Summa Cum Laude

When I first put my foot in America, I was living a life full of uncertainty. I left my home, family, and friends for a better future. I had to give up all the comforts and familiarity in the last 18 years of my life, and embraced a different life. For strangest reasons, I was in pain and sorrow. I had an impression I did not belong here. All I cared was being graduated from college with a satisfactory grade point average, and left this country for good. I had problems adapting with the western culture and I felt scared when thought of living with this for 3 more years. I remembered I had to record all lectures with a voice recorder, and repeated the recorder dozens of times to understand what the professor was saying. The hardest experience I had was feeling like nobody when  I was trying to share my point of view with my group members and was ignored. Everything seemed out of my league. I did not feel quite fulfilled when I first came here. I never stood out from the crowd.  I felt lonely and insignificant. I missed my home.

Although my beginning experience was not the best, but today I realized everything I went through in the last 3 years made so much sense to me. I was in a room full of graduates celebrating their final day of college. When I was listening to the chorus and musician playing, "Angels In the Architecture", I somehow related it with my life. I started with a bumpy road, but I can see my future with clarity since I grew so much in the last couple of years. I became self sufficient, independent and made loyal friends. I found more love and respect than I ever had when I was back home. I was one of the few graduates who received the Summa Cum Laude, the highest academic distinctions. Now I have bigger goals to accomplish, and I understood that the greatest way to cure loneliness is to serve others and give unconditional love. I understood that I accomplished an important mission in my life which I had been longing for since I was a kid. I just graduated from college, found a wonderful place to work, know wide range of people from all walks of life and have inspiring goals.

I can understand if you cannot follow what point I am trying to make. The only message I want to give is that I am very grateful. I am in a state of abundance. In December 18, 2011, I completed my mission successfully. Now my job is to decide a bigger and empowering goals which will provide me brighter future.

Being A Dream Architect

I have been pondering these questions last night. What if my whole life is a long dream and I actually am the architect to design my dream? How would I spend every single day of my dream? What emotions would I experience in a day to day basis? What kind of friends would I attract in my life? What kind of person would I want to be? How would I react to a challenging situation? What are my deepest desires?

I ended up answering those questions. I was really excited to jot down my answers. This exercise is only a stepping stone to find my true purpose in life. These are some ideas that came in my mind:

First of all, I would spend every single day of my dream experiencing positive emotions. I would experience joyfulness, celebration, gratefulness, happiness, being proud and confident. I would also feel loved all the time and love others in return. I will have mixture of days which will challenge my courage, commitment, and mental strength. But I would welcome every craps and negative emotions that come in my way, then let it go easily. The anxiety, self defamation and depression never serves me - It never makes a situation any better. I would stay confident, certain and calm in every challenging situation. I become more confident and courageous in every challenge I  overcome. I will be in a state of abundance.

Secondly, I would be around positive, vibrant, successful and loving people in planet. They would support me to be the best I possibly can. They would encourage me to take challenges. They would be loyal and understanding. They would be open minded and good listeners. My friends would be living their lives in different ways. One friend could be a business magnet, billionaire, and philanthropist, whereas I would have another friend who is an great exhibitionist, spiritual and nature lover. Although my friends are coming from different walks of life, we have genuine respect and support for each other to grow.

Thirdly, I would desire serving the human race, attempting extreme adventures, explore the entire planet, giving highly priced eloquent speeches, owning multimillion dollar business,  live a life like rock star, making a difference, and being a hero of my story. I would travel 196 countries in the world, make friends in every country I travel, and find a peaceful island where I could live for the rest of my life. I would also be independent, self sufficient and stand for myself during uncertainties.

These are brief overview of what I would want every single day of my dream to be look like if I am a dream architect. I have already decided I would manage to experience variety of positive emotions (i.e. joy, celebration, laughter, proud, loving, gratefulness, cherish) in a daily basis so that I would realize one day that I am the master of my own destiny!

Cherish Moments

I usually practice this exercise every day to come to a peak state. I ask myself empowering questions and come up with multiple flashbacks of the past to answer them. I would answer what am I happy right now?

