If We Aim to BE THE BEST, Then We Should DO OUR BEST!

Being a qualified early childhood educator, I have always believe that 'every repetition brings about a different learning' and unveil the unconscious mind to its conscious state.

Today, I am not here to brag about what I know or understand about child development. Nor am I here to question anyone or arrowing at any particular person. Whatever I am about to say is purely my thoughts and these thoughts have defintely been 'there' for many years and until today, I felt there is a need for me to deliver my thoughts in words, (frankly) with the hope that it would be heard.

Hospital is not unfamliar to any, in fact, it is very familiar to many of us and definitely to me. Many of us, at a time or other, would have visited a friend or a family member in the hospital. After every hospital visits, how many of you, would give it another thought or perhaps after leaving the hospital, or even after that few days of mourning, would seriously think about what I have been thinking all these while. And now I realised it is not just about visiting and saying 'how-are-you', 'have-ample-rest', or 'i-will-see-you-tomorrow'. I would say, each repeating visits to the hospital, has seriously made me think that something is just not right. I may be wrong but again, this is MY thought, put into SERIOUS thinking.

It started 7 years ago, when grandpa was hospitalised for colon cancer. 2 years after - my mom; followed by 2 of my uncles (dad's brothers); last year - my 2nd aunt and all of them, now GONE. Just last week, I visited my 3rd aunt who was admitted for woman-related issues, and I thank GOD she is now well and back home.

For those of you who have known me or been through these 7 years with me, you would probably understand what I am deriving at. Allow me to be direct - with so many of my loved ones GONE, I just can't help being annoyed. Yes, I agree that those that were gone was because they were at the final stages of cancers. And bigger YES adding to my annoyance was the fact that I lost my dearest mom - who surrendered on her 4th (and last) surgery. Can you imagine how tough it must have been for her - she had to go through 3 surgery - all within a short 6 month period and finally decided enough is enough on the 4th!

Many people says we have a great medical team. I do not deny they are good, I never say they are bad. However I feel that in our pursuit to be the BEST, we have neglected a very important, yet simple fact -  maintaining the BALANCE in mind, body and soul.

Let me give you an analogy: our body is like a machine, with many parts supporting it.
In the case of a machine, when one of the parts becomes faulty, the technician would try to fix it, if not, replace it with a new one; and the executing procedure can be the same for all other machines.

In our case, once one of the parts starts to 'give-way', the doctors will find the diagnosis and starts treating it, with methods and medications that they deemed fit the patient. Human bodies are different from machines; not all parts are replaceable and the same procedure and medication may not work for all; it is more on a trial and error basis. The negligence that I am referring to is the part on nutritional. Whilst focusing on feeding the body with more and better medications to tackle the diagnosis, have we forgotten a basic fact that once our immunity is low, everything else will start to crumble, even with the best medicine?

Look at it this way, the patient is given nothing, but medicine from the day he is admitted to hospital, to target on the health issues and given stronger medications when the initial ones doesn't seems to 'work', and when complications arise, antibiotics are added on. Of course, in medical views, these medicines are very necessary to bring the patient to recovery - which I never have doubts too. The thing that I see and feel 'not-right' - the negligence of nutrition. All I see is medicines after medicines, and when this medicine don't work, another 'better' (stronger) medicine will be introduced. During this process, the body is heavily induced with different types of medicines - wouldn't this eventually weaken the internal systems and our body? Wouldn't our immunity level thus be affected? Once the immunity level drops because of not sufficient nutrition but only medicine is introduced, can we still expect good recovery, in the case of a patient who is already in his weakest stage - from my point of view - NO.

In every aspects, we talked about BALANCE. But why isn't we balancing it well enough where health is concerned? Or perhaps the doctors job is ONLY to focus on prescribing the correct or better medicines, and it is up to individual to balance it on the nutritional part? Of course, there are Nutritionists in medical team but what I see is they come in, only when the patient is already at his weaker stage; why not concurrently from the initial treatment?

SERIOUSLY, since we aim to BE THE BEST in everything, why don't we DO OUR BEST in everything??

What Does Life Have For Us?

"So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours."

We start 'working' hard the moment we enter this world.

We learn through our environment;

We pick up skills along the way;

We fall and bring ourselves up again - all these by our own effort.

We strive to excel in whatever we do;

We strive not to fail our loved ones;

We strive towards recognition and own dreams;

We strive towards a better tomorrow.

We slog this much, all for the sake of a 'good' retirement in old age.

But how many of us actually get to enjoy a 'good' retirement?

And what defines a 'good' retirement?
Lots of savings / tip-top health / many children and grandchildren / loving partner / engagement in social activities etc. etc??

Can one really have all of above and does having all of above truly promises a 'good' retirement?

Shouldn't we start making our life meaningful, for THIS Moment?

Work and achieve for NOW, as we never know: "IF TOMORROW COMES".

Attending Tuition Classes At The Age of 5???

I wonder what 'tuition' is being given to children as young as 5years old???

Shouldn't we be focusing more on social skills - MORE PLAY, LESS STRESS??
Why & When have our society become this 'Kiasu'??

Is such system the RIGHT one??