Are we Happy in our life or are we happy about our life?

I had mentioned in another post the following; "Happiness is perhaps an ultimate aim of everyone on this earth. It has become a state that is hard today to have a singular definition or description of happiness as it varies from one individual to another which also varies from culture to culture. The variety includes the state of a person's economic well being,  joy in relationships, accomplishments and even a sense of purpose that is larger than one's own life perhaps. The human mind is being studied in advanced countries to help more people achieve what is called authentic happiness."

I asked an open question in facebook not too long ago, "Are you happy in your life or happy about your life?" From the little feedback received, I realized not many really understood the difference in the way the two statements are constructed as they sound almost similar and yet there is a subtle difference. As pointed out by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel prize winner in economics and the author of the book THINKING, FAST and SLOW, one is based on our memory of what happens in our life and the other is based on a summary we call our experience in life. You can watch a video of his talk found here.


I enjoy keeping up with cutting edge technology in reading the latest scientific books and using latest released technology almost as much as reading spiritual books based on latter-day revelations and applying each day's spiritual inspiration from God! Each knowledge adds on to the fullness of Man thus fulfilling what I believe to be a major purpose for us to be born and to live on this earth. Learning has become a great source of happiness to me and I've spent a lot of time documenting memories of my life filled with rich experiences! I've always been interested in Thinking and reading Daniel Kahneman's work has helped me gain further understanding of the working of our brain over and above the basic knowledge that I've learned.

I had learned from the book that social scientists in the 1970s broadly accepted two ideas about human nature. First, people are generally rational, and their thinking is normally sound. Second, emotions such as fear, affection, and hatred explain most of the occasions on which people depart from rationality. That was what I had believed too, always blaming emotions to my irrational acts. The work of the author challenged the two assumptions or ideas above without discussing them directly. Instead, he and his partner Amos had documented systematic errors in the thinking of normal people and traced the errors to the design of the machinery of cognition rather than to the corruption of thought by emotion! In the words of the author, "...they used resemblance as a simplifying heuristic (roughly, a rule of thumb) to make a difficult judgment. The reliance on the heuristic caused predictable biases (systematic errors) in their predictions." This is usually done by ignoring the relevant statistical facts and relied exclusively on resemblance.

Learn quickly in this short video about System 1 (Fast) and System 2 (Slow) of our brain in the video below :



How many people do you know who are truly happy in their life? Earlier in the year, I was invited to the 80th Birthday of my "Ah Chik" or uncle on my grandmother's side. Now here is a happy man that I've known since as a young boy visiting my grandmother's home in Penang almost yearly during the year-end school holidays. Life on the island of Penang in the early days where my parents were born also was never easy. There weren't enough jobs for men as the state didn't have much economic development compared to the major cities like Kuala Lumpur where I was born.

Somehow, like many island states, I've visited in the world with palm trees and beautiful beaches, the people seem to be happy on the island despite poor economic conditions. My "Ah Chik" with his stage name Stanly Lim, became a singer in clubs to earn a living and also sang on weddings and other special occasions. He lived with my grandmother and whenever our family would visit and stay in grandma's home, I vividly remember my "Ah Chik" as one who would always have a smile on his face with sounds of laughter from him whenever he talked. A cheerful happy man that has been that way till even his 80th birthday. Listen to him sing :


Click here if to watch the video on another page if clicking above does not work.


I'm impressed with the good number of friends and family members that attended his birthday dinner. More photos of the occasion can be found in a blog post here.



One of my favorite books that impressed me in the early years of my management consulting profession is the book above published in the year 1991 that has a simple questionnaire that I have tested on many people to accurately determine if they are an Optimist or a Pessimist. I still use the questionnaire today so if anyone is interested to do it, send a request to admin@fastlane.info and the questionnaire will be sent to you.

The author Martin Seligman is an amazing man whose work used to focus on helping depressed patients only but his skills of designing questionnaires have been applied to businesses to gain greater productivity. I lost touch on keeping track of the achievements of the author who is today recognized as the Father of Positive Psychology. I came across his work recently on Authentic Happiness and learned that the entire US Army is using his training program who realized Mental Fitness is as important as the Physical Fitness of the soldiers. Watch the video below to appreciate the man :



The five areas according to Martin Seligman that determines happiness are as follows :
PERMA: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (or PERMA).

