Loss Connections by Yohan Hari

I had read this book about three times in time span of a week last year (2020). It is just showing that how good this book for me and most probably for most people who facing the same problems as raised in this book.

It has always been difficult to describe what is loneliness or depression feel alike. There is no exact word to explain it as it is something to do with the internal of self. It is within our heart, our mind. But the outcome of it somehow can be seen through attitude and behaviour although some of people might be good at conceal it.

It is had been a tough time for me since teenager. I feel like being ignored by everyone and closed one. But I pretty much understand the situation that led to this. Neither I do blame my family nor the God.

I never thought I had depression, though the thinking of don’t want to life anymore had been circulated in my minds when I was in early 20’s. I never diagnosed for this. But it only got me thinking when I met someone who had been in depression. That person had recovered from depression and told me that I’ve sign of depressions.

I though deeply and evaluation myself before I realized that person could be right. Among the signs are loneliness, like to be alone and somehow feel stress over little things. And I am still remembered the night I cried a lot, feeling the deep loneliness and deep pain inside my heart.

So, this book by Yohan Hari was more than just the good reading for me. But more on to give me the solution for my years of problem. How a small little thing could make my life better. The book was written by author based on his experiences on depression and having interview many peoples across many field - from the professor in well-known university to the farmer in the small village in Vietnam.

The book consisted of two major part, firstly - the disconnection for something that lead human to depression and re-connection that will store the human to normal. In easy word, those depression and anxiety that human experience occur due to the loss of connection of few basic things that human naturally required. The solution? To connect back to those things.

I am here to share two disconnections that lead us to depression and two connections that will help, extracted from this book.

2 disconnections that cause depression

1. Disconnection from people

There is a question, if either your depression led to loneliness or isolation or another way around? Disconnection from interaction or socializing with people can lead you to feel depress. Human was born to be live in together and remove this from life lead us to deviation from our natural need.

2. Disconnection from meaningful work

There a word saying, “if you do the thing you like, you don’t have to work for a second”.

Well, that is true indeed. If you do something you like, you do not care if it is difficult or not. It has become part of your life.

I always hear people saying, currently you just need to grab any job you get especially for the fresh graduate. It is correct for survival but for the other perspective, doing the thing you might not enjoy might create problem in the future.

Work for the purpose of money alone might be good for survival but for the long term, it might get you depression/stress - unless of you try to love job, have meaningful values of doing it. On the employer perspectives, it is important to make sure employees feel they are valued, feel what they are doing have real meaningful values for company. Empowering employer by acknowledge their success and role will eventually help them to have meaningful values for the job.

On the other side, over-workload, criticizing over small mistake, not acknowledge employees for their contribution can create stress situation for the employees. They come to work without feeling happy. The workplace just places for getting money and not for having meaningful life.

2 reconnections that will help reduce depression

1. Reconnection to meaningful values

Materialism has strong correlates with stress and anxiety. It becomes more serious when we are bombardment with a lot of advertisement on billboard, newspaper even social media. We are told to look good by buying this and that. All this are toxic that the company try to influence ourselves.

But how many times that we are thinking that we going to happy when we buy stuff we need, end up after few days we are no longer excited about it. By that time, we have new desire for other stuff, and we are thought we going to get happy if we get them. This cycle keeps going on. If we do not realize that our desire has no limit, we will end up sad when our desire for stuff not meet. This can lead to depression.

The fact the desire for this materialistic stuff somehow has no meaningful values. We should realize that there are more important values need to make us happy. Materialistic stuff will never make our happiness last longer. Intrinsic values such as spent time with love one will do help to bring more joy and avoid depression.

2. Reconnection to acknowledging and overcoming childhood trauma

It is undeniable that childhood trauma can caused depression in adult life. Rape, child abused can left huge impact in someone life. Often, people who had childhood trauma will not tell their experiences to anyone, as afraid of judgement in their life.

But research show that for someone that have depression due to the childhood trauma can help them overcome this if they tell the story to someone that they can trust. By expressing their feeling and tell the story, they will be acknowledging on what happened in past. They will accept on what had happened and move forward with moment life. This will help to reduce the trauma and eventually depression as time goes by.

