While many may cry foul, i firmly believe that ideas are overrated.

Granted, you can’t build a business on a stupid idea. What i meant is this – often, people get hung up on dreaming up the next big idea and asking questions like “Will this work?” without doing the one thing that matter: Execution.

Ideas that are not acted upon are just, well, ideas. Without action no ideas will come to fruition. Make that call, write that code, set-up some meetings – sometimes you’ll be surprise by how tiny actions and small initiatives can go a long, long way. All it takes is just one phone call/email/lunch/coffee to meet that one potential partner/client/mentor/investor. More than often you’ll be surprise how willing people are to share their thoughts and experiences (of course, humility helps).

Stop dreaming about tomorrow. Start acting today.

The scorpion seeks a ride across the river, and by the river sits a frog.

The scorpion requests the frog to bring him across the river on his back, and the frog refuses, fearing the scorpion’s poisonous sting.

The scorpion then pleads, “You can trust me.” Upon hearing his pleas, the frog acquiesces. But as the frog bears the scorpion across the water, he feels the sting.

The poison spreads through the frog’s body, paralyzing his limbs. He asks the scorpion why he stung him, as now, they both will drown.

“It’s in my nature,” says the scorpion.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep, loving concern.

Beautiful people do not just happen.

-Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and developer of the “Five Stages of Grief” model.

Your life is over. It is gone. You are dead. Having died, you are now free to live.

Therefore, forget yourself. Forget your “reputation”. Acknowledge that it’s something we cling on to so as to give ourselves a sense of importance.

Forget the person that you’re “supposed to become” because the only person that you’ll ever be, is yourself.

Forget your hang-ups because year by year, month by month, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute and second by second – each unit of time is bringing us closer to the final hurrah.

Forget the fact that we’re all supposed to “grow up” and hunker down to “real life”. Who determines what’s real anyway?

Forget life expectancy. We’re told that the average life expectancy of the average Singaporean is 80 years old. A friend’s friend recently passed away in a car accident – she was only 19.

Forget all that.

Instead, take time to play. Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remaining sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Free yourself from expectations. Life in all its glorious messiness is unpredictable. We can’t and don’t have a right to expect.

Above all, be present. Don’t let your voice become a mouthpiece for popular opinion. It is far too easy to go with the flow. Unfortunately, the waves might sweep us into to the ocean where it might be difficult to find our way back to shore.

Lastly, remember to breath – for what is life, but a series of breaths?

Keep The Faith

- excerpts from “Life and how to survive it.”, NTU convocation address by Adrian Tan.

“If you’re never scared, you’re probably living too small.”

-Anonymous.

If you are given an opportunity to design entirely on you own, your ideal dream job – What will you do?

Solitude from robin risser on Vimeo.

“Most of us don’t get epiphanies. We only get a whisper — a faint urge. That’s it. That’s the call. It’s up to you to do the work of discovery, to connect it to an answer. Of course, there’s never a single right answer. At some point, it feels right enough that you choose, and the energy formerly spent casting about is now devoted to making your choice fruitful.”

Excerpt from What Should I Do With My Life by P.O Bronson