He cites the 3 aspects of happiness: 1. The Pleasant Life  2. The Good Life  3. The Meaningful Life

I tried this questionnaire with statements about yourself which I answered almost all with 'Very much like me' option with just some exceptions in the same area of 'Pleasant Life' type questions like no. 8,13,15 and 18 where I answered 'Somewhat like me' only. The questions are here :

1. Regardless of what I am doing, time passes very quickly.
2. My life serves a higher purpose.
3. Life is too short to postpone the pleasures it can provide.
4. I seek out situations that challenge my skills and abilities.
5. In choosing what to do, I always take into account whether it will benefit other people.
6. Whether at work or play, I am usually "in a zone" and not conscious of myself.
7. I am always very absorbed in what I do.
8. I go out of my way to feel euphoric.
9. In choosing what to do, I always take into account whether I can lose myself in it.
10. I am rarely distracted by what is going on around me.
11. I have a responsibility to make the world a better place.
12. My life has a lasting meaning.
13. In choosing what to do, I always take into account whether it will be pleasurable.
14. What I do matters to society.
15. I agree with this statement: "Life is short eat dessert first."
16. I love to do things that excite my senses.
17. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what life means and how I fit into its big picture.
18. For me, the good life is the pleasurable life.

Here are my results :


Brief explanation of the 3 aspects of happiness that came with the results are here :


Higher scores on the Good Life (knowing what your signature strengths are, and then recrafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life) and the Meaningful Life (using your signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are) have been shown to lead to greater satisfaction with life.

Higher scores on the Pleasant Life (having as many pleasures as possible and having the savoring and mindfulness skills to amplify the pleasures) don't add to satisfaction.

To measure your satisfaction, use the Satisfaction with Life Scale.

The last line of the last test above made me answer the following questions for the Satisfaction with Life Scale :

1. In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.
2. The conditions of my life are excellent.
3. I am completely satisfied with my life.
4. So far I have gotten the most important things I want in life.
5. If I could live my life over, I would change nothing.

I chose 'Strongly agree' for all my responses for the 5 statements above.

I've captured my score below :


It is interesting to note that I wondered what was the word 'Ed Diener' below the graph about and made a google check and found this wiki explanation. 'Edward Diener (born 1946) is an American psychologist, professor, and author. He is noted for his research over the past twenty-five years on happiness — the measurement of well-being; temperament and personality influences on well-being; theories of well-being; income and well-being; and cultural influences on well-being. As shown on Google Scholar as of January 2014, Diener's publications have been cited over 76,000 times. For his fundamental research on the subject, Diener is nicknamed Dr. Happiness. He has worked with researchers Daniel Kahneman and Martin Seligman — and he is a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization.'

Wow, when I read the above, I was elated to realize that when I just started this post to name my favorite 2 books and authors in the field of the mind or psychology last Oct 2014, I had stopped as I needed to catch up with the latest work of Martin Seligman but was too busy till now in Jan 2015 to continue. Here I am doing his questionnaires live online and recording the results in this post to learn of the man Ed Diener who has worked with my two favorite researchers also! I must attribute this coincidence to some common frequency that I had got attracted to in the work of all these 3 men on the topic of Happiness that I was also researching in my own small way.


The following are the score descriptions for the Satisfaction with Life Scale questionnaire and the first one describes me as highly satisfied with the score of 35 :

30 – 35  Highly satisfied

People who score in this range love their lives and feel that things are going very well. Your life is not perfect, but you feel it is about as good as life gets.  Furthermore, just because you are satisfied does not mean you are complacent. In fact, growth and challenge might be part of the reason you are satisfied. For most people in this high-scoring range, life is enjoyable, and the major domains of life are going well – work or school, family, friends, leisure, and personal development.

25- 29  Satisfied

People who score in this range like their lives and feel that things are going well. Of course, your life is not perfect, but you feel that things are mostly good.  Furthermore, just because you are satisfied does not mean you are complacent. In fact, growth and challenge might be part of the reason you are satisfied. For most people in this high-scoring range, life is enjoyable, and the major domains of life are going well – work or school, family, friends, leisure, and personal development. You can draw motivation from those areas of your life that you are dissatisfied with.

20 – 24 Slightly satisfied

You have an average score. The average of life satisfaction in economically developed nations is in this range – the majority of people are generally satisfied but have some areas where they very much would like some improvement. Some people score in this range because they are mostly satisfied with most areas of their lives but see the need for some improvement in each area. Other people score in this range because they are satisfied with most domains of their lives, but have one or two areas where they would like to see large improvements.  Generally, people who score in this range have areas of their lives that need improvement, but would usually like to move to a higher level by making some life changes.

