is perfectionism good or bad?

Perfectionism has often received bad attention. Many describe perfectionism as negative, and potentially harmful. Perfectionism has been associated with numerous psychological problems, including depression, eating disorders, low self-esteem, obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety. 

However, it seems that lately researchers have discovered a second dimension to perfectionism, which was labeled normal perfectionism. So what does this all mean? 

The problematic side of perfectionism, known as maladaptive evaluation concerns, is due to excessive concerns about making mistakes, doubts about one’s behaviour, and excessively critical relationships with parents. Such neurotic perfectionists inevitably have low self-esteem because even the slightest negative feedback will be seen as evidence of the gap between the real self and the idealized perfect self. 

The newfound positive end of perfectionism, known as positive striving, refer to high personal standards and organization. Research showed that positive striving actually made people feel more energetic, enthusiastic, and active. Normal perfectionists are better able to establish performance boundaries that take into account both their limitations and strengths. In this way, success is more possible because self-expectations are both more reasonable and realistic. 

So which type of perfectionist are you?

Or are you far away from a perfectionist, and more of a….regular person?

Piece of advice from me: 
If you find yourself fitting the description of a neurotic perfectionist, please know that the things that must be perfect and mean the whole world to you…probably don’t mean shit to anyone else. So take a breath, and see the lighter side of the world. Laugh a little. Mess up a bit. It’s alright. Enjoy your life….

wonderful inventions that I still don't quite get...

Hello! Here’s some amazingly wicked inspiration for a mid-week pick-me-up. Screw coffee (no, I didn’t really mean that) and know that the world is limitless.

[Li-Fi]
It’s the better version of wi-fi. How does it work? You seriously expect me to explain it you? If I knew….I’d probably be a wicked scientist hacking away at something in my underground garage, and not writing a silly blog whilst watching How I Met Your Mother….Well, here’s what I know. Some dude managed to transmit data via lightbulbs and apparently it’s secure because light doesn’t go through walls. So it’s safer than current wi-fi and it’s more abundant (because we’re running out of radio frequencies used for wi-fi? I just read that sentence somewhere).

[Virtual textures]
WOW like WTF? Trust those crazy Finnish dudes to invent something like this. So apparently, using electrical fields and vibrations, we can feel textures on a touchscreen!! Gone are the baby books with cotton, wool and velvet stuck on the pages. Hello? You can actually feel wetness, roughness and a whole range of textures on your phones soon!! That’s absolutely mind-blowing.

[The Light Field Camera]
This crazy little camera is able to capture the entire light field. That is, each ray of light is captured. So nothing is ever out of focus. It’s even crazier because there’s no shutter delay. AND, as if that weren’t enough, no, those crazy guys behind this little gadget has done some magic that allows re-focus after the picture is taken. So you can bring whatever object you wish into and out of focus, however you wish. Are you as excited as I am?

[The Next-Gen Pen]
Now this is a cool name already. Anything labeled next gen is, obviously new, right? Well this is a pen, but ordinary it is not. There’s a little sensor that you can clip onto a piece of paper or sketchbook. What it does is that it remembers your drawings line by line and when you connect it to the usb, it is transmitted into a digital file. The great thing is that it actually retains the classic pen-to-paper quality that sometimes is lost in computer generated images. Hooray for the comeback of original Disney cartoons! Pen and paper lives on!!

[One more just for fun]
Japan has managed to create artificial meat made from processed sewage. Yay for vegetarians, another source of protein for you guys, suckers. Joking aside, it’s fascinating as to how waste can be used to provide nutrition. Trust Japan on that!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/HDvSPQ7megQ]

Twilight Breaking Dawn

RANT. 

Beware twilight fans…close this page and don’t read anymore. Go on at your own risk.

Bella: OH, who should I choose? Beastilia or necrophilia? An underaged grisly bear or a friggin’ aged corpse? 

Edward: is ugly. For being more than a hundred years old, knows shit about safe sex. And why would a corpse have sperms anyway?

Jacob: probably won’t be recognizable if he were fully dressed. He’s the closest thing to acting, even if it only involves snarling and making snide comments like, I’m hotter than you. (get it? Edward is cold…and not as cute). *cue vomit*

Thank you all for listening to my rant. I have been ranting about Twilight ever since I read that book. May I add that the book is probably worse than the movie? Apart from the highly uninteresting plot, the language is particularly dull. Every sentence is she “said” this, “and then” he “said” that. “And then” that was the end of the book. 

k. bye. hope you had a better weekend than me. Anyone care to tell me when this “phenomenon that’s taken the world over by a storm” ends?

" life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom "

I once read something by a philosopher who said that life is just time spent going back and forth between pain and boredom. His rationale was that we are all striving for something, working hard for that something — and that’s our pain. And when we reach our goal, we find what we want, we are only satisfied momentarily — and then we feel boredom setting in. And so we make another goal, we strive for more — and we revert to pain once again. 

And this goes back and forth until we die. 

He goes on to say we all really fear the thing we want most — freedom. Why? Because when we finally understand what freedom is about, we will realize that our world is constructed by ourselves and we bear full responsibility for whatever happens to us. And that our lives, our ground, our reality is based upon nothingness. Yes, there is nothing we can fall back on, nothing we can depend on, nothing we can blame,  nothing we can hold as a norm if we were to really have freedom. 

