Can you create better games of your life with better goals?

As now is close to the year end of 2009, it’s always a good time to look at what we have accomplished and what we have failed to achieve in the past, in comparison with our goals.

What goals we have and how we intend to make them happen by our planning and execution determine our level of ‘Havingness” in this universe. The goals can be anything for the individual, his family, his children, his group (career, business, communities, associations, etc), Mankind or life itself.

Anyone, if were busy in the pursuit of some definite and worthwhile goals with a lot of constructive and completed actions, would find himself with increased life force. The life force could dramatically get the person distracted from any past pain or upset though not permanently erased without any possible negative impacts to the person himself. Therefore, goals setting and pursuit are activities with a lot of therapeutic values. Any goals that are more constructive to the individual, family, children, group, mankind and life are valuable to pursue.

Each individual may have various goals towards his or her life. You may think your goals towards the Mankind are so worthwhile that any being on this earth should pursue it. But the reality is that we do have different viewpoints and many people may not agree with you.

The goals can be meaningful to the person only when he can see and set it for himself, but not enforced by other people or authorities. That’s why you will only get silent submission or even open rebellion if you have enforced your goals towards your children no matter how good you may have thought about the goals for them. Worse, you may have killed the creativity, abilities and happiness of your children in making their personal and self-determined goals to come true.

If you look at our new generation in Hong Kong, you may wonder why quite a large number of people are unhappy, lacking enthusiasm or simply living idly and to the extreme like wasting their time by doing something harmful to themselves and other people. There could be various issues behind such phenomenon as each individual is different. But you may find the common denominator of unhappy people as: lack of self-determined, meaningful and constructive goals. Some people may have meaningful goals, however, if they’re so stuck with the past pain and upset, cannot easily use his life force to get motivated and be persistent to do anything for his goals. They may eventually go apathy about the future that no goal is meaningful and simply complained life was against them with bad lucks.

Our future depends on what goals we have set for ourselves and others. At the time of the holidays, I wish you and your family all the best with the abilities to make your goals attainable soon in this universe.

From the recent Hong Kong TVdrama of “Beyond the Realm of Conscience” to “Office Politics” in real life, how can an executive survive for his success?

While the recent popular TV drama series of "Beyond the Realm of Conscience" was performed with clear portrayal of roles, the audience could easily identify and differentiate “white hats” from “black hats” by watching and following the story track. The “black hats” argued that they needed to do harmful acts to others as their environment had forced them to do so. The environment one was living could be so difficult that one needed to adjust or twist one’s personality in order to survive for success in such an environment. The rare birds of “white hats” insisted that their survival was based on good deeds to other people no matter how difficult the environment could be.

In real life, one may not easily identify “black hats” especially when they are doing any harmful acts covertly but masked with “good reasoning” or "pretended help". One may also simply miss any “white hats” if one tends to believe good people no longer existing in our environment, especially after much experience of being “hurt” or “betrayed” from bad people.

Is men good or evil? It is a philosophical question. Different religions and philosophies have their own understanding and evaluation of human personality and behavior.

But let’s look at yourself and people around you. Do you find more good people than bad people or the other way round? Do you have more good colleague or staff than bad ones in your office? By observation of evidence, we generally have more good people than bad people in our society, right?

However, we also notice that it is almost impossible to find someone who is absolute right or good at all times; that is always perfect even without any careless mistake. Likewise, it is almost impossible that you can’t find at least one small good thing from any person who has demonstrated only harmful acts at all times.

Though “absolute” is not easily observable and attainable in this universe, the truth of the matter can be better expressed somewhere along a spectrum with the two ends of "being 100% good” and “being 100% bad”. Is the person doing more good things than bad things? In other words, is the person constructive rather than destructive with good intention or not?

To live a better, prosperous and flourishing life, it is therefore important to live and work with people who are more constructive than destructive, as sometimes it is hard not to be badly influenced by the destructive people. Though you can say you simply concentrate on your own job in your office that you believe it will be all right, the truth of the matter is that how good the people working in your office can greatly affect your performance especially if you are the senior manager or the owner of the company.

With all the data and resources on hand (even if limited sometimes), when making any sensible (which is in fact ethical) decision, it is necessary to come up the solution for the greatest good to the greatest number of people involved towards a saner goal or purpose. In other words, our decisions and actions do not necessarily affect us alone but also other people around us based on the fact that we do not live alone.

To learn more about the human evaluation for the prediction of their behavior to the best interest of all concerned, write me an email.

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!