15 – 19  Slightly below average in life satisfaction

People who score in this range usually have small but significant problems in several areas of their lives or have many areas that are doing fine but one area that represents a substantial problem for them.  If you have moved temporarily into this level of life satisfaction from a higher level because of some recent event, things will usually improve over time and satisfaction will generally move back up. On the other hand, if you are continually slightly dissatisfied with many areas of life, some changes might be in order. Sometimes we are simply expecting too much, and sometimes life changes are needed.  Thus, although temporary dissatisfaction is common and normal, a continual level of dissatisfaction across a number of areas of life calls for reflection.  Some people can gain motivation from a small level of dissatisfaction, but often dissatisfaction across a number of life domains is a distraction, and unpleasant as well.

10 – 14  Dissatisfied

People who score in this range are substantially dissatisfied with their lives. People in this range may have a number of areas that are not going well or one or two areas that are going very badly. If life dissatisfaction is a response to a recent event such as bereavement, divorce, or a significant problem at work, you will probably return over time to his or her former level of higher satisfaction.  However, if low levels of life satisfaction have been persisting for some time then some changes might be in order – both in attitudes and patterns of thinking and probably in life activities as well. Low levels of life satisfaction in this range, if they persist, can indicate that things are going badly and life alterations are needed.  Furthermore, a person with low life satisfaction in this range is sometimes not functioning well because their unhappiness serves as a distraction. Talking to a friend, a member of the clergy, a counselor, or another specialist can often help to get moving in the right direction, although positive change will be up to you.

5 – 9  Extremely Dissatisfied

People who score in this range are usually extremely unhappy with their current life. In some cases, this is in reaction to some recent bad event such as the death of a loved one or unemployment. The dissatisfaction can be a response to a continuing problem, such as alcoholism or addiction. In other cases, the extreme dissatisfaction is a reaction due to something bad in life such as recently having lost a loved one.  However, dissatisfaction at this level is often due to dissatisfaction in multiple areas of life. Whatever the reason for the low level of life satisfaction, it may be that the help of others is needed – a friend or family member, counseling with a member of the clergy, or help from a psychologist or other counselor. If the dissatisfaction persists, you need to change, and often others can help. Talk to your GP or contact a mental health organization.

For those interested to do the free tests by way of answering questionnaires which will give you good feedback about yourself, Visit the site of Authentic Happiness questionnaire center by clicking here.

Some things I've learned about the work of Martin Seligman on 'Happiness' as well as a better understanding of the world of Psychology.

I learned that the author had declared a change in his original theory of 'Happiness' from the time of publishing 'Authentic Happiness' in 2001 to the time he came out with his new book 'Flourish' in 2011. I researched to find that he wrote a long statement explaining this change from using Happiness to Well Being as a better term under the umbrella of Positive Psychology. You can read this in Source 1 and Source 2 webpages. In a couple of videos I reviewed, I recall he has mentioned that the change is likened to changes required in the field of technology that has become an expected occurrence in our modern day world.

Martin Seligman 'Flourishing - a new understanding of wellbeing' at Happiness & Its Causes 2012 

I began to research more to find out how is psychology perceived in the scientific world. I first came across this document of the writings about Sigmund Koch with this opening statement, "The 19th-century belief that psychology can be an integral discipline, which led to its institutionalization as an independent science, has been disconfirmed on every day of the 112 years since its presumptive founding. When the details of that history are attended to, the patent tendency has been toward theoretical and substantial fractionation (and increasing insularity among the “specialties”), not toward integration. Moreover, there are many principled considerations that underline the futility of seeking theoretical, conceptual or even paradigmatic unification.
Sigmund Koch (1993, p. 902)

Sigmund Koch was one of the premier scholars of psychology, completing his Ph.D. in Psychology at Duke University in 1942. Koch remained at the institution, initially as an assistant professor and later as a full professor until 1964. He was also a full professor in 1967 at the University of Texas at Austin, moving to Boston University in 1971. He continued to hold his post at Boston until his death in 1996. During his tenures in Texas and Boston, he was also elected as President of several divisions in the American Psychological Society(APA). In his distinguished career in the academic world, Koch was certainly well aware of the rules of the scientific world to determine what can be classified as a branch of Science or not.

In a Los Angeles Times article of July 13, 2012, entitled, 'Why Psychology isn't science' by Alex B. Berezow, it was published that the reason is psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, finally, predictability and testability.