Those causes of depression and how to overcome it just part of the book. I highly recommended you read if you are curious what else the causes of depression. Some of things are just small little thing that can help us or help other people in overcome the depression and anxiety in their life.

Thanks, see you in the next post.

 ~Relaxslah!!! A Peacemaker, Pulau Pinang, 13 February 2020, 4:22 pm

Membaca: Motivasi dan Kaedah oleh Dr. Zaini Ujang

Kulit hadapan buku

Alhamdulillah, saya selesai membaca buku Dr. Zaini Ujang, Membaca: Motivasi dan Kaedah. Saya antara orang terawal mendapatkan buku ini melalui pra-jualan di laman sesawang Dr. Zaini Ujang. Oleh sebab itu, buku yang saya terima ditandatangi oleh Dr. Zaini Ujang dengan dakwat emas.

Tandatangan penulis dengan dakwat emas

Ini adalah buku pertama yang berkaitan dengan kaedah dan tatacara membaca yang pernah saya baca. Selama bertahun-tahun saya menjadikan membaca sebagai hobi, tidak pernah saya ambil tahu tentang teknik membaca dan cara meningkatkan tahap kecekapan dan kefahaman membaca. Yalah..membaca, baca sajalah. Apa susah kan.

Usai membaca buku ini, baru saya tahu yang ada teknik dan cara untuk kita menjadi pembaca yang effektif dan pada masa yang sama kualiti dan kefahaman bacaan tidak berkurang. Malah akan meningkat sekiranya dilatih.

Dalam buju ini, penulis menerangkan tentang budaya pembaca dalam masyarakat malaysia dan perbandingan dengan masyarakat maju yang lain contohnya masyarakat jepun dan eropah. Kemudian, penulis membawa tentang kepentingan membaca, mitos-mitos membaca, jenis-jenis bacaan seperti buku, novel dan majalah dan yang paling penting objektif membaca.

Juga diterangkan waktu sesuai membaca berdasarkan objektif-objektif membaca. Contohnya, anda boleh saya membaca buku yang santai seperti novel ketika menunggu kedatangan bus. Tapi keadaan tersebut mungkin tidak sesuai untuk anda menbaca buku-buku yang berat yang memerlukan berfikir dalam keadaan yang tenang.

Seterusnya, penulis menjelaskan teknik-teknik membaca berdasarkan kepada jenis bahan bacaan. Pada saya, inilah bahagian dalam buku ini yang penting kerana ia akan menentukan betapa effektif dan berkualiti pembacaan kita. Yalah, sebagai peminat buku, saya semestinya mahu menghabiskan buku dengan cepat dan pada masa yang sama memahami apa yang dibaca. Penulis juga tidak lupa untuk mengajak pembaca menyertai kelab-kelab membaca seperti Malaysia Book Club untuk mengembangkan pemikiran dan berkongsi pandangan dengan orang lain. Penulis juga menyarankan agar pembaca menjadi penulis bagi mengembangkan dan menyumbangkan idea kepada masyarakat.

Bahagian yang paling terkesan kepada saya ialah bahagian dimana penulis menerangkan kepentingan membaca. Salah satunya ialah membaca memberi petunjuk kehidupan dan membuat anda rasa gembira. Dan ini ialah salah satu sebab kenapa saya suka membaca sejak di zaman sekolah sehingga sekarang. Ia menjadi petunjuk dikala saya kehilangan arah tujuan dan membuat saya rasa gembira dikala saya keseorangan.

Kulit belakang buku

Jika anda memang menjadikan membaca sebagai hobi, buku ini memang perlu anda baca bagi meningkatkan kualiti bacaan dan mengembangkan potensi diri anda.

Relaxslah!!!

A Peacemaker

Pulau Pinang

09 November 2019

10:26 pm

Cerita Elon Musk

Assalamualaikum dan salam sejahtera,

Hari ni saya nak mengulas dan berkongsi tentang sebuah buku yang telah pun saya habis baca beberapa minggu yang lalu. Ia adalah buku autobiografi Elon Musk yang ditulis oleh Ashlee Vance.

