The days have gone, and we all know about the Virgina Tech shooting. Now we are asking ourselves, “How do we deal with the tragedy?”

Here’s my interpretation and observation. The event is a tragedy by itself, and no doubt each and everyone of us are saddened by it to different levels depending on how closely we are related to the event.

But you know what? I am saddened. I am VERY saddened, and troubled. TRULY! Not by the tragedy itself, but by a bigger tragedy the way I see it.

Glancing over many the media coverage about the event, I have a tough time accepting the topics of the coverage. It just seems to me that people are just pointing fingers, blaming any fact/person (gun-seller, video game, movie…) they can lay their eyes/hands on, or just having their own political agenda (eg. school safey, security, gun control…).

Instead, I would like us to pause and take the chance to ask ourselves some questions and look into ourselves. I tried to find something that’s similar to what I propose here, but to no avail… If only we can stop pointing fingers for a moment and think? That maybe Seung-Hui Cho would not have done so if he was shown some caring and kindness along the way he was growing up. How could he ever get so angry? Maybe a few sincere simple words were all he needed… like in one of the last scenes in American Beauty, where Mena Suvari asked Kevin Spacey “How are you?” and meant it.

He has come from Korea with his family and appeared to have lived a very modest life style. Two things come to mind – the difficulty of adjusting to a completely new country and environment, which I myself has experienced and can relate to and plus the difficulty of living perhaps a more modest life. On top of those, who knows what kind of treatment his family received and himself received in school in a younger age. And then there’s also the treatment and condition amongst his family. I think if they look into his history, they can most likely find something starting from there. (they probably have already but who want such boring story anyways) These are speculations, but whatever his experience was… all together have turned him into such a lonely soul… so isolated, so lonely and it hurts so bad…

The problem with this approach is that it requires us to stop blaming others and take the blame ourselves, that “we are bad ‘friends’ (quote and quote)”, “we are bad parents”, “we are not kind enough”, or even “we don’t really give a damn about other people anymore”. It is obvious that no one would want to admit to those, and it is pretty hard to swallow. Therefore, we people are more prone to take the easy way out by pointing fingers.

The problem is that if we just blame other people and things, we fail to accept the flaws in us and try to correct. I propose that we are to consistently evaluate ourselves and to pay attention if we’re showing kindness to others. We are all human beings living under the same sky, on the same earth, breathing the same air, so I think it’s fair to all of us to spend effort to reach out to others when they need it. And also communicate to people, among family, and I mean “real” communication. Throw away the sexiem, racism, discrimination, skin color difference, sexual orientation diversity, religious bias, age gap, principle difference… all that crap and stop alienating ourselves amont ourselves. Show kindness and love, shed some light on others, care, and most importantly, these should all come from the heart and that we really mean them.

I would like to ask us all to stop and think about this for a moment. It gives me bigger chill that none of us seem to think like this… Let’s end “this” tragedy…

PS. I sincerely wish I have a better way to scream to the world about this.

Humans are such silly creatures and can’t seem to stop from killing each other in a rapid pace…

Not only there are wars going on, we’re also shooting each other to death… as gunman kills 32 at university.

Einstein is right… Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. It’s saddening to see people lose themselves, give up on rationalization, and deprive himself and others for a chance.

I talked about learning “better” breathing before. Closely relating to that, posture is almost equally important for our daily lives and health. Actually, getting the breathing down will depend on having better posture. Several factors together prompted me and helped me to fix my own postures: back pain from sitting in office (major), gym’ing, playing piano, and singing. Not only will better postures improve our health and make us feel better in general, with better posture, there will certainly be improvement in all activities/exercise.

By no means am I an health expert, but here are some pointers that I follow personally and have great results:

• Spread and relax the shoulders so they’re slightly angle downward
• Arms on the side of the body
• Straighten up the neck and tuck the chin in, so the head does not stick forward
• Push the sternum outward slightly so the rib cage is opened

These last 4 will help you not to slouch.

• Don’t lock the knees while standing
• Spreading your legs to shoulder width apart while standing
• Feet pointed forward, not diagonally. To allow the hips to relax and consequently, the spine also
• While sitting at a desk or in front of computer, maintain a straight back do not lean your body forward or backward
• Relax muscles around the buttocks when sitting
• Balance the weight of the body more towards the balls of the feet instead of the heels

These last 6 steps will help to reduce the strain on th back tremendously.

• Finally, together with everything, try to feel and monitor the body so you know when your body is tense and try to relax. Deep breathing will help to do that. Drinking more water will also help.

Those are the things I do, and I am noticing how it has helped me in everything. It’s the fundamental in all the things we do, be it piano, dancing, working out, singing, basketball. Fix and improve your posture, then keep it consistently to live a better life :)

10 rules that I live by in financial aspect (I didn’t know I could come up with 10, yay!):

1. Spend less than what you make.
2. Use credit cards wisely – pay off credit card bills each month, make use of 0% APR offer for financing, use reward cards that accumulate points or have % cash back.
3. Pay off “bad” debt – this includes any high interest rate debt that is not tax deductible, which is credit card debt for most people (there are pay-day loans which should be avoided at all cost anyways because of outrageous interest).
4. Contribute to and fully utilize 401k – Most employers provide 401k these days, so contribute some or at least the % of employer matching (free money!) but also educate yourself of the available funds and pick wisely (hence the “fully utilize” part).
5. Contribute regularly to saving.
6. Develop your own investment portfolio – whether it be individual stocks or funds, but educate yourself first and invest in a style that suits you. I said “your own” because you should never just follow what others do because our needs, situations, and personalities are all different, so understanding yourself is essential here.
7. Have a spending budget – this allows you to afford hobbies, gadgets, travelling, etc.
8. Distinguish “want” vs. “need” – this is the most important to keep myself from spending too much because of how I LOOOOOOOOVE gadgets :)
9. Invest in ourselves – classes, books, or things that contribute to our general well-being.
10. Remember the ultimate goal – a reminder to be frugal and financial-smart but yet not becoming cheap :) In other words, balance is everything.

I would like to clarify the growth that can happen to us into four separate categories.

• Physical
• Mental
• Emotional
• Financial

I know the line between mental and emotional can be blurry, but I’d like to distinguish them because in this case, mental means personal mental strength and emotional indicates more people-related feelings/thoughts. Already we can see how growing in these two categories can affect each other, and it is not difficult to create links between the four areas. In other words, when we grow in one area, it provides support for us to grow in another. Examples such as, when we grow physically, becomes healthier and more fit, we have an improved sense of confidence that strengthen us mentally. In return, the mental strength provides the discipline needed to continue to exercise, and the discipline we used in that can spill over to let us have control over our money. And then by having control over our financial life, we feel more secure and thus, able to divert our mental energy to better purposes than being stressed out all the time about money. Or when we become more emotionally stable, there will be less situations where emotions take over us and allow our logical side to help resolve the situations for us. Stability in the other three areas help our emotional stability… etc…

As we can see, that is exactly why we need to grow and never give up in all four directions on our paths of personal development. They are closely related. None of the four should be neglected because lacking any of them will weaken the other areas drastically. To visualize this, let’s picture what would happen to a four-legged stool if one leg is missing. You get the idea.

Somewhat related to this, I’d like to quote myself from a conversation I had today, “Only if we’re truly independent, we will make real friends in life.” This is a bit vague, but “true” independence amounts to reaching certain level/independence in each of the four areas I mentioned. What I said is what I fully believe in my heart. “Inter-dependence (friends) is possible only after Independence (self)”.