As I watch several videos of Martin Seligman, a man who also has a distinguished career in the academic world, I could detect that he spoke like a typical professor to emphasize scientific practice being used in his department's studies that are 'quantifiable' or 'highly controlled experimental conditions' etc. and would often use specific figures or statistics to show that well being could be most important 'measurable' or 'quantifiable.' In the above 2012 video, I heard a scientific or mathematical term he used that I couldn't understand called the 'Losada Ratio' which he talked quite a bit about it. So I googled the term and found that the critical positivity ratio (also known as the Losada ratio or the Losada line) is a largely a discredited concept in positive psychology positing an exact ratio of positive to negative emotions which distinguishes "flourishing" people from "languishing" people.

The mistake was not by Martin Seligman as the ratio was proposed by Marcial Losada and psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, who identified a ratio of positive to negative affect of exactly 2.9013 as separating flourishing from languishing individuals in a 2005 paper in American Psychologist. It was widely embraced by both academic psychologists and the lay public; Fredrickson and Losada's paper was cited nearly 1,000 times, and Fredrickson wrote a popular book expounding the concept of "the 3-to-1 ratio that will change your life". In 2013, the critical positivity ratio aroused the skepticism of Nick Brown, a graduate student in applied positive psychology, who felt that the paper's mathematical claims underlying the critical positivity ratio were fundamentally flawed. Brown collaborated with physicist Alan Sokal and psychologist Harris Friedman on a re-analysis of the paper's data. They found that Fredrickson and Losada's paper contained "numerous fundamental conceptual and mathematical errors", as did Losada's earlier work on positive psychology, which completely invalidated their claims.

In response, American Psychologist formally retracted the mathematical modeling elements of Fredrickson & Losada's paper, including the specific critical positivity ratio of 2.9013, as invalid. The fundamental nature of the mathematical errors, which went unnoticed for years despite the widespread publicity surrounding the critical positivity ratio, contributed to a perception that social psychology as a field lacked scientific soundness and rigorous critical thinking. Sokal later stated: "The main claim made by Fredrickson and Losada is so implausible on its face that some red flags ought to have been raised."

Too bad that Martin Seligman had mentioned the Losada ratio in the 2012 video above when the discovery of its flaws occurred in 2013. Latest controversial news I could find on him involves claims that his life's research has influenced the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques”

My summary

Being one who is well educated in life starting from the world of science due to the emphasis of the world I grew up i.e. in the country of Malaysia and going overseas to learn more about humanities commerce and even spiritual knowledge, I would make the following statements as a summary of my thoughts after reading and pondering much :

1. Not everything can be solved with science as one as old and experienced as I am can testify. Else my wife would not have passed away of cancer in the middle of her life together with many others who had to struggle with it in their youthfulness. Happiness is therefore not what science alone can help attain and therefore it was appropriate that Martin Seligman changed his theory of Authentic Happiness to emphasize more about the Well Being of a person.

Science is an output of the logical mind which I am very familiar with as it was my strength since at a young age. However, I had soon realized that logic and proven facts would not be the answer to say creating good relationships, knowing how to ride a bicycle or even drive fast cars. A kind of flow is required mastering a number of strengths or skill sets if you want to call it in order to create good relationships or perform other amazing feats.

If one wants to understand nature like our own bodies as to know how it works, why it feels what it feels and if we can't understand it no matter how much science tries to explain or define it in quantifiable terms or highly controlled experimental conditions etc,  it does not mean we can't attain happiness without science.  I can equally make the statement that we don't need science or doctors or drugs to help us be healthier. What the world has become is that we need science to validate anything before we can fully trust anything but yet the complexities of mathematics for example in the Losada ratio can deceive many for a time until one with real knowledge and courage, with nothing to lose, begins to challenge what was supposed to be peer-reviewed truth! Guess it makes room for a book like Thinking Fast and Slow to remind us that Thinking does have systematic errors!

2. Yet we need science, the intellectual thoughts and logic to be organized to find a way of solving life's problems and challenges in this world in a systematic way. Admittedly how would I be able to be doing my own research using the internet to better understand or try to participate in solving this life's mystery of happiness if it were not for the sacrifice of many who had use scientifically proven theories and formulas to create the computer and network to link all of us to allow greater access to knowledge?

