Writing, Communicating and Chatting

I reckon most of us do not receive written personalised letters anymore, nor write any to socialise with others. Even exchanged love notes are in texted electronic messages. Maybe the grocery list is still handwritten.

So called snail mail has been sadly reduced to advertising pamphlets. Contemporary society has practically done away with the pleasures of beautiful handwriting and we are reduced to only being agile with our thumbs.

Elegant writing instruments have become more rare and inevitably redundant. We do not have to sit up properly to communicate - more often than not we are not poised in ergonomic body positions when using electronic screens. 

An increasing number of us are not fully aware of our environment when we text on smart phones walking across busy streets and when driving vehicles. A whole generation has lost the significance of spelling correctly and become infatuated wirh Emojis.

The variety of gadgets to communicate has evolved to portable devices that echo our need to be mobile and have access to our records anywhere we are in the physical world. This has hugely made us depend on wifi availability, a resource which is controlled by only a few players. We can be held captive in this manner when speech and writing are no longer free to be transmitted instantaneously.

Each of us no longer has the thrill of having a private diary buried under a tree or in a secret drawer. Every part of our daily life is recorded by third parties and leaves a trail, even when we electronically delete it.

The shift from use of feathered quills to thumb pressing to write has only taken a few hundred years. It can be both exciting and frightening to imagine the future in this respect. Our records cannot be burned as they are no longer on paper. Yet they can be tampered with, misused and interfered by parties having covert negative intentions, as they can be traced much more easily than with paper documents.

The keyboard still survives but the desktop, email, laptop and tablet are all inevitably headed to oblivion. What is next?

Reflect at how our residential post boxes, email addresses, instant messaging folders and social media inboxes can be saddled with junk stuff and file attachments. There is this dire risk of not having ever being satisfied with whatever capacity is made available.

There may also be no need to write much in the future. We leave verbal messages on phone apps and can ask robots for verbalised answers. 

Yet on the other hand, we do not need to speak on the phone as we can "chat" silently on provider websites that facilitate text conversation formats.

Analytics of our data and images in cyberspace can lead to a new form of political and social control.

Nothing good is free, we do realise there is a cost to be paid for the benefits of on line real time uploading of messages, photos and videos of what we are doing to anyone in another part of the world - provided both sender and recipient can pay for and have access to the new god of wifi.

#yongkevthoughts

Where To For Dinner?

The pork cutlets melted in my mouth this evening, especially with the luscious gravy served at Gambino's Corrimal NSW.

Such is the pleasure of finding a gem of an Italian restaurant in the neighbourhood. Add to this a most engaging customer relations lady who lifts up the conversation and makes us able to relax on a weekday night, particularly one with drizzling and persistent rain showers.

The quality of a suburb cannot be enhanced by too much vehicular traffic, the number of pedestrains and the presence of too many competing businesses. When one enjoys a group dinner, it is both the lovingly made culinary served and the level of meaningful conversation that make a delightful end to a mucky weather of a day.

I forget the cold as I fork into yummy marinated greens and potatoes on the side served with my mains. We do not have to walk far at all between the car and the restaurant. There is no limit on the amount of time we can linger at our table. We can all come home within 15 minutes, even if we do not really want to.

The way cities grow in some parts of the world's most populated areas means making it rare to experience such occasions savoured tonight. Just getting to the restaurant can be a challenge in logistics, even if it is supposed to feel hip. There may be issues and risks of personal safety navigating home after dinner. The restaurant may have two seating sessions, so either one dines too early or too late. There is an increasing trend amongst Asian outlets to accept cash only. The state of toilets in city restaurants can change one's mood for the worse. And then you have to locate your car in a multi storey park.

So you have your choice where you prefer to dine. 

#yongkevthoughts

NBN - or I shall Never Be Neutered

Now is the time......to get real concerned as to how the NBN is being implemented for ordinary Joe and Jane Citizen across our Great Southern Land.


If we already have a viable existing telecommunications system,  why replace it with something less to be desired?   Can all the public monies used to fund NBN be please better utilised for improving health services, public school education and other areas crying for help in an increasingly socially inequitable country?   And we have a Federal Australian Government which is facing serious issues of balancing the national budget, repaying off huge debts and currently significantly having a large loan interest liability.   Why add to another huge and costly undertaking?


