Mood has gone down again - A day talk

Not that I have been very up, to being with.

The dark clouds has once again 'swallowed' the halo above my head and down comes a dark shadow. The worries are back, the moody feeling is back, the confidence has left me.

Is there really a 'need' or necessity for me to feel this way? Rightfully, no. But what can I do, if I am feeling this way right? I don't know if it is real, or if it is an excuse, but usually the depressed state is triggered by the stresses at work. It is really exhausting and depressing to have to face the tumbling blocks at the workplace EVERY DAY, not knowing when the sun will smile at me again. Though I have a good boss, I strongly think the major obstacle lies in the nature of the environment and the system. Can the problems be solved? Maybe yes, maybe no because I feel it is a complicated system. Even if a few of the problems can be solved, I think we will have to die a few times before we see some improvement. I really have no energy for that already.

I just hope I can persuade myself to lift my spirits a little each day. Give the 'heck everything' attitude. I can do it a few times before the Ah-Q spirit crashes in again. Sigh.

Anyway, I was reading two articles from Sunday Times this morning from two columnists whose articles I find very close to our hearts.

One was from Sumiko Tan who shares her experience in the stock market 'Do I buy, hold or sell?" Her articles are very humorous and light. Would like to extract some paras here.

- "I spend more time contemplating the pros and cons of buying a dress - is it too expensive, would it make me look fat, do I have shoes to go with it, where can I wear it to - than a stock I'm prepared to throw thousands of dollars at."

- "Then there's the matter of patience. I want prices to rise and I want them to rise now. When they don't, I get discouraged and dump the shares. But the minute I sell, the price will rise. Why does this always happen to me? Is there a name for such a phenomenon (other than lousy lock and bad timing?"

- "What I've also learnt over the past year is to never compare your financial lot with that of others. There will always be those who will earn more money than you - whether at work, in the stock market or through property - and there will always be those who will earn far less."

- "The challenge is to stay happy and satisfied with what you have, even if all you made was two hundred dollars from a stock while your friend made two thousand."

The second article I read was by Lee Wei Ling whose article titled 'No bed of roses for me, thank you.'

- "I have always chosen a spartan lifestyle both because it was in accordance with my philosophy in life and also because I felt that it would be difficult to do without luxuries once one had got used to them."

- "While I am not proposing that we adopt the lifestyle of a Hindu or Buddhist ascetic, I think frugality and a simple lifestyle are effective ways to cope, morally and psychologically, with the temptations of the modern consumerist world."

- "Ostentatious mansions disgust me. I watch with disdain sports cars that can accelerate from zero to 100kmh within five seconds. What use is such power and speed on Singapore roads?"

- "I was brought up to be frugal. As children, my brothers and I were chastised if we did not turn off taps completely, or left lights or air-conditioners on when there was no need for them to be."

- "My parents decided not to live at Sri Temasek, the prime minister's official residence, because they didn't want their children to be waited on hand and foot by butlers and servants."

- "As the ancients of various traditions knew, tribulation worketh character."

Reading these two articles had sort of distracted me from my moody feeling for a while and gave me something to laugh at and think about.

Give me the strength and energy to face the week ahead.

4.47pm