Fakta tentang buku ini, penulis Ashlee Vance mengambil masa selama dua tahun untuk melengkapkannya. Ia termasuklah menemuramah Elon Musk sendiri, isterinya, teman-teman rapatnya, bekas pekerjanya, bekas rakan-rakan kongsinya dan individu-individu lain yang pernah berhubung dengannya. Jadi, buku autobiografi ini agak baik untuk dibaca kerana Elon ada terlibat dalam memberi maklumat tentang kehidupannya.

Jadi, disini saya nak kongsikan beberapa perkara buat makluman dan iktibar kepada kita semua.

1. Kewarganegaraan - Elon Musk adalah warganegara Amerika Syarikat. Walaubagaimanapun, dia sebenarnya berasal dari Afrika Selatan dan berhijrah ke Kanada pada usia 17 tahun dan kemudian Amerika Syarikat pada 1992 untuk melanjutkan pelajaran dalam bidang perniagaan dan fizik di Universiti Pennsylvania. Walaupun berasal dan dibesarkan di Afrika Selatan, keluarga sebelah ayahnya adalah berasal dari Amerika Syarikat dan dengan itulah dia boleh mendapatkan kerakyatan negara tersebut. Keluarga sebelah ibunya pula adalah berasal dari Eropah.

2. Pengasas beberapa syarikat - Elon Musk terkenal sebagai pemilik pembuat kereta elektrik Tesla and syarikat aeroangkasa Space-X, tapi kesemuanya itu bukanlah syarikat pertama yang diasaskannya. Dia pernah mengasaskan beberapa syarikat dan menjualnya untuk mendapatkan keuntungan - antara yang terkenal adalah Paypal (X.com) yang diasaskan bersama beberapa orang kawan yang lain, selain Zip2 dan Neuralink.

3. Bakat - Pada saya Elon Musk adalah God-gifted. Maknanya, dia memang dari kecil dilahirkan dengan kebijaksanaanya. Buktinya pada usia 12, beliau sudah menulis code untuk permainan komputer dan disiarkan dalam akhbar tempatan. Juga, sewaktu dia pulang dari perbincangan pembelian roket yang gagal dengan syarikat swasta Russia, ketika berada dalam kereta, dia menunjukkan pelan lukisan pembinaan roket. Rakannya terkejut kerana pelan itu sangat detail. Bila ditanya bagaimana dia tahu itu semua, katanya dia telah membaca buku-buku berkaitan roket yang dipinjamkan olehnya dari rakan. Maknanya, dia memahami macam mana nak membina roket hanya berdasarkan buku yang dibaca. 

4. Pencinta Ilmu - Disebutkan didalam buku ini, Elon Musk memang cintakan ilmu. Selepas waktu sekolah, dia akan ke perpustakaan untuk membaca buku-buku berkaitan sains. Disitulah dia mendapat inspirasi, semangat dan idea untuk membangunkan sains. Kekusyukannya terhadap pembacaan sehingga dia seriangkali dingatkan dan diusir keluar dari perpustakaan apabila waktu operasi sudah pun habis and hendak ditutupkan. Ini membukti, kebijaksaan sahaja tidak cukup tanpa berusaha mencari dan meningkatkan pengetahuan ilmu.

5. Pernah dibuli - Elon Musk sering dibuli sewaktu sekolah sehingga dia mengangggap itulah perkara paling teruk pernah berlaku dalam hidupnya.

6. Kerja keras - Apa yang dia dapat hari adalah hasil kerja kerasnya. Malah, sehingga sekarang pun, dia masih mengekalkan rutin kerja yang sama. Kadang-kadang dia akan balik lewat malam dan tidur dipejabat jika terdapat hal-hal yang penting. Ini membuktikan kejayaan tidak dapat dengan mudah. Ia memerlukan kerja keras yang berterusan walaupun anda adalah boss.

7. Sikap yang tegas - Ini mungkin agak mengejutkan dan ia mengesahkan apa yang pernah saya dengar tentang sikap CEO syarikat-syarikat besar. Begitu juga dengan Elon, beliau agak tegas dalam mesyuarat dan kadang-kadang menggunakan perkataan-perkataan kotor untuk memarahi staf-stafnya. 