After connecting to the NBN, my landline telephone broke down in services three times in six weeks.  In all my previous many years living in this beloved nation called Australia, I have never had any issues with my landline telephone connection, even with copper wire.   My previous landline phone has never gone dead, until post NBN.


NBN tells me over the phone to just deal with my chosen provider if I have any issues with the NBN installation, pre or post.   NBN cannot help.


The Federal Government talks up of the glories of having NBN, unnecessarily raising expectations in the minds of ordinary people like me.   It is indeed a most exciting time to be an Australian, to know the gap between political talk speak  or hype and the inability of NBN to engage with customers, deliver the technical quality in telecommunications as promised and understand deeply that NBN is not a poster boy for innovation that this country needs.


 My selected provider says a lot of things are subject to NBN control.  As a customer, I am left in the gutter, comparable to between a rock and a hard place.   Providers who deal with the public, like me, need the money plus business - and cannot afford to aggravate the NBN.   They dare not criticise the NBN, period.  


===================================================================


I am not holding my breadth anymore. 


Speed connection with NBN is nothing better than pre-NBN days, unless I am willing to dish out an additional AUD 30 more per month to upscale my internet speed plans.


My provider tells me there are things that the way NBN does things has a shortfall, but they cannot be criticised, as NBN dishes out the parcel of revenue to eager outsourced providers and contractors  -  as every resident and citizen in continental Australia eventually will face the prospect of having to change over to this god-like entity called the NBN. 


Before I took up NBN connection, I had access to one of the best telecommunications services Australia can be proud of, even if I know other nations are now providing even better and have uplifted the game....but I was content.   The monster in the room is that every one knows that Australia is left behind in this perspective  - excuses are given that 
Australia has such a huge land mass and such a low population, which I recognise as well. 
So I call to the politicians and NBN to factor this constriction that Australia faces - and not promise glorious and better things with NBN installation.   WE are indeed a low population clinging on to a huge land mass.


Now with the NBN installation kicked in, this new arrangement has disenabled my existing back up battery with my landline, which I understand is critical in the event of an electrical supply shut off.    This back up battery is a significant element for the operation of home medical alarms, emergency call systems, fire alarm, emergency lift phones and monitored security alarm systems.


NBN does not tell the public why the back up battery has to be disenabled.  If customers, who have moved on to NBN connections, want to reinstall a back up battery, they have to bear the costs themselves for doing so.


The NBN arrives at your front door with no democratic choice given to you.  No one in person over the phone discusses with the resident about the impending  rollout or its implications.  The attitude from the NBN is "take it or leave it" - showing arrogance to prospective customers, which is rather jarring in a country that promotes human rights and political correctness in a big way, under our Westminster system of parliamentary democracy.   


Are we as commoners in Australia forced to install NBN?  I know that the Government has given NBN roll out targets, to cover more portions of this Great Southern Land.   I shudder when I see NBN advertisements on the media  - to me it just means NBN is way behind its agreed performance targets.


Strange looking men, contractors hired by NBN,  built an outside NBN box above my existing outside Telstra box   - they do not even talk to you and when approached, say nothing, know nothing and  keep their distance from us.      I heard that NBN has targets to achieve in covering specific  suburbs in their roll out  - and akin to war machines. act in surprising the local populace - and treat human beings with no rights at all in consultation, choice and being informed in a civilised way. 



The contractors sent by NBN to install an outside box broke a chunk of the piping between the existing Telstra box and the new external NBN box.  I phoned NBN and got no follow up.  I saw a contractor hanging outside my house by chance and he said he could do nothing.  He actually asked me to repair it myself....by going to the local Bunnings store.


Letters are sent by and written by NBN  in an unfriendly  manner and language.    I note an irritating feature of telecommunications companies in Australia is to spend huge on a budget of sending snail mail letters - and when I phone up NBN, I am placed on a "circuitous telephone and wait on the line" experience, which says so evidently that NBN does not really want to talk to me and listen to my queries.  


On a side note, Telstra still sends me hard copy letters by traditional post even if I owe them nothing and  I no longer use their services -  this has been going on for more than ten years, easy.   Many people I ask just chuck the hard copy letter they receive from NBN.   Perhaps Telstra has a generous budget to waste on printing and mailing.


After the external NBN box has been set up outside my house, I am barraged by these regular letters stating that the NBN network will replace my landline networks and that I need to get into an NBN plan before a stated due date -  otherwise all my accessible telecommunications will be switched off,  with no other option given to me as an Australian citizen.   NBN spells out that all landline phones, landline internet, EFTPOS and ATM services, fax machines and Teletypewriter devices, monitored security alarm systems, medical alarms and emergency call systems shall be switched off, if the customer does not take up NBN installation.


