first-world problems

This is a little heavier than my usual posts, but it's such a compelling and concrete example of our first-world problems and a good reminder to keep things in perspective.

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life hacks from quora

I love quora.  Life hacks, interesting and thoughtful questions and answers, and a great way to procrastinate learn about a variety of topics.

For example, my drawers are never going to look the same again after seeing this (and I have a pair of jeans I could resurrect with the second lifehack, too):

Tips and Hacks for Everyday Life: What can I learn right now in just 10 minutes that could be useful for the rest of my life?Tricia Hosein, Serendipity3.7k upvotes by Garrick Saito, Pat Burns, Gautam Ganesh, (more)
Place T-shirts in drawer vertically instead of laying them flat. Easier to find and so much more added room!
This works perfectly and came in handy this weekend when I wore my favorite jeans that has a zipper that refuses to stay up.

Or if you like useless information random trivia:

Why do people drive above the speed limit?Matt Wasserman, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, I'... (more) 170 upvotes by Garrick Saito, Wing Chau, Robert Frost, (more)Because speed limits are no longer set the way they should be.  

how a password can revolutionize your life

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This article may make you erase all of your saved passwords as a password-as-mantra becomes a life-changing new tool.

Can password therapy really improve your life? Mauricio Estrella, an associate creative director in Shanghai, developed a unique way to create and remember passwords. He used a personal goal to create an affirmation and it became a password infused with the power of positive thinking. Here’s his story…

“How could she do something like this to me?” said the voice in my head, over and over.

It was 2011 and I was stuck in middle of a pretty bad depression due to my divorce.

Thankfully, I think I was smart enough (and had great people around me) so I managed my way out.

One day I walk into the office, and my computer screen showed me the following message:

“Your password has expired. Click ‘Change password’ to change your password.”

I read this dumb message in my mind with angry grandpa voice: The darn password has expired.

At my workplace, the Microsoft Exchange server is configured to ask thousands of employees around the planet to change their passwords. Every 30 days.

Here what’s annoying: The server forces us to use at least one UPPERCASE character, at least one lowercase alphabetic character, at least one symbol and at least one number. Oh, and the whole thing can’t be less than 8 characters. And I can’t use any of the same passwords I’ve used in the last 3 months.

I was furious that morning. A sizzling hot Tuesday, it was 9:40 a.m and I was late to work. I was still wearing my bike helmet and had forgotten to eat breakfast. I needed to get things done before a 10 a.m. meeting and changing passwords was going to be a huge waste of time.

As the input field with the pulsating cursor was waiting for me to type a password — something I’d use many times during every day — I remembered a tip I heard from my former boss.

And I decided: I’m gonna use a password to change my life.

It was obvious that I couldn’t focus on getting things done with my current lifestyle and mood. Of course, there were clear indicators of what I needed to do — or what I had to achieve — in order to regain control of my life, but we often don’t pay attention to these clues.

My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be victim of my recent break up, and that I’m strong enough to do something about it.

My password became: “Forgive@h3r”

how to turn pessimism into optimism

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Here are some excerpts from bakadesuyo.com (a research-based blog that shows you "how to be awesome at life") on how to convert pessimism to optimism.

Here's why it's worth trying:

Scientific research has come up with a long list of benefits to being optimistic. Here are just a few:

1. Optimism is associated with better health and a longer life.
2. Research has shown that practicing optimism and gratitude causes (not just correlates with) an increase in happiness.
3. The army teaches soldiers to be optimistic because it makes them tougher and more persistent.
4. Being socially optimistic — expecting people to like you — makes people like you more.
5. Expecting a positive outcome from negotiations made groups more likely to come to a deal and to be happy with it.
6. Optimists are luckier. Research shows by thinking positive they persevere and create more opportunities for themselves.
7. Optimistic salespeople are more successful.

The list goes on and on. Being optimistic is one of the ten things I recommend you do every day and something associated with great lives.

And here's how you actually do it:

The 3 P’s

It all comes down to what researchers call “explanatory style.” When bad things happen, what kind of story do you tell yourself?

