EUGENE TAY | I SHALL FIND A WAY OR MAKE ONE

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The Strength of My Mind...

13/10/2016

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The strength of my mind makes up for what I lack in my arms - Eugene Tay

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Sex Is Easy, Bringing Up The Child is The Tough Part

12/10/2016

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Excerpt From The Straits Times

"You Don't Need Much Space to Have Sex" says Senior Minister of State, Josephine Teo
You do not need much space to have sex.

That was the feisty rejoinder from Senior Minister of State Josephine Teo, who oversees the National Population and Talent Division, to a question on whether young people are not getting their flats early enough to have children.

The suggestion was that this could be a chicken-and-egg problem. To qualify for the Parenthood Priority Scheme, which gives first- time married couples first dibs on getting a flat, they must be expecting or have a citizen child below 16.

But to have a child, some say they need to have a flat first.

​With a straight face, Mrs Teo declared: "You need a very small space to have sex."
Sex is the easy part.

​Back of the car, mall toilets, changing room, in the cinema, stairwell, in a tent by the beach, against the side of a bus in the heavy vehicle's parking lot after dark.

Bringing up the child in a conducive environment is another matter. Without your own place, you're going to have to contend with parents/in-laws or sub-tenants. Space here represents both the physical space as well as the personal space. What the G doesn't take into account when making policies is the psychological and social repercussions on its citizens. Everything is numbers on a excel spreadsheet to them.

Personal space is the comfort zone that we each like to maintain during both physical and emotional interactions with other people. When we lose that space, we begin to develop feelings of discomfort, irritability and anxiety. Most of us are not even aware of our emotional states sometimes. Just get on a train during peak hours; you can see it on people's faces: The pulsating frustration beneath the veneer of indifference.

I have friends who are raising a kid (or two) in a shared apartment, and when I compared them to others who have their own place, I noticed a stark contrast. The ones who are staying with their in-laws or sub-tenants constantly feel drained, exhausted and are frequently arguing over, what seems like, minor issues. I'm not expert in this area and I have not done intensive ground survey, but I've got a feeling I'm on the right track with this one. Please leave me a comment below if you agree or disagree with this observation. I would like to get your take on this.

And you can read this article if you need more ideas on making out in small places. You're welcome.
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It's Beyond Fitness; It's About Grit.

5/10/2016

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I attempted the Spartan Sprint in Singapore on the 7th of May, 2016. My friends thought I wouldn't survive it. "You look like you'll keel over and die before you even hit the halfway mark. You sure you wanna do it?" they asked. They weren't being dicks about it. It was a serious concern. I was the weakest link in the group who got winded during the warm up stage of the pre-race training. Even I thought it was a crazy idea.

But I've paid for the damned tickets already, and like every homegrown, penny counting, Singaporean, I decided to go ahead cause... well, I've paid. That's a good reason as any I suppose. Whatever that kicks my ass out of bed to do the "impossible".

I completed Spartan Sprint and with a fair amount of pride. Still high on the adrenaline and a beer fueled night, I made a crazy commitment - I bought myself a ticket to the next available race - Spartan Beast in KL. I had 5 months to get ready from Sprint to Beast.

This time, I was going solo. The seasoned racers thought I had gone off my rockers. Friends were making side bets that I'm going to cook up some excuse and back out at the last minute. Even my calf muscles are screaming out in defiance from just the thought of traversing 30 obstacles over 21 kilometers against the most unforgiving undulating terrain. "This isn't Singapore," they reminded me. 

Well, shit just got real cause... well, I've paid for it.

Maybe I might make it over the fire pit, maybe I won't. Maybe I might have to be heli-evac'd out of the Putrajaya forest. There's only one way to find out. At some point, this race is no longer about physical fitness. It's about discipline. It's about resilience. It's about pure grit and having the godamn cojones to face the impossible. 

For as long as I'm drawing breath, I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and keep right on a-moving. 

Aroo! Aroo! Aroo!