It is just the sub-standard way in which NBN carries out its installation process and then followed by the lack of delivery of viable service to the customer after installation - this is not on.   Throughout NBN does not communicate sufficiently with the customer.


The preamble promise by NBN in this written letter is that the NBN network is designed  to give Australians "access to fast and reliable landline phone and internet services".
This constantly sent NBN letter promises me four key things, which have not been fulfilled by the NBN post installation:

Faster downloads.


Fewer dropouts.


Better productivity.


A brighter future.

The Incredibility of Getting Away With It

Accountability can be so lacking, or am I just under stating the state of such things?


When there is obvious misdemeanour - or worse - several parties reckon all is done with by proclaiming a Sorry.   The structures of legislation or governance spend money on elaborate structured commissions of enquiry, but the hearings consist of pre-staged replies from representatives of the guilty.   The seriousness of the matter at hand is undermined and ignored by the parties going through the motions, without any apparent attempt to explain why it occurred in the first place or what those responsible are going to avert the causes in the future.


The unspoken costs in psychological trauma of being inflicted in an unfair manner can never be measured by compensation in subjective financial terms.   Is accountability restored in part by the shaming in public by the media?   What is more obvious is the lack of effectiveness and authority of the regulatory bodies set up in the first place to prevent, identify and punish crimes of cheating, greed, fraud and general taking advantage of less empowered individuals.     What happened to the esteem and ability of such regulatory agencies in the first place?  What is the point of funding toothless tigers in the realm of compliance agencies?


It is evident that in our contemporary society, there are powerful entities that are deemed too important to be sufficiently punished for significant misdeeds, or that their existence is deemed to be so necessary that the government of the day has to keep them afloat, no matter what their negative deeds are.   Too large to go under, too connected to be kept afloat by every means, perhaps by tax payer money.   Such is the state of things that perhaps capitalism wrought.    The truly free forces of the market, supply and demand do not apply to such institutions - they are exempted from what happens to others in the wild law of the commercial jungle.


Service levels can be so obviously inadequate, but such providers are not criticised enough for corrective action.   Entities are set up with judicial firewalls between them so that when a related parent commits the crime, the punishment can be pushed to the separately set up entity, without inflicting any responsibility and damage to the parent.


The threat of financial penalties are managed by sufficiency of provisions made and by the setting up of apparent compliance teams to project an image.   The costs of financial damage imposed by regulatory agencies are passed on to customers in terms of extra fees.   The mindset in managing misdeeds is not to correct behaviour and repent, but to avoid costs in strategic planning and on-going execution.


So we have a working system to perpetuate negative behaviour in various sectors.   Those responsible are thinking short term, as they will not be around to support a longer term and more effective change in the factors that cause such an environment.


Those responsible for such misdeeds really think they have got away with it, but the true cost has not surfaced yet.


The widening gap in accountability and the lack of rewards in doing the right thing is a malaise of our modern society.  Whether it is in the election of so called democratic governments, the modus operandi of our economic system or in the signals we encourage in our younger generations, the price for it all will come.  We shall not get away with a reduction in accountability, at whatever levels of our lives and community.


It all starts with the individual - you and me.  If my lies are deemed fake news inflicted by others, the only casualty is the casualisation of truth.    If the boundaries of accountability are pushed further and there is no wholesome penalty for our laws and policies, who is going to take seriously our framework of legislation and penalty structures?


A strong society is built on morals within not just the family, but all the entities whom we rely upon for the conduct of our day to day lives.     If accountability is undermined for such entities, what can we be more uncertain of?


Do we overlook accountability in the pursuit of more financial accumulation, the nurturing of specific powers and in the build up of ego?

Tang Court Cantonese Restaurant, Langham Hong Kong

The elegance begins with fine cutlery and silver ware.

The King prawns were substantial but the sauce was even better.

Classic pork chops in gratifying batter.

The serving chopstick pair is different from what you use yourself on your plate.

A gem of the ocean, done Cantonese style.

The classic spring rolls, only to be surpassed by the melting pork belly with crackle.

Churning For More Business

Churn, more than ever, continues to be the source of business profit and drive in contemporary society.