8. Krisis - Antara yang paling kemuncak dalam kerjaya Elon ialah pada tahun 2008 (kalau tak silap) ketika Tesla berada dalam krisis kewangan dan memerlukan bantuan. Pada waktu itu mereka tidak mempunyai peruntukan untuk mengeluarkan kereta elektrik dan memohon dana dari kerajaan Amerika Syarikat. Setelah berjaya mendapatkan bantuan kewangan, dia dikecam ramai penganalisis kerana mereka beranggapan dana yang diberikan kepada Tesla akan menjadi sia-sia dan dia akan gagal. Ini memandangkan teknologi kereta elektrik pada waktu itu masih baru dan keyakinan pembeli lemah. Penganalisis beranggapan yang Tesla dan Elon Musk akan muflis. Namun, sebaliknya berlaku dan Tesla berjaya untuk menjual kereta dan cukup untuk membayar balik bantuan kewangan kepada kerajaan Amerika Syarikat lebih awal dari waktu yang sepatutnya.

Sekadar itulah saja pengkongsiaan saya. Jika anda mahu mendapatkan manfaat yang lebih mendalam, bolehlah membaca buku ini. Ia cerita yang memberi inspirasi.

Sekian, terima kasih.


Relaxslah!!!
A Peacemaker
15 September 2019
4:00 pm

Be Like Morrie...

The last class of my professor’s life took once a week, in his home by the window in his study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink colour. The class met on Tuesday. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught based on experience.

This is the last paragraph from the book Tuesday with Morrie, by Mitch Albom. I read this book twice and its really inspiring book with the normal English words as well as the simple explanation.

This is an old book, which the first published in 1997. It based on the real life between Mitch Albom, the writer, reporter and columnist with his old professor Morrie Schwartz. His old professor suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that related to neurological system. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this fatal disease, in fact the patient have to go through the decay in the body function. ALS melts the nerves and left the body a pile of wax. The patient lost the control over muscles, so the patient cannot walk, move and standing. And finally, over the time, patient will dead.

Instead of mourning his disease, Morrie make a decision to narrate his story to Mitch. At least, his philosophy of life will teach others. Morrie walk that final bridge between life and death, narrate the trip. The class between old professor and young man took place on Tuesday.

The Lessons

There are many lessons in this book and below are some of them that I wanna share with you.

1)      Feel the pain of others

What do you feel when you seen other people suffering in other part of the world? Do we really care? Or we just watch without feeling anything, feeling that we should have some kind of responsibility to help them.

Morrie as he suffering from this disease always feel closer to people who suffer than he ever did before.  He feels the pain when he saw on TV in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed innocent people.

How about us? Do we need to suffer first before we can feel sorrow for other?

2) Don’t Scare of Death

It is interesting when Morrie said

“When you learn how to die, your learn how to live”.

Giving our situation as a muslim, this quote totally correct. Islam is always asking his followers to remember death because by reminding it and the life in the hereafter, our behave will changes.

Morrie continued,  “ most of us walk as we are sleepwalking. We really don’t experience world fully because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do”.

And facing death changes all that.

3) Family: the basic constitute of society

You might recall what on the thing I have wrote last time on title of marriage? and on of the point I is that marriage is the basic of any civilization. Look this current situation especially inside our country, many of the social problems arises as the result of unstable family. Children are running away from family because the parent doesn’t have time to spend with them. 

4) Go through life as it is

It’s a normal character of human being to have feeling afraid of new things. We are afraid when we want to go for the first interview. We are afraid to present a class project in front of people. We are afraid to speak to others. We are afraid being alone if people we love left us. But when we have gone through those things we feel relief. We know what the feeling: loneliness, anxiety, shyness etc. and how to face it. 

The idea is that are those feeling are our emotion. Don’t feel afraid to face it. Once you experience it, you can know what’s mean of having those feeling and start to feel other emotion.

Morrie said:”if you hold back on emotions-if don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them-you can never get to being detach, you are too busy of being afraid.