#TheAlphaMindChallenge
#SpartanReady
#AreYouCrazy
#ChallengeAccepted
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Thank you for the memories. Spartan Sprint, Singapore [7th May 2016]
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Time to Find New Friends

4/10/2016

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"You're the average of your five friends," says motivational speaker Jim Rohn. So if you don't like who you are, maybe it's time to find new friends. - Eugene Tay

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There Are Some Days You Just Don't Wanna Give a Damn

3/10/2016

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If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless tasks in your in-tray or plagued by problems you can't solve, just channel the zen from this man. He just cruises through like he owns the place. Zero fucks were given.
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Just Be Like Everyone Else

28/9/2016

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"You want to be an artist? That's not reliable."
"You want to be a musician? That's not a sure thing."
"What if it doesn't work?"
"Nobody has ever done that."
"Get a safe job."
"Be like everyone else.


​Taken from Lazarus Ross
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Bad Memories Stick Like Gum To a Shoe

21/9/2016

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Bad memories stick like gum to a shoe. You can't get rid of it by running away. Acknowledge it and then proceed to do the yucky business of getting rid of it. - Eugene Tay

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Falling In Love is Like...

13/9/2016

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Falling in love is like playing in a band. You don't have to play the same instrument, but you need to be playing the same music. - Eugene Tay

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Your Shitty Life is a Matter of Perspective

7/9/2016

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I was walking along the underpass at Outram MRT lost in my own thoughts when a man in wheelchair waved me over and meekly asked if I could wheel him to the toilet and then to the train to Raffles Place. It was such a specifically odd request but since I've all the time in the world, and quite frankly was happy to have the distraction, I obliged.

We talked about life. I asked about his, he asked about mine. And for some reason or another I felt absolutely comfortable pouring out my heart to this stranger. It just came out. All of it. Maybe it's because his life seems to be more unfortunate in comparison.

He turned back with some difficulty to catch my eye.

"I have cerebral palsy," he said, gesturing to his form, as if he had read my thoughts.

I felt a little embarrassed.

"I've been this way all my life. Not enough oxygen to the brain. Brain haywire. But others are more unfortunate than me. I've got a life. I'm happy. Sometimes you must see life in a...." He made a gesture with his hands to signify 'balance'. "Life not always bad. Got good, got bad. Must take both in stride."

A man who never knew how the ground feels like under his feet just told me to suck it up and take it in stride. I'm humbled.

​This man is my hero. His name is Victor.
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When You Believe, Everything Becomes Possible

15/7/2016

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Anyone who knows me knows that if I’m ever held at gunpoint, I will never be able to save my own life if I’m asked to say, “please don’t shoot me” in Mandarin. I’ve been a consistent F9-er all the way since I first learned how to write my name in those squiggly characters. My parents splurged on Chinese tuition with negligible effect. I knew the schoolteachers gave up on me because they didn’t even bat an eyelid when they caught me copying during Ting Xie.

It – was – that – effing – bad – I – shit – you – not.

I simply hated the subject. I blamed the teachers. I blamed the damned language. I blamed my heritage. I blamed my parents. At one point, I even wished that my tuition teacher would die a horrible death. I blamed him for my twice-a-week suffering. He died the following year to cancer. Later I learned that I was his only student and that he didn’t want to give up on me even as he was struggling with poor health on the side.

You – have – got – to – be – shitting – me.

No, it’s true. I didn’t make that up. I was just fourteen at that time and I remember the guilt ate me inside out for a whole year. Someone had wasted his life on me and died with nothing to show for. One would imagine if this were a Hollywood tearjerker, the protagonist would turn his life around with a series of montages and aced the exams that year, but it didn’t. I was still failing spectacularly. With the capricious nature of a teenage heart, guilt relented to despair and was threatening to consume my spirit. The only way I knew how to continue living with myself was to built a proverbial pillow fort around me and detached myself from emotions. It was an immature way of handling the situation but alas I was a stubborn teenager who wouldn’t listen to good counsel. Why should I? I was fourteen; I knew everything.

I didn’t just give up on Mandarin. I – gave – up – on – everything.