Without science and the knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and propulsion energies, etc man would not be able to fly to the moon or conduct space experiments out of which the benefit of GPS to help us find a friend's home or anywhere that we need to go to quickly is possible today. There are a host of other benefits that could be classified as useful or important to increase the happiness of life in the world I'm sure.

3. Why are we preoccupied with the notion that we either use science or non-science methods to determine happiness? Are there only 2 choices as one is prone to be led to think? How many branches of science are there anyway and must we agree and accept everything every branch of science teaches? By the same token, how many areas of non-science are there? Must we disagree with everything that every area of non-science teaches like wisdom from our grandparents perhaps?

To be continued or edited as led by my Heart and Mind influenced by the Spirit...

I wrote the above 3 points and had to pause to read a little more about the history of psychology to find a very nice correlation to my thoughts prompted in point 3 above. I will share some extracts below from the above link:

I had learned how the world of psychology had started with the first psychological laboratory at Leipzig University, in 1879 by German physician Wilhelm Wundt. From the 1890s until his death in 1939, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, which comprised a method of investigating the mind and interpreting experience; a systematized set of theories about human behavior; and a form of psychotherapy to treat psychological or emotional distress, especially unconscious conflict. It seems that psychology started as an introspective investigation of a person's mind where questions are directed to one who would share his/her inner thoughts so that they can be analyzed.

It later focused on the discipline of Behaviorism established in the early 20th century by John B. Watson and embraced and extended by Edward Thorndike, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, and later B.F. Skinner. Theories of learning emphasized the ways in which people might be predisposed, or conditioned, by their environments to behave in certain ways. Much research consisted of laboratory-based animal experimentation, which was increasing in popularity as physiology grew more sophisticated.  Martin Seligman and colleagues discovered that the conditioning of dogs led to outcomes ("learned helplessness") that opposed the predictions of behaviorism. But Skinner's behaviorism did not die, perhaps in part because it generated successful practical applications. I believe the experiments that Martin Seligman challenged when I read his book were related to Pavlovian conditioning on dogs.

The fall of Behaviorism model of psychology in the mid 20th century gave way to many branches of psychology. This explains why Sigmund Koch expressed in his writings on 'The Problem of Psychology' that it was hard to justify it to be a separate independent science due to the difficulty of seeing it as one integral discipline and thus declaring in his words  "...the futility of seeking theoretical, conceptual or even paradigmatic unification." Here is a website with a list of psychology disciplines numbering to over a hundred! I note that Positive Psychology advocated by Martin Seligman is listed. Also, the third point of my summary seems to be in line with the discovery of a proliferation of the branches of psychology and I like the Humanistic psychology discipline which seems to have the holistic or integrating approach to problem-solving that I had adopted when I started the information business in the 80s.

In fact, I have evidence that I must have psychoanalyzed myself to write a webpage many years ago entitled, 'My Optimal Thinking Brain' found here. It was written much earlier before this time of writing when I have now so much more research information into the world of psychology. I have other later journals reflecting my interest in our mind and brain, citing latest books I've read especially of authors I am impressed with such as Daniel Siegel in his book 'Mindsight.' I enjoyed online programs with him, with the benefit of technology, to be able to be in the comfort of my home in Asia to participate in his lectures which he conducts in the USA. I particularly appreciate the interaction I got to be able to pose live questions to the intelligent professor and writer of the mind and the brain!

Talking about books, I'm excited to know a good friend, Carlos E. Jean-Gilles, who is preparing to launch his book which is about Self Actualization, another branch of psychology too. He is truly a technical guru of facebook which is how I got to know him as I looked for him among all the other volunteers in the help section rated by the most number of questions each had answered. He was rated at the top, and if my memory doesn't fail me, at that time he held the record of answering over 25,000 questions! He is a busy man and a family man too so for the rare moments I get to have a personal online chat with him on Facebook, it has always been informative and inspiring to me. He actually left Facebook for a year to focus on completing the writing of his book and came back recently to share this dedication section of his book with me which has an inspiring quote I like to share from its header :

 "There comes a time in the evolution of every soul 
when the chief concern is no longer the survival of the physical body, 
but the growth of the spirit, 
no longer the attainment of worldly success, 
but the realization of Self."
~Neale Donald Walsch

As a researcher and knowledge worker of this 21st century, besides the many other roles I multi-task with, I may have overdone it in this post to share what I know and have discovered about the world's pursuit of happiness.  If you felt the entire post was too complicated for you with all the technical videos and words, just watch this last video below, a talk by Sam Berns entitled 'My philosophy for a happy life',  and you may truly learn something useful and simple :



If the above story shared can't reach you well maybe the theme song of the Minions movie can help some :


Here is the making of the Happy music video above where you could see just a few shots of the Minions who star in the movie 'Despicable Me'.