1. I am happy that I am graduating on Sunday. Wearing an cheesy gown and receiving my degree from some old people in graduation ceremony. I am happy I would be able to share my happiness with rest of the graduates. I am also planning to have a delicious lunch with my class mates after walking in the ceremony. 
2. I am happy to have  supportive and caring friends and coworkers. I am going to meet couple of them in the night club after an hour tonight, and I could not imagine how crazy they would be since they are done with final exams. They love me, look up to me, listen to me and enjoys my unique sense of humor. 
3. I happy to have an awesome cardio and upper body workout today afternoon. I feel I feed my body with oxygen and vitality. My muscular strength is growing and I feel proud when I look at my body every single day.
4. I am happy that I grew up to be such an intelligent person who loves to serve others. I happy to be among the top three graduates in information system department, drinking beers with professors, making my family proud with my academic accomplishment, growing up to be a responsible individual, and committing to serve unconditionally.
5. I am happy I have the gift to inspire those I love and understand some of their deepest desires. I am glad to learn so much about my friends by spending time with them, asking quality questions, and listen to them deeply. Humans are interesting and unique creatures.
6. I am happy to rent a new apartment to stay for next year because I relocating for job related reasons. I would be living in a nice apartment, with underground garage, balcony with rose bushes, large kitchen and bathroom all for myself. It would be awesome to redecorate my new place with my friends, and adding more furniture.   

Tonight I am going to stick with 5 reasons I am happy right now. Can you think of 5 reasons you could be happy right now even if you are supposed to feel crappy? :)

How to Be A Dignified Broke?

There was one time when I was college, a large chunk of money was withdrawn from my bank account without my notice. It was such a large amount that my account went to a negative balance, and the bank started to charge $27 per day in my account until I repaid every dollar I owed.

The reason it happened to me was because I had been giving phone call to companies and recruiting firms for promoting myself in the last couple of months. I called over 60 people during the month November, and went over my 500 minutes monthly cell phone plan. I knew very well that some phone call duration was over 10 to 30 minutes, but I didn't care to monitor my cell phone balance. The cell phone company ended up withdrawing 3 times more money from my bank balance than I usually paid and made my balance negative. The bank also started adding $27 fine every single day that I would not be able to repay everything by my next salary!

If I faced this situation 2 years ago, I would have lost my mind. I would have probably had a panic attack or something. My whole world would turn upside down. But this time I was proud to say I used this crappy experience to train my mind and emotions. I realized that worrying would never served me in this situation. So every time I had a negative feeling about the situation, I welcomed that emotions and told to myself that I would not allow myself to feel that way anymore. That feeling would no longer serve me. I was actually cool and collected for the rest of the week.

This experience of being broke also made me learn couple of things to manage my money more effectively. I realized that if I use 1-2 lessons I learned from this experience, I would never face this kind of pathetic situation again. There were 3 money lessons I had learned from my mistakes:

1. I would start contributing 10% of my monthly income to my savings account which I will ask the bank to withdraw automatically from my paycheck. I would never touch that money, and use only in my unlucky days. I am also benefited by compound interests!
2. I would always, always, always monitor my financial status. I would want to monitor my spending habits and find ways to minimize unnecessary spending. I already created an excel file where I record every single dollar I spend and how I spend it.
3. I would apply 50/50 Rule. Every time I am making an investment i.e buying $500 plasma television, my first priority would be making additional $500 and transfer it to the savings account. 

To be honest, I am really glad it happened. This experience gave me enough pain and push to monitor my assets in a regular basis from now on so that I could prevent myself of getting fucked up again. I guess "monitor" is the key lesson I had learned from this experience. I also found enough reason to open my savings account and transfer 10-15% of my salary to a safe place where my ugly hand could never reach so easily. Therefore, I interpret this experience  as a wealth training which would make me richer in the latter part of my life!

Glass Half Full

While I was reading "Success Principle" by Jack Canfield, I learned an interesting concept which I have decided to practice for the rest of my life. There are certain category of people who are called "Inverse Paranoid". They have a strong belief that no matter what the fuck happens to their life, no matter how crappy everyone treats them, and no matter how much unsuccessful attempts they have; life is plotting every single event of their life to make them a success. Can you imagine a life in which you are happy, excited and motivated regardless of what happens?  I really believe this is a powerful belief to have, so I decided to write 2 crappy things happened in my life and how it helped me to be "almost" better person (not a better in spelling or grammar person of course):

First, I was seen timid and weak boy with inferiority complex by my teachers, friends and classmates during my high school years. I was constantly bullied because of my unique accents, and I never had balls to defend myself when boys were making fun of my mom and sister. I never received help, understanding and sympathy when I needed them most. This experience influenced to help the weak when they least expect it from others. This makes me very proud.

