What does it mean to you by owning a luxury apartment flat in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong has recently broken the world’s record by selling its luxury apartment flat with the highest dollar per sq ft (HK$71,000 or US$9,102 sq ft) in Oct this year; as a “token” to celebrate the anniversary of the infamous financial tsunami. With sustainable power of wealth, one can buy anything at any price he or she wants to “show off” one’s status of power but not necessarily the actual value of the property concerned. Drawing admiration or envy from others may probably give them much higher satisfaction than the joy from actually living in the apartment. But how long does this feeling of “happiness” last? Probably it will not be long. Then how can one continue to create “happiness”?

However, many middle class of people in Hong Kong have expressed grievance as they do not benefit from the sharp rebound of the property market recently ; and they neither acquire any property six months ago nor at the earlier right time with undervalued price that they could afford in the past. Some even went to the street this Sunday for an open strike to express their dissatisfaction; in the hope that something can be done about it to increase the affordability of housing to them by making the government solely responsible for their troubles due to its unfair policies in favor to private properties developers. But how long does this feeling of “unhappiness” one would like to keep? Probably you don’t want to keep it long. Then how can one convert “unhappiness” to “happiness”?

“Wealth”, “Power”, and “Status” are probably the most wanted goals for many people in Hong Kong, but not necessarily attainable by many people even after having working and trying hard for the entire life. Only a few can achieve these goals they really want. But are they the only goals in life to create happiness?

There are many different ideas or perception about “happiness” around us. If you don’t know the subject well, you may not easily create happiness on your own will. In order to create happiness as you want, one needs to make life rather than being made by life. Don't you think the person who knows how to create happiness for his life can be wealthier than those who can't?

Hong Kong Dianetics Centre will offer a free lecture on “Why are Hong Kong People not happy as they should be?” this coming Friday. If you are interested, find time to go there and may your life be happier afterward. Your future depends on your abilities to create happiness for your life!

What stress are you facing and handling in your everyday executive life?

“Executives” are tough beings not only they want to get things done to the right direction, but also they are demanded to perform. A high necessity level is usually an inherent attribute for any successful executive.

However, we know somehow that there are some hidden influences which can trigger us to some unexpected response, emotion and thought. No matter how hard we have tried to put them aside, they simply won’t go away easily. “Stress” is the common symptoms not only for many executives, but also almost for every walks of life, especially in Hong Kong.

People try to use many different methods to get rid of their stress. Some even see this as “money making business” by marketing its products or services with the theme of “Stress Reduction”. Shopping can reduce stress, weight loss will help reducing stress, traveling can reduce stress, taking street drugs makes less stress, psychiatric drugs make you feel numb about stress, making a lot of money will increase your security so to reduce your stress, etc. Some may even go apathy about it and conclude that “stress” is simply part of human nature.

But do we know the sources of the stress in relation to the mechanism of the human mind?

If the invention of any of our high technology is due to the intelligence of human mind, why shouldn't our human mind have the correct technology and solution to fix any stress to keep our human mind in optimal function at all times? We can travel to the moon but why we cannot solve the problems of our own minds. Can we have some decent methods with long lasting effect that help us to put our human mind under our control?

Let's watch the below film about "Dianetics" to see whether it can give you some hints of the source of your stress and the better ways to handle any of your stress:


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You can send email to info@hongkongdianetics.com and ask for the information of their two days weekend "Dianetics Seminar" if you would like to find out more.

I hope the above may help you living better with your executive life in Hong Kong.

Executives should know their risks if turning their anxieties or stress to be treated with "Psychiatric Drugs"

Today, I read an article from a newspaper about the anxiety treatment as advised by a Hong Kong psychiatrist, (Nov 7, 2008, online version at http://www.takemehome.com.hk/epaper.php ; with a picture clip posted above) with a new drug," Lyrica". It reminded me similar articles published by other newspapers recently in Hong Kong especially after the financial tsunami.

It has been an increasing concern that people may not be able to deal with the sudden change of loss or threatened loss that caused a higher or unusual degree of anxiety, stress and fear, especially like the recent sharp change of our global economic environment. If the adult cannot handle their emotion properly, it could affect the younger children at home. It was sad to know the increasing figure of kids under fourteen years old from 14,348 cases in 2001 to be 22,480 cases in 2007 asking help from our public mental institution in Hong Kong.