Someone creatively made General Conference of our Church fit the Happy tune and lyrics :




  Sample of the Happy Movies below :


Post dated developments

Some video or web links do become invalid over time as discovered later in the above video. An alternative site can be found by clicking here.

Instability of 3rd party video sites brings to mind an additional topic fit to be added to this post i.e. Making videos that make you happy is a new opportunity that everyone can take up as I have done and shared in the comments section of a recent Facebook post below :



Click the comments icon above to view more videos that I had made recently which makes me happy watching and hope the same happens to viewers too!

TED video on Happiness

I like this video below for the quality of its content especially what the speaker said in the timeline of about 13:00 when he talks about a survey he did which has these subtitle words on-screen, "But a piece of work we did was on: what 5 positive actions can you do every day to improve well-being in your life?" His answer typed on screen: "And the first of these is being to connect"

I find this coincidental as this is the meaning I attribute to the first letter of my initials CSF, which is to "Connect." See my journal writings here. Connectivity was also highlighted in my, "Heart & Mind" webpage found here.













Kicking off the year 2020 with my happiness project:

Details at www.BlueBoyMansion.com or refer to a 2020 special journal post of mine to be found here soon.

Happy Birthday October Babies!

Time flies indeed and everyone born in October becomes a year older! I like to wish all the October babies Happy Birthday in accordance to the names of people found here as well as other family members found on this post. Some family members will be covered in this post.

October 2nd was the first celebration. I was in Kuantan with Ern and Ray including a neighborhood friend from Singapore, David Ooi whom we call Uncle David. The day turned out to be a surprise double celebration as not only was it the birthday of my sister-in-law but also happened to be the day my 3rd brother received his official 'Datoship' title at the palace in Pekan.

A photo with his wife taken after they came back home with full official gear...


... and one with the camera man in unofficial gear...

...and the rest of the household.

In the night time we had a nice dinner together. In blue at the front centre is my neighborhood friend Uncle David, who accompanied me on this latest road trip of mine.

Seafood galore fully enjoyed by Ern and Ray! The woman on the right is Mira their house helper who has worked for the family for close to 10 years, like our Kak Tun from Java, who caught a live fish to be cooked in this same restaurant during the visit of Su and Jay in the summer of 2012, seen on this video.

October 4th

Thanks to facebook, connections to family are made easier to see that Su had a nice birthday surprise in the US in the post found here. Happy birthday Su from all of us in familylane with love!

Interesting that earlier this year, I witnessed another member of our extended family wear the 'songkok', a traditional Malay head gear, for his appointment as a high court judge. He is the oldest son of my eldest sister from Penang who also celebrates his birthday on Oct 4th addressed as Yang Arif Lim Chong Fong.

It's also interesting to note that early in the month of September, for some reason I picked up a 'songkok' to wear in a supermarket and made it my facebook profile pic for the month and it coincidentally turned out to match the pics and story that arose in this new blog post.




Some unique photos taken in Kuantan










From Kuantan, the boys returned to Singapore while Uncle David and I headed to KL for a night on Saturday with plans to attend Church on Sunday morning and head north to Penang.

On arrival to KL, we were invited to join my oldest brother's family for dinner. His oldest son Woon Ming had had a marriage registration on Oct 1st with Jenny Liew where the Chinese dinner will be held on 24th December at the end of the year, a Christmas eve event!


October 5th

As I had not registered my birthday to be public on facebook, most are not aware of this date of my birthday. On Sunday morning, Han managed to create a birthday surprise for me with this facebook post found here that let the cat out of the bag as they would say!



It was fast and testimony day when we attended Church in the PJ branch. Below are pics taken with some 'old' friends of the Church
Anthony Lim on the left is in his early 70s, David on the right is a visitor with me in his late 70s and I'm in the middle in my middle 50s haha!

With the Ravindra family where his wife Puvaneswari reminded me that I had baptized her in the early 80s. I remember teaching her but it's been a long time now to remember all whom I had baptized as sometimes it is my companion who did the baptism when we always teach as a pair.

Always love to meet the missionaries especially Elder Egbert, 2nd from the left, whom I had been working closely with in our ward in Singapore. He was transferred to East Malaysia and did come back for a visit in Singapore recorded here. It was nice to run into him again in PJ

Chatted briefly with the Sisters noting that the one on the right is from Bristol, UK. I guess any missionary from UK now attracts my attention after having Han serve in the UK himself.