There are three important elements here. Let’s call them the 3 P’s: permanence, pervasiveness and whether it’s personal.

how to live a life without regrets

You regret most what you never tried, one in four homeowners feel buyers' remorse, and women seem to have more regrets than men do.  Happify explains why and shares some other interesting factoids about regret.  Here's to letting go of regret for good.

a speech to fire you up

This speech was delivered in 2008, but it remains as relevant and powerful as ever.  Enjoy.

Life and How to Survive It
by Adrian Tan

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

copacabana, bolivia

When you think of "Copacabana," you might think of a lady with a fruit basket on her head, but that isn't quite what you'll find here.

Continuing on our journey, we passed some naturally rainbow-colored stone:

Some grazing donkeys:

And lots of winding roads.  It almost seemed like the land went from color to black-and-white for a while.

And then we were back to the vibrant green:

We didn't get to stop for the Poncho Museum, but it's pretty neat that it exists:

And then, without warning, we were suddenly barreling down the main street of Copacabana:

We started walking towards Lake Titicaca and our little hotel:

We found our hotel, which we thought was pretty nice for about $25 a night:

Especially with this view of Lake Titicaca:

We dropped off our stuff and enjoyed the festive Carnival atmosphere as we walked around town:

Notice all of the confetti carpeting the stairs:

Even the taxis were ready to party:

The beauty of traveling in Bolivia is that people dress the same way whether it's for a parade or just because it's a normal day.  The cholita outfit has probably remained more or less the same for centuries, and it's awesome: the bowler hats, the full and ruffled skirts, the elaborate shawls, the bright aguayo cloth tied around the back, the long braids...

You'll notice lots of potatoes, too, and Bolivians are proud to tell you this is where potatoes originated and that there are thousands of different kinds of potatoes in the country.

But this is getting long, so I'll stop here.

Next up: Lake Titicaca's Isla del Sol.

happy dads

Happy Father's Day weekend!  Here's some information showing that fathers seem happier and healthier than men without kids:

Infographic: What You Need to Know About Dads and Happiness

a nice reminder

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I've seen this before, but it just seems like a nice reminder.  Enjoy.

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith


People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

the journey to copacabana, bolivia

So, it's officially been ages since I posted about my travels, and I'm finally catching my breath to continue, so back to Bolivia we go!

We took a bus from La Paz, the capital, to Copacabana, a town on the coast of Lake Titicaca, where my partner was baptized.

The story here is that my partner's mom grew up loving the beach as a California girl, and when she and her Bolivian husband (my partner's father) decided to move to Bolivia to raise their kids, the plan was to move to Lake Titicaca (the biggest lake in South America, partly in Bolivia and partly in Peru).

They packed water toys, safety vests, etc. in anticipation of lots of lake-time fun.  Unfortunately, they didn't research the schools until they got there and found them dismally inadequate, so they ended up moving to Cochabamba instead (which was smack in the middle of the land-locked country).

The happy ending here is that once the kids left for college, they ended up moving to the beach in Mexico, so she got her beachfront house after all.  And my partner was baptized in the Copacabana church before they left, so it was neat to see it as a piece of his life history.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though, so let's get back to this bus journey.

So, we left bustling, crowded La Paz and headed west towards Lake Titicaca.

I loved passing little towns and found the sky in Bolivia to be particularly beautiful.

We passed some picturesque soccer fields as we drove along the coast of Lake Titicaca.  Imagine playing on one of these fields every day...

Then, we reached the Estrecho de Tiquina (the Strait of Tiquina).

And paid for the smallest tickets ever.

We then walked around a bit while waiting and came across a monument you probably wouldn't see in the States.

 Our bus boarded a raft, and we boarded a little boat.

We watched our bus sail across the strait on the Tornado behind us:

We landed first and walked around a little while waiting for the bus to catch up:

Finally, the bus arrived.

And we were back on the road on our way to Copacabana.  You'll notice that the bus is decked out with flowers and streamers.  Carnival in Bolivia is amazing-- even the buses and taxis get to celebrate.  I've never been a parade person, but when you go to Oruro for Carnival, prepare to have your mind blown.

Next up: Copacabana.