And how true it was when he described family, health, friends and spirit as glass ball and if we drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. Work, on the other hand, is a rubber ball which will bounce back when drop. This is something which we have to remind ourselves often to juggle the glass balls carefully. I hope that his words of wisdom would give you an insight in life.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit … and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or evenshattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for Balance in your life.

How?

Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.

Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.

Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us to each together.

Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be pave.

Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find time. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings!

Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.

Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.

Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.

Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

This Too Shall Pass by Helen Steiner Rice

If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be –

If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me –

If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too –

Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains

_________________

How do you usually react whenever someone tells you that it is impossible to achieve something? It has been a while since someone has said that to me with absolute certainty; it was as if his fate had been cast in stone and nothing could be done to change it. Fortunately, I was not prepared to give up on him yet. I asked him, “How hard are you willing to work? Are you willing to go through the 10,000 hours?”

I first chanced upon this 10,000-hour rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’ where a comparison was made of the hours of practice for violinists between elite performers, merely good students and future music teachers. It was found,

“… by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice where else by contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.“

Similar pattern was observed between amateur pianists and professional pianists. Then came the idea that could there be a critical minimum level of practice for excellence? From the book, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. ” The emerging picture from studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert – in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin.

It was stated in the book that there is not a case found yet which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time. The question now is, “Are we willing to go through the 10,000-hour rule to become an expert in what we want to do?” Maybe we could argue that we are not aiming to become an expert in a particular field, like to be a professional golfer, to be a renown mathematician, to be a world class pianist etc, so we need not go through the 10,000-hour rule. Indeed, one doesn’t have to go through that many hours of practice if one just takes playing the piano as a hobby.

However, if we do want to be good in golf, then we must practice more. As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” I do not agree with that actually but I do believe that practice makes better; with practice, we will surely get better with what we are doing. If I want to be better in golf and to enjoy the game more, then I just have to play more often and practice more. The next time before we say with absolute certainty that it is impossible for me to be good in golf or in anything we want to be, we must first ask ourselves, if we are willing to go through at least part of the 10,000 hours to be better.

Perhaps we could also argue, “Professional golfer, world class musician etc, they were all born with special talent and ability to be good in what they are doing!” Quoting something from Albert Einstein, “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.” Whether we like it or not, that is the cold hard fact; even if we were born with a special talent, but if we do not develop it with practice and hard work, then we would amount to nothing.