Birthday Dinner in Ipoh

Colin and Judy Beard, a missionary couple from Darwin Australia whom we met in JB in June 2012 had returned for a visit after their mission. We met them half way in Ipoh as we were heading  to Penang and they were coming from there to head to KL. They are hosted by the Lokes in Ipoh, Doreen being our first convert in Ipoh whom my companion and I had taught in early 1981.

Judy Beard happens to be an October baby too celebrating on Oct 7th! 

We continued our journey to Penang, using the new 2nd bridge to the island that seemed to be built on the sea for over 20km! The exact figures according to wiki of the total length of the bridge is 24 km (15mi) with length over water at 16.9 km(10.5 mi), making it the longest bridge in Malaysia and the longest in Southeast Asia.


I used the time mainly in Penang to follow-up with our family history work:

First to introduce my friend David to our family members in Penang. At 77, I wanted him to feel young sitting beside my uncle 'Ah Cik' who turned 80 earlier this year.

Here is my oldest sister Moon Lean with cousin Ee Choon who have contributed greatly to provide information of the Cheah family in Penang.

Seen above is Helen Khoo, another cousin who has been a key contact person in touch with most of the Cheah family members in Penang and others spread throughout Malaysia to down south Singapore.
We as cousins got together at the home of Allan Cheah who made a post of our gathering in facebook.

Of course anyone who visits Penang will enjoy the many stalls there selling delicious food. This particular stall is unique as the two men running it are always seen quarreling as I believe the cook is partially deaf and mixes up the orders given by the other. See them in action below, it's hilarious!



Some unique photos taken in Penang








Visiting Friends in Ipoh next
October 12th
Foggy and early Sunday morning, I started my drive to Ipoh crossing the 2nd link from Penang to the mainland. Better than the night drive when I first arrived, not seeing the water at all, this time round, I can get a sense of driving over water for about 17km this morning, connecting Batu Maung on the Island and Batu Kawan on the Mainland.

The sun was out to clear the fog so that the beautiful architectural designed portion of the bridge could be visible from far. I was rushing to make it to the video conference of our Church General Conference at the Ipoh branch of the Church. 

I made it just in time for the Video Conference to start and sitting at the back, I recognized an old friend I knew in the KL Church who walked in late and recognized me when I said hello to him. He had a case of mental illness since his college days in KL and knew all our family members when we were in KL over 10 years ago. After he moved back to his home in Ipoh, we didn't see much of him but occasionally he would give me a phone call to chat a little or some times just exchange  text messages.
His state of mind seems to have taken a step backwards. He now talks to himself alone without focusing on the conference video projected on a large screen in the hall. After the meeting we went to Wooley's food court for lunch where I listened to him tell me which actor or actress is son or daughter of which famous personality. Like many of such 'special friends' I classify them as, some have fully recovered, some remain in their same state and others have regressed like my above friend.
He isn't that bad still as he could order food and get drinks for me by himself. It was interesting to find out that the drink seller didn't come to collect money and when I went to the stall to pay, they said that at times they just served him for free but I thought I should pay them since I was the host. It's nice to know there are still kind people in this world. He could guide me back to where he stays without any problems so his regression really is only that he now talks to himself unlike before where he just didn't talk normal like others. Emotional problems have led many to suffer some form of mental illness and I've shared a success story of recovery here.

Post-dated develoments:
For some strange reason, at the time I posted the above pic of my special friend, a familiar loud voice of greeting came from the door beside me in our Singapore home. This was on my first Monday back in Spore, 20th Oct, where I had made a facebook post below :



A Surprise Visit at a timely moment

I stood up to walk to the door and what a coincidence to meet another special friend who said he saw my rack of clothes outside and knew I was back in town haha! I had a chat with him and he told me he was with new medication now and feeling very good. He did seem to show good improvement from my last two sojourns in Singapore. I had to stop my online mentoring and updating work to spend time with him,  

He sat down beside me to chat and I showed him what I was doing. Then a thought came into my mind to share with him one of the 'Ted Talks' I had viewed of people with mental illness sharing with others about their experience after they had fully recovered, more precisely this particular video entitled, 'A Tale of Mental Illness - From the Inside'

After watching the video, here is a recording of our chat :




Postdated development :  3 years later





Other friends visited in Ipoh


With the always great looking Loke couple!
With the former branch president of Ipoh during my district days and our baptism convert at the centre, Bro Ong Chow Lek during my young missionary days in Ipoh
With former KL Church members like Theresa with husband Stewart Loke from my couple days with my wife who all have missionary sons as with Dominic on the right, son of Sophia Ho on the far left!
A special moment with the family's Auntie Diana with her mother, the Mama Toh of Ipoh. Diana has been elevated to be Lady Diana in this post. Thank you again Lady Diana for your Birthday cards individually sent to our KL address to Han and I this month! 