Turnover of paying customers to one's books means showing an increased customer portfolio, no matter how temporary this increase can be.  Inducing them to use your services or buying your products can mean offering some interim concession, creating some excitement in the joining experience or differentiating your offer from your competitors.

This can be in passing on discounts in prices or rates. It may be linking access to frequent flyer rewards, providing nicely packaged gifts or increasing credit card points. In the past, this was reinforced by hiring a team of effective communicators in person or in adverts to push the package. It is sad these days that many on line offers involve interacting with just software - something is lost in this process but business costs are reduced and a new rising generation of potential customers may prefer it this way.

In having a high churn, shareholders and business owners are pleased to receive the eventual outcome, that is profit margin multiplied by the number of transactions. What simple common sense this can be. What has been neglected inevitably is that once a customer opts in, the level of engagement and service from the business invariably declines.

Once you lock in with an insurance policy, wealth management product or gym membership, do you feel increasingly neglected?   However, if a customer actively changes providers for utilities, telecommunications and subscription services, the incumbents may chase you intensely like forsaken lovers with emerging inducements you were not told of before.

It is all a game as old as human history. Commerce used to make profits on a single transaction, but today's financial markets thrive on benefiting sellers with trailing commissions as if they possessed imtellectual property.  Hence we are not surprised that in unethical cases, fees are still charged long after the initial primary transaction.

Churn can be seen in the frenetic reporting by media of even small changes in prices, whether of currency, options or man made instruments. Churn is the vitality of gambling, churn can be creating value out of nothing at all. Churn thrives on sentiment, speculation and movement. Churn is betting on change and making money out of it. The fast paced and more responsive internet enables the better managing of faster and larger transaction universes. The day trader is only a simple example of the utilisation of churn, which underlies all the financial centres of this world.

To the ordinary individual, better managing churn is the key to better purchasing decisions. The seller need not have a monopoly on making a buck out of churning. It is all a game beyond haggling and bargaining. Understand why sellers like churning.

#yongkevthoughts

Human Addiction

If they are not organically grown, strawberries are said to carry the most residue of pesticides from commercial growing of vegetables and fruits.

Just reflect on smart devices and their software, looking captivating as well with lures and experiences of convenience, interconnectedness and flexibility. What residues of negative connatations and real risks do these gadgets have?

1. Escalating personal addictiveness. How long does it take to check your smart phone after waking up each day?

2. Allowing others to manipulate and control our desires - and we are not even aware of it. Fake news or a source we trust?

3. Feeling pleasure in building up our dependency on others. There is an App for almost everything, especially for things we did not even think we required.

4. Emphasising unplaced trust. Who reads all the terms and conditions, written in a most unpalatable way?

5. Enhancing runaway loss of privacy. Did you notice how many parties want to know your present location?

6. Submitting to structures much larger than nations and governments. 

7. Increasing the risks of putting all the eggs in one basket. The Cloud, the Cloud!

8. Nurturing the Empire of Self-obsession. The Me culture is evident in most Apps.

To unplug is comparable to abstaining from our fav foods. Previous generations were hooked on television, white goods, motor cars and other inventions. So what is new?

The immediate casualty for an individual in this contemporary period is losing the balance in choices amongst screen time, embracing the outdoors and enhancing physical activity. There are pyschological and physiological benefits in putting away the smart screens for longer periods - and yet there are withdrawal symptoms, pleasure to give up from persuasive tech and an isolation from communication issues to deal with.

Our human brains are increasingly engineered to sync with such smart machines to such an extent each of us undergo feelings of real loss in not constantly interacting with them. We feel better when we get likes. We instinctively want to get biofeedback from our exercises - and this facet of behavioural pyschology has been utilised to higher levels of inducing addiction in each of us. We want to instinctively get rewards on a constant basis - the smart machines and Apps know this very well.

The human race is essentially a social animal - and yet so called smart tech escalates isolation, over self importance and encourages social awkwardness. The art of an enjoyable conversation is lost, replaced by the thrills of software graphics and the ability to do things silently without the need to verbalise or spell - think of Emojis.

Previous inventions freed up time to enable gathetrings of the family or tribe.
Smart machines make us so obsessed we run out of time to eat properly or make time to meet up - after all the message has been delivered to other individuals by a click.

We can be observed to be like guinea pigs riding mini wheels to obtain constant bursts of little cubes of food. The volume of content of so many social media vehicles are endless - not that most have any meaningful value. 

