Love is not about age or money

"One thing I hate most about people is they tend to measure everything and try to explain love in numbers - whether it's in terms of age, the amount you have in the bank, or how many millimetres your cheeks have receded."

"I feel that love is love is love. There is no definition, and we shouldn't try to encompass love in words."

"As long as you make each other happy and support each other, as long as you know you're not doing anything wrong... then everything is okay." Dr Hayden Khom, 27, on his love.

Pairing with younger women?

It Might Be You

Let the World Laughs with You

Just as watching someone yawn can induce the behavior in yourself, recent evidence suggests that laughter is a social cue for mimicry. Hearing a laugh actually stimulates the brain region associated with facial movements. Mimicry plays an important role in social interaction. Cues like sneezing, laughing, crying and yawning may be ways of creating strong social bonds within a group.

Source: 10 Things You Didn't Know About You

Art of Power

"POWER is the ability to alter the behaviour of others to get what you want, and there are three ways to do that: coercion (sticks), payments (carrots) and attraction (soft power). If you are able to attract others, you can economise on the sticks and carrots."


What makes a country a world leader?
- Is it population?
- Is it military strength?
- Is it economic development?

In today's information era, he wrote, three types of countries are likely to gain soft power and so succeed:

- Those whose dominant cultures and ideals are closer to prevailing global norms (which now emphasise liberalism, pluralism, autonomy);
- Those with the most access to multiple channels of communication and thus more influence over how issues are framed; and
- Those whose credibility is enhanced by their domestic and international performance.
"As we speak of leveraging our soft power, we must also look within. We must ensure that we do enough to keep our people healthy, well-fed and secure, not just from jihadi terrorism but from the daily terror of poverty, hunger and ill health."

Preview: The Paradox Of American Power by Harvard's Professor Joseph Nye

"To govern... one must have one's hands on three levers of power - the treasury, the army and the voice." Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew

"Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power." George Bernard Shaw

Consumer Rights

What one can do to right one's experience... one individual's effort. How she got Nokia to pay up. She had to make three other personal claims before this and she won.

"Life is full of stress, why are we also getting stress when spending our hard-earn money?" Tan Geok Hoon

"Nokia has complied with the tribunal order and has made full payment to Ms Tan. Nokia sincerely apologises that the matter progressed to such a stage, when it could have been resolved earlier in a more amicable manner. We have noted Ms Tan's feedback." Grant McBeath, General Manager, Nokia Singapore

Genuine Service

ST Forum:
IN 1977, my husband and I went to the United States on an exchange programme. When we settled into a pleasant town, Scarsdale in New York, a local representative was quick to make us feel at home. He invited us to his church and his home and I was invited to give a talk about Singapore.

To gather material, I visited our United Nations office in New York where the staff were very helpful. Busy as the ambassador was, he spared me a few minutes. The ambassador, Professor Tommy Koh, warmly welcomed me into his office, asked how he could help and loaned me a documentary about Singapore.

He noted my contact details. I didn't expect him to follow up as he was obviously a busy man. To my surprise, he did. We were among a group of newly arrived Singaporeans he and his wife hosted to a Singapore meal at their residence.

Subsequently, Mrs Koh arranged a visit for us to Chinatown to source for belacan, chillies and other Asian condiments. The Kohs invited us back on National Day. When I delivered my baby, Mrs Koh remembered. The Kohs made us feel proud to be Singaporean. We returned home to live because we are proud to be Singaporean.

It was different when my daughter enrolled in Cornell University. When the Public Service Commission (PSC) representative visited her university to meet Singapore scholarship-holders studying there, she hosted a dinner for the scholars. The few non-scholar Singaporeans who were excluded felt unappreciated and undervalued.

When my daughter was posted to Hong Kong by her company, she discovered no active organisation bringing Singaporeans, especially the younger ones, together. The website of the Singapore-Hong Kong Association was outdated.

Shouldn't our Singapore missions, and government officials when they are abroad, do more to reach out to their fellow Singaporeans, and shun them less?

Tan Gek Kim (Mdm)


"If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality." Norman Cousins

Ten Rules of Success

by Donald J. Trump

1. Never give up! Do not settle for remaining in your comfort zone. Remaining complacent is a good way to get nowhere.

2. Be passionate! If you love what you're doing, it will never seem like work.

3. Be focused! Ask yourself: What should I be thinking about right now? Shut out interference. In this age of multitasking, this is a valuable technique to acquire.

4. Keep your momentum! Listen, apply and move forward. Do not procrastinate.

5. See yourself as victorious! That will focus you in the right direction.

6. Be tenacious! Being stubborn can work wonders.

7. Be lucky! The old saying, "The harder I work, the luckier I get" is absolutely right on.

8. Believe in yourself! If you don't, no one else will either. Think of yourself as a one-man or one-woman army.

9. Ask yourself: What am I pretending not to see? There may be some great opportunities right around you, even if things aren't looking so great. Great adversity can turn into great victory.

10. Look at the solution, not the problem. And never give up! Never never never give up. This thought deserves to be said (and remembered and applied) many times. It's that important.


"It is easy to get to the top after you get through the crowd at the bottom." Zig Ziglar

10 Careers Where You'll Be "In Demand"

These ten careers--in four major job sectors--are likely to be rewarding because employees in these fields are expected to find themselves in an employee's market.

by Richard Barrington

Healthcare
Career possibility #1: Personal/Home Health Aide.
Career possibility #2: Medical Assistants.
Career possibility #3: Mental Health Counselors/Social Workers.

Information Technology
Career possibility #4: Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts.
Career possibility #5: Computer Software Applications Engineers.

Education
Career possibility #6: Teacher.

Professional Services
Career possibility #7: Paralegal/Legal Assistant.
Career possibility #8: Financial Services.
Career possibility #9: Accountants and Auditors.
Career possibility #10: Employment Services.

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."
Francoise Rene Auguste Chateaubriand

The Corporate Survivor

Tips from ann Airline Consultant working with an up and-coming airline like Jet Airways... Extracted from TODAY.

“It can be hard for parents to give advice to their children. They’ll say: ‘I know all this, Dad’.” Coming fresh from the university or polytechnic, the newbies tend to think a lot about their privileges and rights, such as wanting more benefits and not working long hours. So, they may not have the patience or perseverance to wait things out a bit.

Some mistakes may appear inconsequential at the start, but come back to haunt you — playing politics, for example. Politics in itself is not a bad thing, but it has consequences. Some people like to stab others in the back on their way up, something I think one should never indulge in.

Take your job seriously, but not to take yourself too seriously.

Inflation

MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC, Inderjit Singh, pointed out that the "grow-at-all-costs" policy of the government might have overheated the economy and worsened the income divide.

"I feel a significant part of the inflation has been caused by factors that we could have controlled." Is his analysis flawed as charged?

"Children who ate less salt, drank fewer sugary soft drinks could reduce their risk of high blood pressure, reduce obesity, lower rates of heart attack and stroke in later life." Journal of Human Hypertension


Obesity up and Numbers up