5) Don’t Fear of Aging

Most of women fear of aging. Some of them obsess to the cosmetic products as the way to eliminate wrinkles in the faces and other signs the she is getting older. They want to look beautiful in the eyes to their husband and other people.

Moorie look to this fear in different way. He said that aging is not just decay, it’s a growth .As you getting older, you become more mature and because of it you live a better life.

6)  Money

Morrie insisted that people always used money as substitutes to others. But after all, they not satisfied with all these things. We chased something that uncertain and have no limit.

So, instead of chasing for money and wealth that will never satisfy your desire, you better offering others what you have. It’s not mean only your money, make charity to needed people but also offer your talents to others, your  time and your concern.

7) Marriage

Morrie show his concern about current loving relationship amongst young people. Many couple could only live as husband and wife for few months and end with divorce.

The problem with the young couple is they don’t why they have to get married. They don’t know what they want.

Most of them don’t realize when they get older like Morrie, having the loved one is so important. When you older, sick and need full attention, your loved one which is going to sit all the day with you and try to comfort you.

Quotes

 “Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do.” (p. 18)

“Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others.” (p. 18)

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” (p. 43)

"There is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family." (p. 91)

“ . . . If you’ve found meaning in your life you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.” (p. 118)

“Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.” (p. 125)

“Love each other or perish.” (p. 149)

Relaxlah!!!

28 February 2016
06:46 pm

Women: A Woman Perspective

“aik, sal buku ni gak yang kau beli? Kan buku ni untuk perempuan? Macam la tak da buku lain lagi ”. Kata seorang kawan

“ entah la, mungkin sebab cover dia yang cantik kot”. Saya menjawab.

“ ehh..ye ke? Entah-entah kau dah ade kot, sebab tu kau nak baca buku tu, jadi kau akan lebih faham tentang dia”. Dia cuba mengusik.

That conversation between me and my friend happened few months ago. My friend argued with me why amongst the many book available in the bookstore, that book (A Walk through Life, Issues and Challenges through the eyes of a Muslim Woman) become my choice. I bought that book long time ago in a bookstore but only finish reading a year later.

I don’t really know why, but one think I’m really sure myself, I always excited when I go to bookstore. I read variety of books, history, religion, politics, science, ideologies etc. Any books that seem to be interesting and will benefit to me, I will not hesitate to buy even though it may cost a lot of money.

I always wonder about women.

My wonders to the women based on the fact the patience and hardworking that shown in my mother’s life. For the last few years my mother used to be my inspiration. The struggle, hardworking, and never give up that built up inside her soul inspired me when I was studying in the university. At that time, perhaps because I already mature, I started to realize how special my mother in my life. Every time I look into my mother eyes, I can feel a kind of spiritual energy transfer that can not be described by any energy transfer formula that ever learned in the school or university. That spiritual transfer that always motivate me at the moment when I feel depress, lonely and at the time when I lost my life. The only thing that can describe this spiritual transfer is the love of the son to his mother.

Perhaps, that is the only reason why I feel very enthusiastic to read this book, to understand more about women, thus understand also the special attitudes that have in my mother as a woman.

The book had been written by a woman, so some part of the book seems to be more inclined and biased toward the woman. But it’s ok, because as a reader we need to be a smart reader.

Here is some of the important points that I get from the book.

1)Women and men are not same
As prominent Muslim scholars form US, Yusuf Estate said, men and women are not same. But there is fairness between them. If you be able to understand this concept, you can see how wonderful Allah swt created the human being. Men and women have been created with their own characteristics to fulfill the role and responsibilities that have been placed on them.Man being created with strong with deeper voice, strong and tough. That’s why man can play him role as protection to the wife and children.
“ Men are the protector and maintainers of women, because God has given the more( strength) than other , and because they support them from their means……….”-an-Nisa’ 4:34

On the hand, women being created with soft personality. A woman normally has melodious voice, beautiful and petite. A woman is submissive, more emotional, caring, patience and always precise in whatever she does. That what make woman different from man and be able to wake up in the middle of night when the newly baby crying, pending for the milk. Man, on the other hand, will continually sleep even he is the one who notice the baby is crying (opps, not all man like that laaaa..).

