay it forward
• You grow by giving and helping others. It can change you in ways you never expected
• Your relationship with that person will become stronger
• It’s the most fulfilling thing you can do on this planet. It not only feels amazing physically, you also feel like a good person
• You might be able to call in a favor later when you need some help
• Karma (if you believe in it)
• Because there are more people in this world than just you

6.                               Learn to be unaffected by the words of others. Most people get very upset when they are called negative names by others, but there is a simple trick to overcoming this. Here it is:  If I went up to you and called you a fire hydrant, would you be upset? Of course not. Obviously you are not a fire hydrant, you are a human being. The same concept applies to when someone calls you something that you know you are not. They are foolish for saying such things, so why would you react with such anger? The only exception is when someone calls you something that is true! In this case, you should thank them for alerting you to a weakness, one that you can now work on changing.

7.                               Develop the ability to forgive. Forgiveness is something that most people fail miserably at even thought it’s so simple. Grudges only bring more misery to those who hold them and prevent good relations with the target. YOU makes mistakes all of the time so why not have mercy when other do? Remaining angry feels horrible while forgiving someone brings a refreshing sensation to the mind and healing to the relationship.

8.                               Learn to use your eyes to their full potential:

• Make constant eye contact when in conversation. Looking away (especially down) is a sign of inferiority and unsureness. Instead, look at your conversation partner dead in the eyes and keep them locked on
• Master the piercing stare. You know when someone looks at you and it feels like they can see into your soul? Well that’s not a hereditary characteristic, it just takes practice. Work on sharpening your gaze in the mirror. You’ll know you have it when it’s intimidating to continue looking at yourself
• Master the one-eyebrow raise. This one isn’t necessary by any means, but hey, why not? Pick a brow to learn with and go look in a mirror. Raise both of your eyebrows but use your hand to hold down the brow that you want to stay down. This will probably feel very stupid at first but if you keep trying, you will eventually pin down the muscle you need to flex to get that one brow up

9.                               Be mysterious. Don’t let off everything about you and definitely leave out some major details. There is something both alluring and mesmerizing about someone that no one knows fully about. I’m not saying to confide in no one or to alienate yourself. Just think James Bond.

10.                           Don’t burn bridges. By that I mean maintain your relationships with people even if you think you are never going to see them again. For example, if you are quitting your job, don’t chew out your boss before leaving! You might run into him/her again later and life and wish you had never severed ties so harshly. You never know when you might need the help of someone you knew in the past. Plus there is already too much hatred in this world, why add more towards the people you interact with?

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2VeCv9/www.highexistence.com/life-secrets-and-tips/

People are funny creatures. We are the only creation of God that has free will and action on thought. All other living beings survive on instinct, the behavioral conditioning of their species. Humans are different, we were given the gift of thought, reasoning and stupidity. Instead of acting on instinct every single time, we are able to choose first whether to act on that instinct or not. If you Pavlov your dog to pee every time he heard a bell, he would for the rest of his life ,if properly trained, pee every time he heard a bell. A bunny will perk his ears if he hears something rustling nearby and will hop the f away if he feels endangered. It’s in their genes to do X when Y happens and they will do it. For people, whether it’s a gift or curse, we can choose to do everything and anything between A to Z of Y happens. Why do you think girls keep going out with bad boys even though they’d gotten hurt by the last 5 bad boys. Or why some guys constantly find themselves poor after falling for diggers everytime. ”Oh she’s different.” People are idiots.

One of the cons in my mind of this supposedly gift of conscience and choice is that sometimes we just think way too much. Once something is done, it is done and no amount of dwelling or wishing will change what is done. I always say “If you can do something about it, do it. If you can’t, don’t dwell.” Forget wasting time thinking of the could haves. Be like Tiger, just do it. And if you can’t do it, move on and revisit when you can but don’t waste time sitting there crying about it. If you do that, you’ll do nothing else but cry over spilt dairy.*Sigh* I try to tell myself that as I lay awake for the 5th consecutive night, underslept and overthought, dwelling. While I’m guilty of not following my own advice, if I tell myself that it’s a waste of time enough times, I’ll eventually snap out of it and move onto more productive things better worth my time. ’Did I do well on that interview, Did I get the job, Oh man I should have said this instead of that, I should have this and that…’ ‘Should I call her? Man she pissed me off though and it’s not what I want but what if. What if this and that. I said I’d do that, and it makes sense to, but what if…’ Time is best wasted flip flopping. More times than not, your first gut decision is the right one and for whatever reason you made that choice is the best logical and emotional one. Now I’m not saying thinking is bad. You have to weigh out all your options and possible paths and make the best go-forward plan, but for Christmas’s sake, don’t change your mind more than once unless new options and paths pop up. If you’re flip flopping between the same points more than 2 times, you’re now obsessing. And obsessing is not attractive.

