It is the time of the year again….to reflect, to feel, to take a breather from the hecticness of the past year. Received an email from a friend on setting new year’s resolution which I thought was quite useful especially for people who like to set up frameworks and timelines. Here are some tips from Dr Stephen Covey, author of the book – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Importance of setting resolutions
In his book, Dr Covey states that a highly effective person always begins with the end in mind. One important message that we can deduce from this statement is that the key to success lies in the ability to identify the goals and targets that we intend to achieve. With an objective being clearly defined, we would be better prepared and organized during the process of achieving it.
Next, Dr Covey points out that if the ladder that we are climbing is not leaning against the right wall, every step that we take directs us to the wrong destination quicker. After a goal has been set, it is hence critical that we have the best possible support to help us to reach it. With the correct assistance, we would be able to save much time and effort instead of wasting precious energies. 
Lastly, Dr Covey says that everything is created twice, with once in mind, then in physical. Therefore, theoretically everything is possible and nothing is deemed impossible to attain. The sky is truly the limit. Why restrict ourselves to only the things that we know? Before you set out to accomplish a goal, open your mind, let your imagination runs free, be receptive to new ideas, and you would be amazed by the power of a free mind. Remember, explore all the available opportunities and tap the boundless potentials waiting for you.

Reflect on past year’s resolutions
We have just talked about the importance of setting resolutions. Now, let’s reflect on the resolutions that you have made for this year. This is the time for you to sit down and quietly reflect on three main areas:

Firstly, where did I do well? If you managed to achieve certain resolutions, give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done. Feeling positive and encouraged would go a long way in sustaining your interest in realizing other resolutions.
Secondly, where can I improve further? Target the areas that you feel you can improve on and strive to achieve better results the next time round. Through this constant process of identifying the areas that need improvements, you would be able to build on past experiences and establish a more solid foundation.
Thirdly, who can help me to improve further? Sometimes, it is difficult to fight a battle alone. Hence, you might have to recruit a team of advisors, armed with the necessary knowledge and skills, to bring you to greater heights.

Enjoy your resolutions! I haven’t been setting resolutions as well….maybe it is time to start.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This blog post is overdue, as I have been caught up in a lot of plans and meetings recently. I met up with some single friends (and their friends) for drinks last week at 1-Altitude. It was a super cool night (cool because the wind was blowing relentlessly). The view was good from the top but well, it’s just that. Maybe I expected it to have a little more oomph so I was a tad disappointed.
Anyway, I met 2 interesting chaps in their late 20s-early 30s who are intelligent, holds decent conversations and are in good old stable jobs, travelling to exotic and far flung places such as Brazil and Russia on tax payers’ money. The topic pretty much moved on dating escapades sin Singapore once they found what I do for a living.
Decent men do have some standards. One of the guys was hotly pursued in (their own words) by a “Hot, chio babe”, whom he met while on a car-buying excursion.
Apparently she was very into him, and asked him if he liked her within the next day, and for the next couple of days tried all ways and means to “get” him, even going to the extent of appearing at his house at midnight wearing a short short shorts and a tight tank top. However apparently nothing much happened according to him.
My girlfriend’s first reaction was, “What’s Wrong with You? Seriously.” While we joked and teased the poor guy mercilessly,I think that this demonstrates clearly what I termed The Fear of the Decent Men - that He (The smartest, Most Intelligent, Most Capable Man alive) is just next in the line of ahem…public toilet users.
When a woman, especially one as Hot as they claimed, came on as strong as she apparently did, Men are going to THINK with their right head (for a change) after the inital rush of lust and attraction. The guy friend used words such as “crazy” to describe the Hot girl – he did not have any physcial relationship with her (even though I’m sure the other head is yearning to), because he was afraid of the consequences.
In his words, he said “What if she want had wanted me to marry her after we had sex? What if she kicked up a big fuss at my office as she has my name card?”. In other words, She was sizzling red hot affair-material but not WIFE material. She was probably good for a tumble in bed (in this case, the tumble didn’t even happen because she was deemed too unstable and crazy), but not as the mother of his kids.
It was an interesting conversation. At least my female single friends can take comfort in the fact that there are actually more decent men (who think with their right heads at critical junctions) around than commonly assumed. Respect and love yourself and you can expect the same from others. Public toilets are like canteen food – we would much rather be served in our own kitchens.

Received an article titled “The neuroscientist paralysed by love”, from a friend. First we learnt that Love leaves you blind, now we know that Love can paralyse you!

Apparently this American neuroscientist has developed a rare condition that leaves him paralysed when he feels the emotion of love.

This 39 year old guy is left immobile if he even has a romantic thought or sees others showing displays of affection. He is unable to put his arm around Trish, his wife of 13 years, and suffers attacks on anniversaries. He can suffer attacks several times a day! “Holding hands in public is something that we can do for a few seconds at most, and that’s about it,” Mr Frerking said.

This is simply classic! Can you imagine if we have a whole generation of people who are “allergic” to love and passed out after having “warm and fuzzy feelings”? We have an iron-clad reson NOT to date or fall in love.