2)The need for a man
Like a man who needs a woman to support and give strength in his life, the same thing goes to a woman. A woman hopes that man can lead her to sail the life to the future, to provide a good life not only to both of them but also to their coming children. For the Muslim, the task is more, not only to sail a comfortable life in the future, but also to make sure the path they are going through is according to the Islamic principles. Even, in Islam, the purpose of married itself is to attain the pleasure of Allah. No love can be put above the love to the Almighty Allah. In fact, the love feeling between different genders consider as one of the sign in Allah creation;
“ And among His Signs is this, that He Created for you mates from among yourselves that you may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your( hearts); verily in that are signs for those who reflect.”-Surah Ar Rum 30:21.
If I’m not mistaken, in Islam when a person get married, she or he is already consider fulfill a part of his religion. It’s mean here that, if the love between the spouses is because of Allah, the marriage and they newly life can bring close to the Allah. Otherwise, if the love because of nafs, then they married may end up with failure in the future after they feel bored with one another.

Married make everything between a man and a woman halal, thus protect the society from the social problems and created the future generation of Muslim with the peaceful and Islamic environment.

3)The Sex Life
The title ‘The Sex Life’ might see to be not appropriate and sensitive to be discussed. But as the 23 years old young man (which is should be mature enough..he..he..),I think it is reasonable to discuss here.

The one which had been born as a normal person cannot deny the important of the sex. Even though you may have many reasons for getting married, the sex desire for sure is an important reason since to it is a part of human requirement and Islam make it halal by allowing marriage.

In the some society, they tend to believe that a woman duty is to serve husband only, so perceive in her mind that husband sexual desire should be fulfill first and forgetting her own need. There are also those who advocate that the wife has no right to refuse the husband right for sexual intercourse, where as the wife no right likes the husband for sexual intercourse. This opinion perhaps, not in the line with the purposes of marriage which is as complement to each other. A wife is a garment for husband and husband is garment for the wife. So, how could be in the sexual matters which related to husband and wife and can create a loving between the spouse can be only the right of the on part only? The role of husband to fulfill and satisfy his wife‘s sexual need can avoid a wife from committing zina out of despair or frustration from being neglected by husband in sexual matter.

4)Nurturing the children
When you are still single, you are feeling lonely. You feel like there is something wrong with you and there is some emptiness in your heart that you need to fulfill with. Other than fill your heart with the taqwa to Allah, you also know that as human being, you need a person that can be your life partner until the end of life. So, you start to find and get married and you thanks to Allah, because at last the emptiness has been filling with the present of a loving one. As life goes on, you start to feel bored with a new life. Then, you start to realize that boring in a marriage life can be eliminated by the present of children and start to plan for it. That’s how the life going on. With the father, mother and children, that’s what we called as family.(Baby's picture: here)

Children are the gift from Allah swt. They are trust form Allah to the parents, so parents have responsibilities over children and otherwise. Children can be light to the parent if they grow up with the Islamic values being installed in their soul and can also being a pain if they grow up otherwise. Children are born pure and the parents that responsible to shape a child attitudes to what ever their want to be in the future.

There is a story of a man who brought his son to the umar al Khattab and complaining his son act that not respect him at all. Upon hearing, Umar r.a said “o boy, don’t you know what right a father has on his son?

The boy then asks “o commander of the faithfull! Do the children too have right over his father?”

Umar r.a replied by “first, he should search for a good mother. He should marry with virtuous, religious women, and must not marry any questionable nature and doubtful character. Second, he should name the child with a good name, and third, he should impart religious knowledge of child and teach Quran”.

The son replied by said that none of the right had been fulfill by his father.

This story tells us how important of a woman to find a good and righteous man to be a father of her children. The same is expected to a man to search a righteous woman, so that they can nurture and grow up the children to be good person in the future and provide the Muslim ummah with good generation that can built again a great Muslim civilization like what we had previously.

The above points are only few important points that I pick from this book.

That’s it for this entry. Thank you for reading….

P/s:I wish happy mother's day and happy birthday to my mother. She will celebrate her 49 anniversary( if im not mistaken) this coming friday ,15 may.


::Faisal
::9:12 pm, in Library
::Wednesday,May 13,2009