One of the strengths of powerful and successful people is the ability to make a decision and stick with it. All leaders have this trait to be able to confidently decide the best possible path, choose to go down it and see it through to the end. Of course making changes along the way is good as new things come up, but those decisions to change are still followed through until new things pop up and until they do, no more thought is put into it. So many times I’ve found myself lost in thought of decisions I’d already made. I would lay in bed thinking and driving myself crazy over more things that could have happened instead of focusing on what I should make happen. People are funny creatures. Even though we know what we’re doing is detremental and hazardous to our forward moving, better productive psyche, we sometimes just don’t care and keep doing it anyways.

val·ue

//  (vly)

2. To regard highly; esteem. See Synonyms at appreciate.3. To rate according to relative estimate of worth or desirability; evaluate: valued health above money.4. To assign a value to (a unit of currency, for example). val·ue (vly)

In our materialistic and consumer driven culture within North America, we always look at objects and determine what it’s worth to us, whether it’s worth the price that’s listed on the tag and whether that price is worth it’s value to us. That’s the beauty and art of sales. Everything has a value to somebody whether it be a $1 chocolate bar to a $2000 laptop to a $240 pair of jeans. While materials are easy to determine their value because they’re all created with a purpose and for an target market, how easy is it to determine the value of a person? How valuable are you?

2 weeks ago I upped and left my job. A few mortgages, rent, bills, a life and no income. It’s alright, I thought, it was only a temporary job anyways. One that I needed to fill the time with while I searched for another one that was more relevant to my experience and goals. It’s a funny and ironic path that’s led me to where I am right now actually. I’ve always been a sort-of-lucky kind of guy. Ask my friend Gracie to tell you some stories, she knows them all, but sometimes things just happen to fall into place for me. I’m always grateful of course. Being a Chinese kid, my mom always told me stories like “‘Aaaah Jai, people are lucky in this life because in their past lives they were kind and good and now they are being rewarded for it. If you take it for granted, you will be punished for it in the next life by having no luck!” So being the listen-to-your-mom kind of son, I’ve always been thankful for my luck and fortune. While I believe in Fate, I think it only goes as far as showing you the path and leaves the choice of whether you walk that path of not up to you. I think life is like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. There’s always a choice as to which path you want to take, but Fate only offers you a limited number of choices based on your environment.

For me the path started in 2001 when I graduated from SFU with a BBA. A young and eager, fresh faced businessman out to make his mark. I had dreams of the corner office in a downtown company, complete with the custom tailored suit, Italian silk tie and convertible BMW in my own parking spot. I’d be wheeling and dealing, closing deals and making acquisitions. Holding board meetings with my directors and being a firm and performance driven Executive but one that listens to the everyman of the company as well to continually drive profits and growth from every aspect.

My first career was working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Hardly the board meeting type of company, but nonetheless, offered great management and entrepreneural training. I excelled as a corporate accounts manager, closing bodyshops and dealerships on using rental vehicles instead of owning their own fleet of courtesy cars. That led to my second career at Canon Business Solutions. Headhunted to fill an Account Executive role, they stole me from Enterprise Rent-A-Car and thus ended my days of washing cars in suits and selling car rental services to grease-faced, monkey-suit wearing body shop managers. At Canon, slanging 50k photocopiers was fun for a bit. I made top rep in Canada for a while but the best thing to happen to me out of Canon was that it enabled me to buy my first condo. I remember my days at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, my manager at the time would look at the picture of a decked out suite displaying a living room of a condo I had cut out and had pinned up above my computer and laugh. “Pius wants to buy a condo downtown on his Assistant Managers paycheque.”  Well, I did it, but he was right. It was on the Canon paycheque that I did it. Thanks though Robbie, if it weren’t for what you said, I probably wouldn’t have worked that hard to prove that you’re an idiot.

While I was going through the process of saving up and buying my first condo, I fell in love with real estate. I looked at 16 places before I found one I loved and bid on and ended up buying. I enjoyed browsing through each condo though, seeing the differences in layout and spacing. I nerded out on stats of the market and fluxuations of interest rates and types of financing. I calculated and recalculated the investment versus profit margins and ratios and would stay up until 3-4am every night dreaming of what I’d do with 10 properties. I’d retire and play all day. One night, after I’d finished renovating  the place for the day, I sat in the dark and empty living room by myself, my tools around me, the place a messy construction site. I looked around and told myself “This is mine. Finally.”