The stakes in today's games are higher than ever, due to the startling degrees of lacking transparency, hidden access to your data and the extreme profiling of individuals. Behind it all is business, the need to make profits and to sell you something - that has never changed!

In summary, the actual ability of smart machines, social media moves and Apps software to change your behaviour is the most significant. Most of us do not even realise this is happening to each of us.

Rare is the person who can utilise the largest opportunities to take advantage of this development.

#yongkevthoughts

Politics, Elections, Royalty and Modifications

Post World War 2, a rising tide of nationalism, the strengthening of communism and the end of colonialism witnessed an age of pro-independence political leaders. This was especially pronounced across Africa and Asia.

Roll forward about sixty to seventy years.

How many nations are still ruled by the same political party that fought for independence at the outset? Singapore comes foremost to mind. In contrast, the high level of volatility in the political landscape of Europe, the primary colonisers for a few centuries pre World War 2, has since witnessed a wide spectrum of political players with many different hues.

So called democracies encourage change, with parties playing off each other every few years. Historically this can lead to dictatorships, autocracy, kleptocracy, military rule and other arrangements which are a far cry from the idealistic Greek idea of democracy.

Even the Roman Republic came into aurocratic rule for a long time before the Empire collapsed and after the powers of checks and balances like in the Senate were decimated.

The implications of having too much a passion on exercising freedoms of expression in the past century can be a two edged sword. We have observed what has happened in the United States of America, which remains a highly divisive society, has gun use issues, has wealth concentrated in a few rather than the many and which is said to have been subject to excesses of interference in the electoral process. 

In comparison, for some other countries, the cry to be heard for socio-political and economic justice is often ignored and suppressed - the yearning for basic freedoms here remains unfulfilled.

The different shades of Isms in categories of government rule currently seem to be skewing towards conservative values, right wing thinking and less openness in interacting with the outside world. Globalisation has had a kick in the butt when ordinary folks lose their jobs, manufacture so little and suffer a decline in their quality of life - especially when their political leaders are not innovative enough to change economic drivers. Therefore new labels like populism now compete with long standing systems like socialism, modified democracy, capitalism and political correctness.

Yet the strong hold of royalty continues in societies as diverse as the UK, Thailand, Japan and Brunei, providing many benefits of political stability as it may draw criticism.

There are only currently six nations which hold the communist label. They are Laos, Albania, Cuba, Vietnam, China and North Korea. The progressive ones emphasise on improving the day to day wealth of their citizens whilst expecting loyalty to party.

The integration of religious faith amd political control continues to happen across the Middle East. This is remniscient of history in the European Middle Ages before the collapse of feudal thought and practices.

Malaysians used to politically associate the month of May mainly with post election racial riots in 1969. Today for the majority, there is a glow in their hearts after an astounding post election outcome 49 years later on May 9. The party that won independence from the British and had ruled thereafter was over whelmingly rejected by voters without violence and after a much maligned long term performance by the incumbent Government. Change can be possible in a positive way.

#yongkevthoughts

Personal Thoughts, Actions and Attitudes

Listen to what your inner and outer worlds are trying to tell you. Take simple steps to more mindfulness, especially to fully appreciate the present and the now.
Quiet down the mind to a simple point of focus at least once every day. Saviour a soundless contentment.

Declutter to allow growth, let go of things that unnecessarily bind you and better accept change like those of the seasons. Acknowledge your own gratefulness, for things simple and more. Experience more and never corner yourself in. Allow our inherent creativity to unfold. Be conscious to be moderate in all actions.

Take more interest in new things beyond your routine. Never stop questioning. Always stop to consider other views and then decide yourself. Perception can be reality, but reality may not be the perception. It is better to know the cause than treating the symptoms.

Observe yourself, as if you are a third party, in your physicality, your emotions, your inner spirit and in your behaviour.

Realise your posture, examine your demeanour, feel the internal flows of vitality of your body. Breathe, smell, visualise, feel textures, watch closely and taste better. Increase the potential of what you can do as a human being in all senses of the word, in the mind, in the interconnectedness of things and in using Nature's gifts.

Know when to remain silent, know when it is necessary to speak out - at all times, exercise discretion to respect our friends and family but yet be bold when we need to.

Always dress up better than you know what you are.

Recognise doubts and non-beneficial habits for what they are - for you to remove, for you to be more determined to create your own path and for you to be more smart to achieve your own happiness. Awaken and recalibrate from every experience to sift out treasures hidden from you before, deescalate matters that materialism cannot offer and understand more deeply what are the more constants of life.