Anyways, this man seemed quite depressing to me. 

I’m not sure why I read his stuff but I just like to read anyway. 

So do you agree with him? 

In a way, I feel that his description of men going back and forth between pain and boredom has become especially illustrated in our modern society. However, I think that is only true for those who haven’t yet decided on their meaning in life — which, I might add, is probably the majority of us (I said decided on, rather than found their meaning in life because I think that if we looked inside of us, we will find it, as opposed to it being on the outside, waiting for us somewhere).

As with the freedom stuff, I suppose it is true. Everything has two sides, and with freedom comes also the darker side. If we are liberated, we are let go, free to do anything we want, with only ourselves to hold accountable. And I guess that’s why it’s also fearsome. But most things in life are like that. We want it, but we also fear it. We want love, but we fear abandonment, rejection. We want success, but we fear failure. And the list goes on…

Schopenhauer! Ah….that’s the philosopher’s name. I just remembered :)

repeat after me: i am very excited today

REPEAT : I AM VERY EXCITED TODAY

Yes. You can thank me for that when you’re still alive 5 years from now. Apparently, people who would say they are excited about their day are less likely to die within 5 years, compared to those who would say they are anxious or worried.

So tell yourself you’re excited until you believe yourself.

Well, for the sake of the blog title, I am actually very excited today. For the past year and more in Hong Kong, I’ve been scouting all over the place for some good quality coffee. It seems like all that’s around is Starbucks or Pacific Coffee, which sucks. I still drink it, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Even McCafe seems to do a better job. As for good beans….everything seems to taste like instant coffee. Or cost am arm. Which is ridiculous.

BUT…….

*please imagine some grand exciting music in the background as you read the rest of the sentence*

I FINALLY FOUND THIS AWESOME WEBSITE THAT HAS A MILLION VARIETIES OF COFFEE BEANS

….AND

*don’t stop the music, I’m not done yet*

THEY DO DELIVERY!!

AND…

*yes, there’s more! You think I’d get excited just over that? Of course there’s more*

I CAN MIX AND MAKE MY VERY OWN BLEND…OR CHOOSE THEIR READY-MADE ONES (which might be better than what I’d come up with).

Right now, there’s a bimbo in my brain going “Like….seriously! Shut up! Are you for real?” haha sorry, I had met this California girl and she always said “Shut up!” when somebody said something exciting. For a long time, I thought she was really rude and didn’t like me because she kept telling me to shut up. But she’d go, REALLY? NO WAY! TELL ME MORE. SHUT UP! SERIOUSLY? What a contradictory bitch, I had thought. Until I realized the weird ways of Americans.

So, are you excited today??

I did just drink coffee at midnight..

Yes, I did just drink coffee at midnight. WHY? Now I cannot sleep and it is 2:39AM. I am wide-eyed, jittery and excited. Well, more than usual.

Anyways, lets see what I can blog about.

1) I read my friend’s blog (the girl from the Ping Pong Show story, click here if you don’t know!) and she posted about these great sermons. I’ve been listening to a few on my way to work/school/wherever and check them out here. I listened to “I just want to be happy” and the awesome thing I learnt is that we all disguise discontent with excuses like I’m just ambitious. But rather, its a sense of entitlement. We think we deserve more. Great point.

2) I was bit by a mosquito in my apartment. I live on the 32nd floor. Now, I wondered, if I had shooed that mosquito out the window, would it just free fall down to the ground and smash whatever brains it had? I mean, can a mosquito actually fly from that much of a height? Or would it be blown away by the wind….? You can probably tell I have an assignment due sometime soon.

Taken from Harrybliss.com

3) I totally forgot I had washed a load of laundry. I left it in the machine for one whole day. And it stunk like a pair of socks who belonged to someone with athlete’s feet and got caught in the rain and had stinky tofu shoved into it. And so I washed it again. I was taking it out of the machine when I realized I had accidentally thrown in a green t-shirt. Now all my socks and panties are also green.

4) If possible, avoid drinking coffee at midnight. Unless you’re an avid blogger and would sacrifice your beauty sleep just so you could entertain some sad sad internet roamers…. No, no! Please come back. I meant to say that you’re awesome people who read my sad sad blog.

GOOD NIGHT.

Or…GOOD MORNING.

Ugh. Whatever.

a day with nature

Location: Tin Shui Wai Wetland Parks

i stare at a balding man 4 hours a day

I’m watching this man with fascination. Not because he’s a great teacher. No. More because his peculiar mannerisms fascinate me. I’m wondering, how can this awkward, stuttering, skinny little man without a sliver of charm be a family therapist? We often watch videos of masters do their work with a world of charm and elegance shining on them. Look back at this elf-like person? I’m not sure how he does it. I would like to sit in on one of his sessions though…..

However, if there’s one thing this balding, nose scrunching, head scratching man who comes to class in ill-fitting short-sleeved shirts and running shoes, talking about how he bought fake jade for his girlfriend whilst he eats roast duck with rice awkwardly picked up with chopsticks shaking to the point of uselessness; if there’s one thing he taught me, it’s that family is important.

In that they can screw you up.

Big time.