I left Canon because I had problems with my manager and we didn’t see eye to eye on some practices. I had briefly contemplated going into real estate, but with a fresh mortgage and not enough knowledge, I decided to take the offer at Business Objects. I had gone in to sell them Canon copiers, but lost the deal to Xerox instead (How can you win against Xerox when half the executives at Business Objects were old Xerox employees?!? Outright epic fail). Even though I was unable to secure the contract for Canon, Business Objects liked my mad skills and offered me a contract. Of all my careers so far, I’ve enjoyed working there the best. I made Presidents Club twice in 3.5 years, rewarded with all expenses paid trips to Australia and Hawaii as well as earning a decent income along the way which enabled me to purchase more property.

Alas, all great things must come to an end and we were bought out by SAP. The Germans came just like they did in 1944 and scooped us right up, bought out and taken over. My career path came to an abrupt halt with all the changes that followed. Shizer. I was fairly unhappy with the way things were and after about 8 months, it came to a point where my personal health was being affected. I was moody, lazy and didn’t want to work. I was late everyday and left early as often as I could. My ambition and drive were dropping faster than the Japanese economy and it wasn’t the direction anybody would want to go towards. One day during a weekly meeting with my manager, I quit with no near future plan and lived off my savings for a bit. I spent the next 4 months on an extended vacation, the first time in 15 years that I was unemployed. I played hockey at night and rode my bike during the day. Woke up at 1pm and went to bed at 5am. I even went to Cabo San Lucas and kayaked, tanned and swam in the ocean. A dream life I gotta say.

Coming back home on the plane from Cabo, I started talking with the passenger next to me. It turned out he was the CEO of a growing software company and was looking for an experienced rep to start and lead a sales and marketing team. Another month of freedom later, I sat in my new office (no longer cubicle) and proceeded to make this small 20 man company into a multinational corporation. Unfortunately, Wall Street USA had different plans and October 2008 hit, sending the world economy into a puke bucket and taking hundreds of thousands of people with it. Although we were never effected as much as the States, Canada still felt a recession and my small 20 man company went bankrupt and I was laid off. I was given 2 weeks to find a job due to another mortgage that I had to sign in 5 weeks and needed a show of employment or the deal was off. Luckily, I’d found a few companies willing to hire me and this brings us back to the temporary job that I’d just upped and quit 2 weeks ago due to moral reasons.

Coming to a realization after my 4th career change that I would be much happier and fulfilled doing my own thing, after 7 years of ‘could of’s’ and ‘maybe next year’s’ and ‘soon I will’s’ I’m finally taking the realtors course at UBC and getting my license. I’ve been studying my ass off for the past couple of weeks (hence the lack of posts recently!) and it’s been refreshing to be a student again. Selling car rental services, selling photocopiers, selling enterprise software, selling custom software developments, selling internet marketing services, selling homes. That basically sums up my professional experience for the past 8 years and the only things that stayed consistant in that time was that I was selling something by showing a value to my client in what I represent and that I followed real estate since that first cut out picture of the living room of a condo I had tacked above my computer screen at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.  Follow your passion, I always say. Take a chance, I said before. Who knows how successful I’ll be at my next challenge but what I do know is that it’s going to be hella fun and I’m going to be a happier, more relaxed version of myself and that in itself is success already.

(Let me be your realtor!)

Working a 9 to 5 is highly over-rated and so is earning a paycheque. People base so much of their lives on their job and forget that living isn’t about working, it’s about living. How then, can we combine the joy of living with the need for an income? A dream job?

A dream job is an outlet where you achieve and feel fulfilled. You want a dream job because you want to feel like you are making a difference and you’re making a difference when you are helping other people. After all, isn’t that all a job is? People pay you to do something for them or provide them with something, tangible or not.

If you help other people get what they want, and allow them to see the value in what you offer, you in turn will get everything you want and feel fulfilled.

You have been living someone else’s life, achieving someone else’s goals.

It’s time to set your own rules, to play your own game. To have the courage to say “I will not settle anymore and I am tired of listening to other people.” When you do this, you set your own standards and you are able to enjoy the process of life and appreciate when you have achieved your goal. Imagine yourself living by your own standards and the freedom that comes with it. This sounds easy right? Just quit your job and travel the world, go on shopping sprees, play hockey all day and party all night. Oh wait, we need money, I guess we still need to work. But while work is a necessary part of life, unhappy or unfulfilled work doesn’t need to be part of the deal.

