Be Careful What You Wish For!
Of Losing Weight and Wishing Well

Dear Secret Law of the Universe,

When I weighed myself this morning I found that I’m nearly 3 pounds more what I weighed in January. What happened? Was it the mindless snacking? Not enough of exercise? Water retention? All the above? I was mildly shocked but instead of planning to exercise more I decided that the best method to lose that extra weight was… to wish for the extra pounds to melt away. Not only that, I asked the powers of the secret law of the universe to reduce my weight by tonight.

At about 6pm, I had a funny feeling in my stomach and at 8pm I started having a bout of explosive diarrhoea that lasted for nearly 3 hours.

While groaning in pain in the the bathroom, I actually made time to appreciate your wicked sense of humour. Yes, I asked for this, yes, you granted my wish, and yes, you did it before the end of the day. When I weighed myself again just before the stroke of midnight, I was indeed 3 pounds lesser than I was in the morning. Very well done.

If you don’t mind, please automatically include the following addendum to all the wishes I’ve made and will make in the future:

1. No one is hurt — physically, mentally, spiritually or any other means possible– in the process of granting the wishes (and that includes me!);
2. The wishes are granted through means that are legally-, morally-, environmentally-, ethically-correct;

In return, I will do my best to:

1. remember to be grateful for all the wishes granted (lest I forget, I’d appreciate it if I’m reminded gently) and
2. have patience for the wishes that will be granted — I’m sure you’ve not forgotten my Macbook Air wish in January ;)

For that, I’d like to thank you for today’s lesson: be careful what you wish for — it might get your bum burned.

Gratefully yours.

Tomorrow, I’m going for a 2km run! :)

Things To Be Thankful For
That Winning Feeling

Things that made me smile in spite of my painful migraine headache:

The joy on my mother’s face when David Cook was announced the American Idol winner

The joy on my mother’s face when Manchester United were crowned winners of the UEFA Champions League

Finding a sachet of instant coffee at the bottom of the snack drawer

The smell of magazines with uncoated pages

My geriatric cat giving me the “I love you so much” gaze :)

A group of teenage girls was sitting next to me as I was eating lunch at a fast-food restaurant on Wednesday. They were talking about their schools assignments, boys, mobile phones and er, boys.

20 minutes later, the group left and a gang of 3 teenage boys took their place. The topic of the boys’ conversation moved from girls to mobile phones to Friendster accounts and then back to girls. Ah…the priorities of youth! I’m glad I’m no longer a teen — such a stressful and confusing period!

I remarked to B a few days ago that I’m in a comfortable position in my life where I’m glad for the lessons of the past and look forward to the fruits of the future. Guess that’s one more thing to be thankful for! :)

What are you grateful for today?

Specify Your Ideal Job Today

My internet connection has been, to put it mildly, crazy the past 5 days (still is). I’d be typing a long and carefully thought out comment on someone’s blog and then in the middle of posting, have it disappear into the dark cyberspace, never to be found again. The whole of my Monday was spent trying to rectify this problem. Alas, according to the service provider there’s nothing wrong with the connection, and the technician who checked the modem found no fault with it either (the problem was intermittent - he waited nearly 40 minutes for the connection to drop but NOTHING happened! Grrr! ) so I’ve been taking a lot of my work offline.

Speaking of work, I can’t help but be thankful for the fact that, being my own boss, I can choose my working (and blogging) hours. I’m typing this on a word processor, at 2:30am (I’d probably post this at a random time later, when the connection is up). Yes, I’ve never been so busy in my life — as I approach deadlines, I’d be sleeping just 6 hours a day ( the past week, I averaged 5 hours a night) — but I never had so much fun and joy doing work either.

[Read more….]

OK Computer

Thank God. Resuming transmission soon.

Wish Granted: A Wacom Tablet

So I told my SO about this entry and upon reading it, he decided to give me his old, under-utilised Wacom tablet!

Wow! I’m starting to think that The Secret does work, at least for some wishes.

Value: $300? $50? $0? It was an old model.
Time taken: 7 days
Granted by: My SO
How bad did I want this? Enough to give up donuts for a week.

Original Wish
Wacom Tablet

Previously on Wishes Granted
Donut — (Granted)

Wish Granted: Donut x 2

My mum (yes I still live with my mum) bought two donuts for me! Although it has more to do with me going “Donuts, donuts, donuts” all day long than the secret at work, I’m not complaining about the result. :)

Value: $2.20
Time taken: 1 day
Granted by: My mother
How bad did I want this? Enough to start a new blog.

Original wish here.

The Secret

I was channel-surfing one night when I chanced upon an episode of Oprah talking about The Secret.

I was very skeptical at first, but by the end of the show, I was interested enough to learn more about this “secret”.

A few days after the show, I watched the the DVD

Now I’d be lying if I were to say it was a life-changing moment, but I’d be lying too if I say I didn’t learn anything from it. Most of the things in the DVD are stuff I already know packaged in a nice way. Some of the things though obvious, tend to be overlooked, so there were a few “ah, I see” moments.

Basically it’s about positive thinking. If you wish for something and focus your energy to achieve what you desire, the planets will automagically align themselves to grant you your wish. Or something like that.

So I did an experiment.

I wished for a cheque of $5000 to appear magically in my mailbox. I imagined how it felt like - blue, and crispy, with a handsome bank-ish smell- and what I’d do with the windfall - save half, give my mums a nice present, donate some to charity, buy a pair of sneakers, go for a trip to Bangkok and spend $100 on chocolates! I remember feeling a rush of endorphins through my system and a general feeling of happiness. It was a fun exercise.

Lo and behold 5 days later, I got a mail from a bank!

A real cheque! In my mail! And it’s blue!
The punchline’s in the fine print.

Ha ha! So I got a credit cheque but it did meet all the requirements of my wish right?

So what’s my conclusion on “The Secret”? There’s no harm in positive thinking. The act of thinking about something that makes you happy is a great stress reliever and a fun thing to do. Who knows, you might even get your wish granted. :)

PS: I will continue to document my experiment with “The Secret” on this site. If you’ve had positive experience from it, I’d love to hear about it.

Link: The Secret - official website