BACK TO SINGAPORE TO FAMILY
October 19th

It's Han's Birthday and first thing in the morning I made the following post in facebook :







There is an amazing story that comes along with the making of the above video clip. If you look at the time stamp of my facebook post above the video, it's Sunday morning of Han's birthday at 10.51am. Church for our family starts at 1pm and I am also Mr Mom preparing dinner for the night celebration. I had just arrived in Singapore the night before about 9pm and used the time to shop before midnite at our nearby 24hr supermarket to get all the ingredients for the next day's dinner as well as a birthday cake.

I woke up early on Sunday morning with a goal to get a video clip done for Han for this blog post that I can share with him on facebook too. I had to select pics from my family photo files and create ideas how to present them. I was confident that with my computer storage of photos and my optimal brain for ideas, I could get the job done. The main challenge I knew was trying to use Microsoft's Movie Maker on my new notebook that was running on the latest Windows 8.1 which had a bug of no sound production since I had first tested it over 3 months ago but had no time to resolve the problem. Ray the youngest had woken up early and he was trying to do something online for his brother too. He became a witness for me of the miracle that occurred that morning. He knew I was struggling on my little project as I was talking out loud as I commonly do even on the facebook community lol.



First I chose a video footage of Han at 16 months old, as above, with his Mom in our Singapore home when his grand parents were still alive. I added the video on Movie Maker and sure enough there was no sound. It played fine by itself outside of movie maker but not when loaded into it. I googled for a solution and found this video solution.  I followed the guide and fixed the problem but in a different way from the video guide. Some auto message appeared on Windows 8 to click the speaker icon and when I did that and tested the video clip loaded on Movie Maker it worked but here is the miracle :

Normally I would then have to select some music to override the original sound track of the video after I've added pics on the video. Miraculously as I played the video clip, a Happy Birthday Han sound clip somehow took over the original sound track! I know I had this sound clip a long time back but I had not clicked any icon in Movie Maker to load that particular sound track nor go to my computer files to look for it! I was simply amazed at how things worked out so quickly and I did get to publish it before leaving for Church to arrive on time also!

This little miracle reminds me that the same table where I sat by to make the video clip was the same table in Nov 2011 when Mom had just passed away and we felt she had switched off the power just at the moment we had lit the candles of the cake to celebrate the birthdays of Shuan and Jay together as recorded on this video. It is of course no coincidence the original video clip of Han above was taken in the same living room too! This whole spiritual experience considered as a miracle prompted me to change the criteria of what type of stories would be included in the Story of 7 and included it as the first to be posted there noted here.

After Church there was a 'linger-longer' time with food served

After the ladies, the men including Han got to eat

At the clean up time, Han at 24 thought he'd practice some on the wheel chair for his old age!

Back home

Steam boat dinner was planned so no time would be wasted in cooking. A chicken was steamed for 2 hours before dinner time though.
Here is a photo of all of us at the dining table ready to feast!

After dinner the girls will join us for a google+ hangout to sing happy birthday for Han.


Thanks to facebook, we get to reunite with Elder Van Rider again, the one and only Elder we can remember always carrying our baby Han in the early 1990s

Han updated his Facebook Cover page on 12 Oct 2014 with the photo below:



October 29th
The Birthday of Uncle David

Right from the beginning of this blog post when we started celebrating birthdays in October, we didn't know Uncle David who was travelling with me in Malaysia was also an October baby. Soon I heard him mention it but I forgot the date.

When I returned to Singapore, I checked his facebook and there were wishes in previous years to him on 19th Oct and another on 26th. October. I thought it was the 26th and bought him a bottle of non-alcoholic wine or grape juice to wish him at his home. He clarified with me that it was on the 29th of October so I wished him early and passed him his gift in advance.

To commemorate his birthday I created a facebook post of a couple of amazing pics of him :


Here are  more photos of the great time we had together in Kuantan :