Second, I came from a culture where people love to talk behind others back, find violence to earn respect, murdering a suitable solution, always being narrow minded, and never challenge their assumptions. This kind of attitude really made me so sick that I decided to be around positive, wise, and intelligent people for the rest of my life. I decided I would rather be alone than being around group of ignorant human beings. This also encouraged me to focus on personal development.

There are much I want to share, but I believe less is more. I really hate being overly personal and share something so negative about my life, but who gives a fuck! You don't even know where I live :) If you read this far, please think of your everyday crappy event, then find ways it is training you to be the best you could be!

Bragging Rights

I had a wonderful day. One thing I realized that I should appreciate little things, and give myself credits for my hard work and achievement no matter how trivial it is. So tonight I am going to asked myself what am I proud of today?

1. I was one of the top 3 graduates out of 100 students in Information System department who received Academic Excellence Award. My adorable friend took photos of me with all of my professors while I was receiving my award.
2. Had a casual and informal conversation with professors - Guster, Paul, Phan and Susanath while drinking beer. Professor Paul bought a drink for me to award me for tutoring his students over time, and being his best student!
3. I had an interesting conversation with my coworker Jessica and Alyssa regarding serving others, making a difference, marriage and relationship. It was a very resourceful conversation. I learned to tell nice and captivating stories. I think I have talents to demonstrate high value to my audience by my personal experiences.
4. I gave Alyssa a ride back to her apartment after she was done with her shift even though I was still working. It took me some balls to break a rule to help a friend.
5. I studied for strategic management final exam. I was`quite confident I understood most concept. There is a pretty good chance I will be get highest score in this exam and have A grade.
6. I had over $150 cell phone bill because I overused my minutes last month. Instead of panic for being broke, I let go of the feeling because it did not serve me any more and remained calm for the rest of the day.
7. I practiced the shoulder move for hip hop dance since morning, and I believe I was looking good during the evening. It would help me to impress a group of crowds in the night club. I am an attention whore after all :D
8. I think many residents in the dorm I work will miss me after I graduate. They will miss my sense of humor and intellect. A friend told me I should have my own TV show :)

Spontaneous

Ever since I was 12, I have been taught to utilize my time as resourcefully as possible. Even when I was watching TV in my leisure time, my dad used to yell at me for watching stupid cartoons, and study more like my nerd friends who will never get laid. This actually influenced most of my teenage life. As a result, I still have an urge to force myself doing something valuable (i.e. study, read, work) that will have value in the future. For instance, I would rather spend my night writing a paper for my final than spending quality time with my best friend by watching movies. I guess being workaholic is in my blood.

Although I realized that this is an excellent habit to have, but I also found out that I will never be happy if I allow myself to measure/keep track of everything I do. So, today I decided to go with the flow. I fucked all the self blaming thoughts I had, and trusted my instincts. For instance, I usually try my best to finish a conversation within 1-2 minutes when I meet someone so that I could resume I was doing. However, today I met an old friend while I was going towards the library in the morning, and I decided to hang with him for couple of hours. I ended up buying some cool bracelets because his agenda was to fix his bracelet from a Native Indian shop. I even got some nice compliments from those bracelets, and have extra for Christmas gifts.

It's nice to spontaneous at times!

Gratefulness

What am I grateful of today?

1. I got a job offer. I am going to be a junior software developer.

2. I attended a club/salsa/hip-hop dancing class, and met some fun people.

3. I had a hardcore upper body workout in the evening.

4. I noticed I lost 3 more pounds!

5. I order stuffed crust pizza with veggies, and watched my favorite show - Dexter.

6. I enjoyed my hot chocolate while I was in my tutoring session.

7. Decided to go back home to meet my parents after 3 years in United States.

8. Gave some adorable friends a big hug, and a charming/award winning smile! :)

9. Staying up till 2 AM, and don't care what's going to happen next morning.

Saint Cloud

I love living in Saint Cloud. Especially during the winter. Many people use the same sentence when I ask for an opinion, "I hate winter". I can understand. But if you are going to live for a while, then why not learn to love it! It's starting to snow today. I loved myself when I was walking confidently in the street and whistled my favorite pop song. Somehow I experienced a state of abundance within myself which I was not able to create 3 years ago.

There is a pretty good chance I will live in Brained which is an hour away from St. Cloud for the next 5 years. There is also an opportunity to live in San Diego if I get another job offer. It doesn't matter what happens. I know I am guided by something greater than myself. Everything happens to make me succeed.

I am certain I will hear a good new by Friday. I will get an offer I cannot refuse. :)