No algorithm for success

We need to accept that there is no algorithm for success. In fact, any such recipe would be self-defeating. The process of achieving success is irreducibly specific, irreducibly individual, and irreducibly paradoxical. It is not the realm of science, logic and analysis - it is the realm of art, precisely because art is comfortable with paradox and self-contradiction in a way that science and logic is not.

Or: "If I knew the jazz of the future, I'd play it" as someone said.

~Whimsley.typepad.com

hey, Magenta!

Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8-color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64-color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I've got a few missing. It's ok though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8-color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation.. so when I meet someone who's an 8-color type.. I'm like, "hey girl, magenta!" and she's like, "oh, you mean purple!" and she goes off on her purple thing, and I'm like, "no - I want magenta!"

~John Mayer

Say it simply. We cannot love and be limited

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.
~George Eliot

Wanted: Soulmate ;)

Lyrics | Savage Garden lyrics - To The Moon And Back lyrics

I am very touched by the concern of many people about my single, mingle and jingle status :)
They are so very concerned that several people (I think now the count is at 3 people) even dream about me getting engaged! When I asked, she said that she can't clearly see my "fiance's" face but he has a mustache. So now I am playing a game in my head by actively assessing all my acquaintances for their possession of a mustache and ask myself: could it be HIM? and then I'll laugh at myself for the silliness of it all :D haha.
But maybe some of you want to know the truth? Hmm...
Let me put it this way:
Of course I want to with somebody whom I can share my life with! I am not a nun. BUT, as of right now the goal of finding a soulmate has fallen to third place in my list of priorities in life. The first is finishing my PhD and second is making family happy (why is the family second? it's because by completing my PhD, that would also make them happy. They'll always be first in my heart). So my life now is basically family and career oriented.
Furthermore, finding a soulmate is too much work....it's not something that come to me easily. I feel that it is not in my power to do. So I'll leave my heart's question for Allah's answer. I'll leave it to HIM.
Like in the song, I'm waiting for the right kind of pilot to come. It's kinda like this: I've prepared the mosque and all. The only thing I need is the Imam hehehe (gelak gatal).
So now, what I can do is to finish my PhD and be with my family. This is in my power and I intend to do it with all my heart.
.............................

These are some interesting quotes that I got while surfing:

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
Anais Nin

(Yes, someone who is worthy of me and I hope to God that I am worthy of him)

Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye.
Thomas Fuller

( I think it's also true for choosing a husband, it'll be a nightmare to have someone more stupid than you or someone you can't connect at any level because of different wavelengths :p )

Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman.
Joseph Joubert

(Just hope that he's not gay, girlfriend! haha. But on a more serious note, this is true. You should be able to trust and depend on him. You'll share everything with him, it'd be difficult if you despise him)

But I don't know if people are meant to be together. You have to have a lot in common, choose well and be really fortunate. It's not like you're sprinkled with fairy dust. You have to believe that love will be there when you need it.
Claire Danes

(Get real, fairy tales are just that: fairy tales. But that don't mean that we can't be happy)

My message is this:
To find or not to find a soulmate is entirely as God wills it to be. To be loved in itself is a blessing and there's no need to rush or mope around feeling sad and blue because you have no one. You can't stall your whole life just because of a little glitch on the way. Move forward! Be all that you can be and you will receive all that you can have: no more, no less.

I will seek my own

I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Positive thinking is like this:
A little bird in the sky,
You look up and it shits in your eye;
You don't mind and you don't cry,
You just thank GOD that cows don't fly..

;)

How true!

These are some quotes I found while surfing, thought it would b lovely to share it with you ;)

Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. ~Murphy's Law

The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance. ~Author Unknown

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement. ~Author Unknown

No one is listening until you fart. ~Author Unknown

All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific. ~Jane Wagner, The Search For Intelligent Life In The Universe, performed by Lily Tomlin

It's always darkest before the dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it. ~Author Unknown

When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.

Love your enemies. It makes them so damned mad. ~P.D. East

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. ~Author Unknown

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile way and you have their shoes. ~Author Unknown

"If at first you don't succeed... So much for skydiving." - Henry Youngman.

Who says nothing is impossible. I've been doing nothing for years. ~Author Unknown

Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. ~Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. ~Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Words from my dearest friend Fizah:

Sekiranya engkau tidak pernah tersungkur dalam cinta dunia,
Maka bersyukurlah kerana engkau antara insan yang terpilih untuk menyintainya dengan sebenar- benar cinta...
Bersabarlah,
Moga suatu hari nanti milikmu adalah pecinta sepertimu...

I vow to make it a point to always evaluate myself fairly and change for the better. I want to work towards being happy.
Mind you, happiness is not just a feeling. To really feel it and appreciate its presence is to constantly remind ourselves that life is not yet over and there is always light after the darkest dawns. You must possess the desire to live!
The sadness and hardship that comes hand in hand with happiness is only to make life worth living.
Besides, u need lemons to make lemonade right? ;)
**************************************************************************************
These here are some quotes, do think of each and evaluate its meaning in the context of your own life:

Colette:

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.

Bertrand Russell:

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.
adapted

Elie Wiesel:

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
(Oct. 1986)

Oscar Wilde:

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

E. B. White:

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web"