Plant a seed of positive energy and start ripples of your effort to benefit not only your family but also your community and fellow human beings. Delightfully surprise someone when they least expect it.

Make a start no matter how small a step it is. Persistence and yet also having a mindset of strategic flexibililty contributes to better outcomes in more significant ways than any other human attribute possessed or exercised. Let your dreams take shape like a spring from the high mountains and which eventually flows into the ocean through an intricate delta of a mature river.

Spend more time with a companion who lights a lamp in both your hearts, no matter what the weather.

Take comfort in the lessons and joys from the past, relish the rewards of the present and look forward to the future.

#yongkevthoughts

How Do You Treat Airline Crew?

It is shocking to know that first line staff in Australia attending to emergencies are often abused, physically attacked and risk their lives trying to help.

The lack of personal morals and being under the influence of deranging drugs and Ice may be the reasons behind such behaviour, but it just does not make sense. Police personnel, medics and rescue specialists bear the brunt of anger from ungrateful individuals.

What has been under reported is also the personal risks faced by cabin crew staff working on the thousands of air flights hovering above our skies at any one minute. The age of elegance and privilege flying in the air has long finished with the advent of budget airlines, maximisation of paid passenger capacity and the boom in tourism.

It used to be the highest opportunity in the service industry to be a uniformed steward or stewardess working to comfort airline passengers. There was a high expectation of standards from both passengers and airline crew in their interaction. Although air crew members are mostly still spick and span in their wardrobe and work behaviour, passenger quality can deteriorate in several respects.

Air passengers tend to dress down these days in a more casual world. Don't even think of customers on cruise ships and train services. At the same time, rhe service expectations of many passengers have increased. Do we blame the airline companies for such developments? In an increasingly crowded field, there is pressure on airlines to differentiate on several fronts - and cabin crew service is a significant one.

Passengers see the crew, literally, as the persona of the airline. They dish out the food and alcohol, resolve issues arising when individual passengers need to store too many hand luggage items and have to play supporter and referee when there are disputes between passengers. Some passengers demand that cabin crew are house help, waiters, girl friends, boy friends, nannies, tech specialists, comforters, conversation buddies, nurses, barmen, butlers and restaurant staff - all at once.

Confronting incidents as being spilled by drinks and food can lead to things bigger than they are. And not just by serving staff. Many have come across episodes of air crew being thrown things, verbally abused by drunken passengers and being accused of rudeness. The aim of a flight is to get from Point A to Point B, you may think - but it is no more, as the hype builds up with too many cabin crew members and passengers trying to cope with the negative effects of flying across too many time zones, being cooped up in essentially tight spaces and having to fly too often.

It Can Be All Relative

11 degrees Celsius is nippy when you are used to 19. It can be so warm in comparison when you have had to put up with minus five.

Waiting for a commuter train that comes every 15 minutes is a pleasure when you are often subject to wait another hour after missing a train. 15 minutes is unbearable when you only wait every three minutes.

Driving for 500 kilometres on the road allows you to cross several countries in Europe. Being on the road for five hours in Australia still does not change the passing scenery.

Ten hours on a large ship cruise seems wasted compared to the same number of time discovering new cultures, food and port cities on a day trip to an exotic island.

When you are in the company of your special someone, a day feels like an hour but when you are stuck with some one else, an hour does seem to be a day.

When one keeps occupied and enjoys a journey no matter how long it takes, there is no expectation but only pleasure on savouring every moment of the experience.

At times, it is best not to label anything or preconceive matters. If one has already decided to dislike some thing with a closed mind, his attitude is coloured and limited. If one does not allow one bad experience to still open up and question why not, he has himself jumped over the roadblock to further evaluate what can be a better perspective.

Everything can be relative, delights do wait in the dark and things always change. The warm sun awaits you past the freezing rain. The destination can pale in rewards compared to gems come across on the journey. A moment's pleasure can lead to years of hard work but also quiet content. Years of hard and smart work do lead back to a grateful joy.

The length of time may not matter, but does allow a gradual build up of happiness. The best experience can be an unanticipated acknowledgement, a chance encounter or a simple smile.

There is no need to over plan. Go with the flow, do not overburden your body, allow the mind to go free once on a while.

Everything truly is relative.

#yongkevthoughts