One night, the ghost of my tuition teacher came to visit me in my sleep. He was in the outfit I always remembered him in: Beige polo tee and brown pants worn too high up to be considered trendy even in afterlife. He pointed to his heart and then to his eyes. Though not a word was spoken, a deluge of emotions cascaded into my mind in a series of disjointed imagery. In that moment, I knew why I had been failing.

I – simply – did – not – believe.

That was it. I simply did not believe that I could do well in the subject. When faced with surmounting odds, I doubted my ability and discounted the efforts of those around me. I felt I’ve studied extremely hard and that there’s not a person in this world who could have understood what I was going through. I simply did not believe passing the Chinese exams was possible until I could somehow see that the results had miraculously caught up with my efforts. I was done trying. I felt too tired to even think about thinking. The only other person who believed in me died in vain. This was a doomed cause. I wanted to see results that I didn’t even believe in the first place; and since the shitty results did not justify the brobdingnagian efforts invested, sub-consciously I had already given up on myself.

Yeah, I deliberately picked that impossible-to-pronounce word for added emphasis.

The ghost faded along with the visions and in its last visage I saw him standing over me, looking despondent, shedding a single teardrop. That was when I woke up from my nightmare crying uncontrollably. In that single teardrop I saw everything that all the words in the world couldn’t have conveyed. An unfamiliar emotion started to stir within me – Conviction: An unshakable, steadfast belief that I will pass my Chinese O Level Exams.

Quite frankly, I had no idea what I was going to do but I knew right then that if I believed in myself and in what I set out to achieve, my subconscious mind would find a way to make things happen.

On the surface, life went on as usual. The difference, however, was from within. There was a distinct change in the way I approached and handled situations. When you believe in something, everything becomes a possibility. You are perfectly comfortable with the idea that there is no perfect plan cast in stone, and that answers and options will present itself along the way. You aren’t concerned with the impossible; impossibility is just an opinion, not a fact. The only thing that matters is putting one foot in front of the other and focusing on solving the issues directly in your way.

Despite the change in mindset, I was still nowhere near the passing standard, not by a long shot, but I wasn’t defeated by my negative self-limiting beliefs either. I allowed my conviction to lead me towards my goal and handled each obstacle as they came. I stopped cheating at Ting Xie.Instead of expending effort bitching about a situation I cannot change, I channeled that energy towards finding innovative ways to overcome my inability to memorize them damned strokes! I tried everything from meditation to interpretive dance. For the first time in my life, I was actually enjoying the process of learning Mandarin!

By the time O levels came around, I had managed to teach myself the language where others have tried and failed, and I think in that final moment as I sat for the paper, I found closure. I let go of the guilt that had hung over me for nearly two years. Maybe the ghost that visited me was just the personification of my guilt manifesting from my subconscious mind. Maybe the visions I had gotten weren’t supernatural in nature. It might have been all the good advise I had been getting but refused to acknowledge and they came pouring out in my darkest hour. Perhaps time has muddled up my memory and a large part of what I can remember now was made up. I don’t know.

I nailed a C6 for the O levels Chinese Exams in my first attempt. A feat so incredulous, my entire class erupted into pandemonium when my result was announced. Teachers and students from the neighbouring classrooms stopped lessons midway to join in the celebration.

No one could explain how I did it. Some felt it was pure luck, some were adamant it must be a glitch in the system. Maybe they were right. As Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist: when you want something badly enough, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Maybe there was a glitch but it doesn’t really matter does it? I passed the Chinese exam just as I believed I would.

There will be times in your life where you will meet people who can't believe in the things they have yet to see. Not all of them want to or can be helped. Don't let these naysayers demoralize you and drag you down to their level. They will call you names but don't take that to heart. It's nothing personal. Be firm in your belief. This is not a technique for everyone. If faith was that easy to come by I wouldn't have to write this article and Bon Jovi wouldn't have had a hit song. But life doesn’t work that way. You can only lead by example and hope that somewhere along the way others find inspiration from you.
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