Success is much easier than fulfillment. Why? Because success is external and fulfillment is internal. It is much more challenging to identify your own standards than to borrow those of others, of what society places on us. The real benefit of stealing other people’s standards is that if you fail, you can blame them and not yourself. This is the benefit, but is it really that great when it comes with the price tag of failure just because it comes prepackaged with a scapegoat? There is no long term fulfillment with external motivators.

My buddy is an Account Executive for a fortune 100 software company (as I once was) and travels across North America. He has week stays in New York, dining with clients. Travels to LA, San Fran, Austin, and even Raleigh North Carolina (which have some of the nicest people in the States by the way). He makes a great income, has car and cell phone allowances, company credit cards, stock options, the works. But he’s miserable. No matter how much money he makes or how many interesting projects he is working on, he’s always thinking about what he doesn’t have and he’s always thinking of that because he’d rather be doing something else.

He’s achieving success externally, but hardly fulfilled internally. A dream job is where both your talents and interests collide. Your talents will allow you to achieve, and your interests will allow you to be fulfilled. The real trick is to do what you love, what you have passion for and still be able to monetize it. Sounds easy right? We all know it’s not or else all we’d see on Monday mornings are smiley happy faces, eager and ready to start the week. But instead Mondays suck. To those of you who are making a living that is comfortable for you and allows you freedom to express your creativity, knowledge and interests, I envy you. To those of you who are brave enough to say “Screw this, I quit. Life’s too short to be spending 9 hours a day unhappy.” and take a plunge into the unknown for a chance of something better, I salute you. To those of you who stay at your positions, moping day in and day out, complaining that your life sucks while doing nothing about it, I pity you.

Listen. Screw this. I quit.

hockey pool draft night

For the past 6 years, every Friday was boys night. Some nights we would rent out an ice rink and have a game of pick up hockey with 26 other buddys , some nights we’d go to Earls and have a few beers while watching the Canucks, but the majority of the nights were just spent chilling at my place downtown playing Xbox, everything from Gears of War to MotoGP to NHL 2k/EA (I challenge anyone to Guitar Hero…be ready to be pwnd!). To give you an idea of how much we played, we’ve gone through 4 Xbox’s and 3 Red Rings of Death…in 5 years. All you guys reading this are going “Aw hells ya, that sounds like fun.” and most girls are probably rolling their eyes at how gay we are.  But Friday was boys night and it meant that after a long week of working in our offices, dealing with targets and quotas and submitting expenses and managers meetings and having to listen to your whiny coworker talk about her sock fetish, Friday was here, and it was time to relax.

Now, you’re thinking. Why can’t you relax with girls too? Why is it just boys night? At the time we all had girlfriends and we hung out with them Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays to Thursdays, so Fridays was just chill night. Not that we couldn’t chill with our girlfriends, but it was different when you’re just chillin with the boys. You want to sleep in until 5pm? While your girlfriend is knocking on your door because ‘it’s a nice day and you shouldn’t waste it sleeping’, your boys don’t care, they’re probably still sleeping too.

My boys are like my brothers. As tight as a family could be, we are. We fight each other like brothers, bicker like family, make fun of each other, get pissed off at each other, and when it counts the most, we have each others back every time. Sometimes it’s to give 3 weeks of your time to help someone renovate their apartment and sometimes it’s having to call Popo on a domestic dispute because one of your boy’s ex girlfriends was over trashing his place and threatening suicide and sometimes it’s just to throw the football around. On the first of this month 2 of my boys moved to Austin Texas for work. Austin? Ya. Austin. What the hell is out in Austin? A whole lot of football apparently. It’s kind of weird not having them around. Shin’s been my boy since high school and was my roomate for 5 years. And Chucky I saw pretty much every second day for 7 years and gives awesome advice. Curtis has been my best friend since we were 20 (who the hell is that white guy singing a Chinese song at Mings??) He’s a Vancouver lifer too so at least he’s not moving. When you’re as tight with your friends as we are, you’ll understand that when you’re with your closest friends and family, you’re the most relaxed. They already know your worst traits, been through countless shitstorms and rock bottoms with you and they’re still your friend. There’s nothing else you could say or do that would have them renounce you, so you’re just…you. Not the you that’s the son, the daughter, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the colleague. None of those masks are on, and there’s no one you need to be other than you. That’s pretty stress free.