The Stories

that the chinese are making a hell lot more money then i will ever get. But at least i shave my armpits.

Thank God I’m alive, with a healthy, happy family and friends I can count on.

I ask myself the same question everyday at the start of the day.
“What do i have to clear today?”

That I am so happy to be studying what I am studying.

Since I alternate between feeling highly suspicious of mantras and periods of excessive preoccupation with self-help books, I rarely have a mantra that I repeat to myself. Or sometimes, some days, I’m not self-aware enough to talk to myself. Perhaps the faint thought flitting through my head is that today is another day that should see something accomplished, no matter how small. I think I see a lot of people around me who are just struggling to survive on a daily basis in Beijing that such thoughts, mantras, mottos seem really quite pointless. So maybe what I do think about everyday is how privileged my life truly is.

1) What have you done with your God given talents?
2) Have you served others before yourself?
3) End of day: Have you reflected and given thanks to it?
Last one is a statement. Look forward to tomorrow and start anew when it arrives.

I tend to ask myself “What interesting things am I doing today?” I am inherently a lazy person, and if left to my own devices, I revel in sloth. The question pops up when boredom hits, and more than anything else, it is a reminder to do something unusual and learn something new daily. I can’t claim credit for the putting this question in my head though. A close friend whom I greatly admired for the adventurous path of his life told me that anyone could have an interesting life. It’s all a matter of taking charge and making it interesting.

If I’m lucky, when I wake up I
1) remember my dreams, and try to make sense of them
or just appreciate how strange it is to dream at all and then
2) “What do I want to accomplish before lunch?”

I don’t usually say it aloud but just think it. I probably don’t ’say’ anything to myself daily,
other than a few choice expletives and the occasional deep sigh.

The experiment

Each week on Friday, I will post a random question on Design, Thunk. Tell us your personal story: what happened? what led to it? how did you feel? what struck you most about the incident? Your story can be as short as 2 paragraphs, or a long page. It’s your call. And, there isn’t an ideal answer. We just want to understand your world.