“The pessimist sees the problems in every opportunity. Whereas the optimist sees the opportunity in every problem"

Love...or what it seems

Today, as I was thinking about this, I suddenly realised something. We, as human beings often fall in love and embrace the feeling of being in love and being loved. It feels very good because its not just oneself feeling it but also another party to boost the feeling. And its mutual. But to think about it, the person we need love most is actually from ourselves as without it, we would not be able to be truly happy. Its been a long while since I gave up on someone loving me as I had somehow believed that no one could accept me the way I am. As a result, I learnt to love myself more as there was no one to love me. Learning to love oneself means to love yourself even after all the mistakes and blunders you have made. It really isn't easy as we all have been thought that when we make mistakes, we need to pay for it. And by trying to pay for it, we often forget the most important thing of that particular mistake. To learn from it...We instead keep focusing on the mistake and sometimes, we make even more mistakes as we were focusing on the wrong thing; the mistake. Sometimes, we just make sure we never let it occur again by avoiding something that leads to it. Often, we do not realise the thing that actually caused it because we didn't actually analyse it. We just believe whatever we hear from others or what we presume..That is why a lot of people go through life without exploring much further from our comfort zone; we always want to avoid pain.

Since I went for the Millionaire Mind Intensive, I have learnt to not let my mind take me out whenever there is something that I feel uneasy doing. I've learnt to see what opportunity there is and just go for it anyways...Doing this has brought me further than where I would have dared to go back when I always did what I felt good doing.....And I know there is more to conquer in life...No boundaries...

I'm not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward - Thomas Edison.

Finish strong

Main cause of schizophrenia ?

Ever wonder what is the main cause of schizophrenia ? Well, till this day, no one actually knows the cause and how to cure it. But lets take a look at a vitamin that is supposed to help in depression - Vitamin D. Some facts about it :-

1. Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from natural sunlight.
2. The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don't generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home.
3. It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body.
4. A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.
5. The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.
6. People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 - 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D.
7. Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.
8. Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body's bones and nervous system.
9. Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body's ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreen products actually cause disease -- by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.
10. It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs.
11. If it hurts to press firmly on your sternum, you may be suffering from chronic vitamin D deficiency right now.
12. Vitamin D is "activated" in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used.
13. Having kidney disease or liver damage can greatly impair your body's ability to activate circulating vitamin D.
14. The sunscreen industry doesn't want you to know that your body actually needs sunlight exposure because that realization would mean lower sales of sunscreen products.
15. Even though vitamin D is one of the most powerful healing chemicals in your body, your body makes it absolutely free. No prescription required.
16. Sufficient vitamin D prevents prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, depression, colon cancer and schizophrenia.

Well, its no surprise then that many girls working as GROs in night clubs have schizophrenia due to sleeping only in the wee hours of the morning and maybe even miss out on sunlight while working there.

Whatever it is, always remember that the cheapest and most effective source of vitamin D is sunlight. Just take more antioxidants to prevent skin cancer, etc.

Unit trust - Are they any good at times like this ?

As we all know, the market has been falling like crazy(not so much in Malaysia) and unit trusts haven't been doing well. I currently have a Global Growth Fund from CIMB(previously SBB Mutual) which is doing pretty badly. I have lost a total of 33% since the day I bought it. On the other hand, my ING Asia Pac Capital Guaranteed is still in the black with 8.93% as at today. This isn't really good(in fact, it really disappoints me as it will mature in about 4 months or so and this kind of return is crap considering that a person would expect an annualized return of at least 5% or more from buying unit trust. Ok, another investment lost. Should have just left my money in the EPF fund and got better returns.

But wait, I actually sold my unit trust when the market was turning a couple of years ago. Yeah, I was supposed to switch the Global one to bonds but the lady who answered my call 'advised' me to hold it and not switch because it was global and it would do well. Darn, I should have just listened to myself and switched to the bond fund which I had switched the rest of my unit trust to.

Believe it or not, as at today(less than 2 years), I have made an annualized return of more than 8% per annum. And that is actually calculated based on 2 years when it would only turn 2 years on the 28th of February this year. Well, next time I will have to believe myself instead of listening to advice from others. I mean, these people giving advice probably have less knowledge of the financial industry than I do...