I took a five day vacation, around three days off in total. Made sure I did enough work to fill up my own self-imposed quota while I was gone.
I needed the vacation. I developed anxiety issues in recent months and that manifested in several ways. The most damaging of which I began smoking again. I stole a few cigarettes here and there until I was smoking maybe four sticks a day.
A far cry from four packs a day, but I was frustrated that I got back to my old stressed out days.
See, just before my heart attack last year, I was in a state of bliss. I was running a consultancy business that could be my endgame. I needed to make around RM2 to 4 million and then retire before I was 40.
Things start to go wrong, but like any gambler, you double down, hoping to make good on some losses. It got so bad that I had my cardiac event. I had four risk factors through the roof - smoking four packs a day, eating whatever, whenever, and a high-stress job. The fourth is genetics - both sides of my family suffer from critical illnesses though one or several heart attacks and/or strokes never took any of us out. My family members are extremely hard to kill.
Anyway, I was bothered by the fact that I lost that bliss I enjoyed before the heart attack. My calmness was shattered. I began to allow myself to be affected by idiots again, by liars and pretenders. Motherfuckers all of them. Not worth a single hair on my ass.
Back home, my parents' situations continue to worsen. There is nothing more I can do for them in order to improve their being and their experience of the world, and I hated accepting that.
So I went to the Source of All Power. I went to Thailand, where I originally found my peace. I wanted to retrace my steps and to remember what it was all about.
And so I went.
Five days there, and no less than four different people on four separate occasions told me the same thing, "Slowly."
Apparently, even while sitting down quietly and waiting, my energy was one of anxious anticipation. See, I like being smarter than everyone else, and to me, being smarter meant I could anticipate any and all moves, all the time, every time.
I run countless continuous simulations inside my head on how things will unfold. This is extremely useful at work, but I had begun incorporating it into my personal being and this easily becomes toxic.
Whenever you anticipate the outcomes of any situation, you will flag all the bad ones as well. In fact, you will focus more on the bad possibilities and come up with plans and contingencies for each separate bad possibility.
I have always been extremely lucky, but I am also never wrong whenever I anticipate the evil in humanity. I understand the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. And women. And things.
So anyway, I was in Thailand and away from everyone. I couldn't find my copy of A New Earth so I brought Eckhart Tolle's other book - The Power of Now. This happens to be exactly the book I needed to read. In fact, if I could sum up my trip, it would be that I got exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I felt spoiled because I got everything I asked for. Everything.
From the time I arrived, I met exactly the right people telling me the exact information I needed at the time. For example, I needed to get on a bus to Pattaya. A tour lady hailed me to the side and asked me whether I was going to Pattaya on a bus and if I wanted a taxi to go to the bus station. As a tour lady, I thought she was going to sell me one of her tour packages, but she just gave me good advice and good direction. "There are two bus stations - Morchit and Ekkamai. Morchit is closer to Don Mueang. Don't take airport taxi. Take meter taxi."
Every step of the way, I was given valid intel and useful information. This was a refreshing change from Malaysia where I constantly have to navigate one pile of bullshit after another. People lie a lot here, but during my vacation, there was no need for any of them to lie and even when some do, I was not affected by the lies at all.
The difference is energy. There is a desperation here, in Malaysia, and there is a quiet calm in Thailand. I don't know why.
In offices, people build forts out of cubicles and then they either hold a siege or believe themselves to be under siege. Alliances are made, and broken. The backstabbing, back-biting and blood-letting is silly because none of them are fighting for RM42 billion or even a RM42,000/month salary. It's pathetic and insulting. A lot of Malaysians do not live in gratitude. Tak sedar dek untung, cakap orang Melayu.
Meanwhile, in some of the seedier underbellies of global prostitution, there are people whose jobs it is to suck dicks every day. Their daily drama is 'can I suck enough dicks today to put food on the table?' and they're still very calm and happy.
We have it good. We have food, relatively fast internet (though Thailand's broadband is cheaper and more or less the same as ours, from one consumer's perspective), cheap clothes and adequate shelter.
This does not mean we should be thankful to politicians, who remain the one blight on humanity. Politicians are parasites and should be dealt with accordingly. Why would anyone want to honour people whose job it is to lie to you everyday? Politicians are liars and we should move beyond them by not giving them any focus whatsoever. If we listen to politicians, I assure you we will start killing each other in whatever name is trendy at the time.
Thailand and other countries such as Indonesia do not give a fuck about politicians in the sense that no matter who is in power, it's mostly business as usual. Indonesia does not have a Finas and their movie industry is arguably churning out better films. Thailand's tourism industry is still running strong despite massive changes in Government. In fact, numbers have only grown over the past 12 years despite political instability.
We Malaysians cannot give so much power to politicians and political parties to decide and do everything for us that when they fall - AND THEY WILL ALL FUCKING FALL - all our industries will also shatter and the nation would crumble to the ground.
We should be independent of politicians and politics. Fuck them. Fuck them to hell.
Anyway, I managed to exhale and reset everything. As I began to see things from the perspective of the now and not the past or the future, I began to relax again.
One of the things that affected me with my anxiety was an outbreak of pompholyx on my hand. Pompholyx is a type of eczema that only affects the extremities such as fingers and toes. It got better and tonight, my hand is completely healed.
Evil people will continue to be evil and petty. I don't have to deal with their bullshit in any way shape or form. Fuck them and their entire family.
Shifting my focus from the future to the present solves my anxiety issues. The future does not happen except as the present, and rather than a million different possibilities, there is only one reality, one outcome, and it is always now.
Doesn't mean I have stopped planning or anticipating things, but I have separated my thinking self and my real self. I have the Greatest Mind of the 21st Century, but I am not my mind. This separation is vital in order to stay sane.
There are other things, of course, but I am taking care of myself first and ensuring my mental and emotional health are as good as my physical health. I've stopped smoking again and I hope this time it sticks.
