Happy Chinese New Year !!

Guess all of you know that in Chinese Astrology 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. The Dragon is a creature of myth and legend; in fact, it is the only animal of the Chinese zodiac year that is not real. A symbol of good fortune and sign of intense power, the Oriental Dragon is regarded as a divine beast – the reverse of the malicious monster that Westerners felt necessary to find and slay.

Anyway, many of you must be eager to know if you will have better luck in the coming year than previous years. Let me tell you one thing – to get lucky, all you need to do is be a happy person and stay happy.

Following is a photo of the Chinese word “Happiness”.

Once in a while I have nothing to blog.

No more Kindle posts, no more photographs or camera gears, no more gadgets and of course, no more cloud computing stuff (guys and gals, we are tired of keep talking about cloud computing, by someone who have not implemented any cloud computing platform before).

I suppose I can also write something about SoMoLo (or SoLoMo … whatever you like it) apps, something about Liquid Newsroom Project, something about the latest Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco, or even why my iPhone 4 battery runs out faster with iOS 5.0.1; still, my mind is blank.

Then I finally find out the reason this morning … if something is really important to blog, I will tweet it, Facebook it, Google+ it … but if something is not that really important to blog, I will just leave it aside – till one day, I forget all about it.

Technology and mobility do not make us more productive, it just make our life run faster – without any goal.

“Life in the fast lane, surely make you lose your mind.” – Eagles

One of my favorite quotes about achieving something great is from Thomas Edison -

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Indeed, I’ve seen many many smart, hardworking and capable people failed to achieve anything just because they decided to give up instead of hanging on.

If you’re a professional tennis player (of course, 99% of you are not), and if you have a chance to reach the final of Wimbledon (99.9999% of you will not), then you will see an inscrption above the entryway, before you enter the Center Court:

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same

These two lines are extracted from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”; but in fact, the other few verses of the same poem pretty much described the same thing about hanging on:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”

So, if you’ve been fed up with everything you see, got tired by the work day after day, felt hopeless after countless trying, or no one is willing to give you a hand … think again, and tell yourself “Don’t give up, never ever give up.”.

Don’t give up, because you know you can adapt to this crude world, because you will be full of power again the very next day, because you can make a dent to the universe one day and because someone around you will eventually help.

Hold on to what you believe; and hang on to your dream.
It’s never over, unless you give up.

You know what ?

• It’s easy to think you’re the best in the world
• It’s easy to believe you have a better idea than Facebook, Google, Amazon, or Apple
• It’s easy to demand everything to be free
• It’s easy to claim the use of everything is human right
• It’s easy to ignore all other people’s comments, suggestions and criticisms
• It’s easy to criticize other people
• It’s easy to delay a project delivery
• It’s easy to quit your job
• It’s easy to say you will do better next time
• It’s easy to keep on dreaming

But … How easy is easy ?

• Have you tried to prove to other people you are really the best ?
• Have you started to write your first line of code, that’s supposed to be better than Facebook, Google, Amazon or Apple ?
• Have you developed something for others, for free ?
• Have you studied what is really human right ?
• Have you thought about, just for once, understanding other people’s comments, suggestions and criticisms ?
• Have you provided any constructive comments to others ?
• Have you exhausted all the ways to stick to a deadline ?
• Have you considered to stay to solve all the work problems ?
• Have you delivered your best the very first time ?
• Have you ever stopped day-dreaming and started working on it ?

It is about time … convince yourself life is not easy, but life is also full of possibilities … as long as you start working on it and don’t quit.

There is an urban legend in Internet for years that billionaire Mr. Bill Gates spoke to a group of students about the 11 rules of life. I think whether those rules are really from Mr. Gates is not important at all, what matters is the meaning behind these.

These are the rules that I hope all students, youngsters, newbies in the job market can study carefully and learn from it. These are also the rules that explain why we believe the only way to success (and to get respected) is to work hard, extremely hard.

I can appreciate life is not easy, but life is never easy and no one promised you that in the first place (my boss always reminds me that). I also believe every one of you can overcome all your life obstacles, as long as you don’t whine about those, but keep going … don’t stop !!

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

Here is the slide deck of the 11 rules of life.

Time flies and it’s the Chinese New Year (the year of Tiger) again. Somehow the New Year day this year is also the Valentine’s Day (it happens every 38 years I was told), truly a special day that East meets West. To celebrate this, there is one thing the same in both worlds though – beautiful flowers.

Have a great day and great year ahead !!

I think it will be called the greatest final ever in history of Wimbledon, in fact it may be one of the greatest final of any sports. Imagine you’re still in the Centre Court after 4 hours of fighting, I think in your mind there would be only a few voices … like “Focus, focus, focus” and “Hold on”.

You know what, the last thing any players will see before they enter the Centre Court is an inscription above the entryway:

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same

These two lines are extracted from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”; but in fact, the other few verses of the same poem pretty much described the situation of the final:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”

Zheng Jie is a real fighter and we all enjoyed very much her playing in Wimbledon 2008. Only 25 years old, she is brave, kind, working hard, and humble. I hope all Chinese youngsters can learn all these characters from the new idol. Best wishes to Zheng Jie.

I reckon one of the hardest thing to do / achieve in the world, at least for me, is “Prepared to be better”. What I mean is … are you prepared to …

• be a better son, daughter, brother, sister, mother or father ?
• be a better boy friend, girl friend, husband or wife ?
• be a better staff, boss, or coworker ?
• be a better friend ?
• …
• …
• be a better man, woman ?

Are you prepared ? If not, what you gonna do now or tomorrow ? Before it is too late …

Stumble upon this web site today and there is a collection of “poetry”of the US ex-DOD chief – D. H. Rumsfeld. It’s really amazing that what one can speak in front of the press … and I remember this lucidly …

“As we know, there are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns.
That is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
The ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

But somehow Mr. Rumsfeld missed one more thing:

“There are unknown knowns, the ones we don’t know we know …”