However, do we know all the risks associated with psychiatric treatment on the symptoms of anxiety, stress or fear?

First, we need to look what have caused people to have anxiety or stress. One of the standard answers from many psychiatrists is "chemical imbalance." But what is chemical imbalance? What chemicals in our brain that can contribute imbalance? How much imbalance can be dangerous to cause us the anxiety that we cannot handle our normal routine in life?

If you ask any psychiatrist, you will be surprised that they cannot give you any specific answers. If they really know, the drug companies will not continue to invent new drugs in order to find out what the chemicals they would like to inject into the bodies to achieve the optimal chemical balance without any side effects.

Even on the recent paper submitted for the discussion by the Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel on Health Services on 22, November, 2007 ( LC Paper No. CB(2)373/7-08(01), it stated that,"Mental illness is a complex health problem. The causes of mental and behavioral problems are still not much understood."

Workable solution cannot be obtained if we do not know exactly how the mind works, what the definition of mental illness is, what the chemical imbalance is, what the optimal chemical balance is, what the exact formula to achieve the optimal balance is, and what actually the optimal state of mind that they would like to help their patients to achieve with the goals that people can be helped to get better.

Please go to this site to watch this video about chemical imbalance at http://www.cchr.org/#/museum/introfor more information.

Second, you will always hear from many psychiatrists that psychiatric drugs are needed for treatment if you have unusual anxiety or stress or fear or any other behavioral symptoms; though they still have many unknown in the field of mind. Unfortunately, the main stream of our media in Hong Kong in a way endorsed this method by interviewing psychiatrists for advice especially at the times of crisis; without any report on the abuse or sides effects of such treatment.

On the same government paper as mentioned in the above, it also suggested that "psychiatric treatment and drugs are needed" or "must be treated by psychiatrists" but without any full evaluation of the psychiatric methods and treatment with its associated risks to be used or any recommendation of any other alternative treatment to the public.

Though many patients suffer from many sides effects of psychiatric drugs, the common defense is that they should use newer drugs which however are more expensive that normal people cannot afford especially they have to be psychiatric drugs for a very long period of time, and in most cases, they are basically life long treatment.

I was curious about this new drug: Lyrica and so I went to the web site of FDA to do some research at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch. I typed "Lyrica" on the search box, and found an article on patient information in which it mentioned:

LYRICA is a prescription medicine used in adults, 18 years and older, to treat:
• pain from damaged nerves (neuropathic pain) that happens with diabetes
• pain from damaged nerves (neuropathic pain) that follows healing of
shingles (a painful rash that comes after a herpes zoster infection)
• partial seizures when taken together with other seizure medicines
• fibromyalgia

You can read the entire article, and you may come to the same conclusion how it is possible for the recommendation of this drug to treat anxiety, stress or fear.

To know more about psychiatric drugs (as there are so many), please go to this site to watch this video at http://www.cchr.org/#/videos

So next time before you or your friend or your children is committed to any psychiatric drug treatment, get the name of the drug and do your own research to know all the risks.

Rather simply taking and believing any advice from so called "experts", it is time for us to consult our own observation, evaluation and make our conclusion as only then we can be responsible for what we know; as "belief" is simply a mechanism used to assign responsibility to "others". By getting our own knowledge, we can be held responsible for our own personal integrity.

With all the possible risks like "poisoned milk", "poisoned egg", "poisoned investment instruments", etc in our environment, it is time that we owe our own responsibility to really "look" rather than "listen" in many issues that can affect us and our next generation, especially on the issue of "psychiatric drug treatment" that the damage cannot be recovered easily.

To help us recover from any damages brought by financial tsunami to our economy and our life in Hong Kong, we need more able people with awareness to confront our problems and find better solutions. It will not help our people but only reduce our awareness level if we let a lot of us especially our executives and our children to handle their anxieties or stress by psychiatric drugs.

P.S. There is a free E-book on How To Get Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely at http://www.theroadback.org/workbook.htm from the Road back international with the hope and solution to handle the adverse effect of having taken psychiatric drugs. Hopefully soon we will have our own physician offering the same solution in Hong Kong!