“I can’t put my hands around you honey!” will become the de-rigeur reasons for not engaging in acts of intimacy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7954593/The-neuroscientist-paralysed-by-love.html

Been in Hangzhou for the past few days, and I terribly missed the following things (apart from my loved ones):
1) Facebook
2) Facebook
3) Facebook

In terms of the dating culture here, online chatting seems to be a very popular venue for the young people here (in their 20s) to meet new friends. They tend to marry at a younger age, most of the newly-wedded couples I meet are only in their mid twenties, with the majority of them perferring to have kids later. Most of them are the only child in the family, hence if a 独女 (Only Girl)，独子 (Only Biy) marry, they can have two kids instead of one. However, many of them whom I have spoken to, says one kid is more than enough as the economic costs of bringing them is very high….

Dating programs seem to be very popular here, the most peopular dating program is called “非城无扰”, which is derived from a movie which starred Ge You (a popular China actor) and Shu Qi, filmed in Hangzhou. This phrase literally means: “if you are not sincere (in knowing me), then please do not disturb me”, referring to a self description in a personal ad placed by Ge You in the movie.

Single men and women flocked to join dating programs such as 非城无扰, which has sprawned copycats all over China. I was pretty ticked to find out that one of Eeping’s friend in Hangzhou recently went on one, where he self introduced himself and was evaluated by 18 girls on TV! He did have a match eventually, but the girl went off to Hong Kong after that….

Will Singapore ever have a program such as 非城无扰? =P I really doubt it because the singles here preferred to be perceived as coolly single rather than exhibiting any enthusiasm in seeking a life partner. i think it will kill us to laid bare our hopes and expectations in front of  national  TV and having a group of men/women critiquing us.

Read an interesting article on Channel News Asia. Why do men and women get married? Have you ever wondered?
Why get married at all? Women don’t need providers and men don’t need in-house procreators. Turns out, we both want to get married. But for very different reasons.

For all the young women who’ve chewed their nails to the skin anticipating a proposal, it may be a relief to know that, yes, men still want to get married. But there’s a critical difference between the sexes. In broad terms, when a woman falls in love, just like the Trinity character in The Matrix, she knows he’s The One. But a man’s readiness can be seen as a life stage. To call on The Matrix again, a time when he’s ready to take the red pill.

“He first needs to feel like he knows what he’s doing in the world and where he’s going,” says John Gray, relationship counselor and author of the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus books. “Women are more concerned about who they’re going with.”

“Historically men have been more eager to marry when they’re financially secure, and women have wanted to marry when they wanted children,” says Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and author of Why Him? Why Her? Fisher calls it a “human male need” to provide for his wife, a desire that hearkens back to our hunter-and-gatherer days when the “dual-income family was the rule.” She harvested the fruits and vegetables, and he brought home the meat.

But when the woman was pregnant or nurturing small children, she was vulnerable. It became the man’s job to protect and provide for his family. Today, still, men do not feel ready for marriage until they can fulfill that historic role, albeit with career stability and a certain amount in the bank rather than a bison turning on the spit.

The real change is that now marriage readiness goes both ways. Gray says that he’s observed a shift in marriage because of women’s education and work. Women now receive 60% of college degrees and comprise half the workforce. “When she has a good job, her security needs are met, and she looks for a man to provide emotional support,” says Gray. Women are looking for partners who are romantic, supportive, good communicators and will be helpful on the home front, Gray says.

Researchers and sociology professors Christine B. Whelan at the University of Pittsburgh and Christie F. Boxer at the University of Iowa set out to find out what men and women look for in a spouse and uncovered this very trend. From a list of attractive traits, women ranked a man’s desire for home and children at No. 4. In past decades they had ranked it much lower. In 1977, for example, it was No. 10.

Men’s standards, too, have changed in what they find attractive in a potential wife. Until the 1960s men ranked a woman’s education and intelligence at No. 11 on their lists of attractive qualities. Now men prioritize a woman’s intelligence over her good looks, ranking it at No. 4 as compared to No. 8.

And unlike the urban myth of husband-hunters like Sex and the City’s Charlotte York, more women are delaying or forgoing marriage. According to the current population survey, the median age at first marriage in 2009 was 26 for women and 28 for men, up from 22 and 25 a century ago. Marriage historian Stephanie Coontz, a professor at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., says with more options, women are delaying marriage to pursue education and find the man they really love.

“It’s only in the last 20 years that women have said they’d marry just for love,” says Coontz. “It used to be that people were embarrassed to admit they loved their spouse, but now they’re embarrassed to admit the other reasons for marriage.”

Sociologist Whelan believes that both sexes tie the knot due to a combination of love and social pressure, and that pressure comes a bit later for men. The typical ready-to-wed man, she says, has been out of college for a few years, maybe just got a promotion or raise, and has experienced a summer of attending several of his friends’ weddings.

Once friends start walking down the aisle, “it’s as if a light bulb goes off in their heads,” says Whelan. Suddenly men realize they want to settle down, and they start seeing the women they date through an is-she-wife-material lens.

Read the complete article at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/living/view/1061042/1/.html