Can I do more at this stage other than relationship?

I was rather restless this morning. Decided to go for lunch with shifu to occupy my time. Shifu was again supportive to give me his time. We went to a small eatery near Thomson for lunch. Shifu suddenly said to me that I should be awarded "the best actor of the year". He explained that he wouldn't know I was in great distress if he didn't read my blog here. What he saw was a happy front interacting with him. On the way back, he commented that he didn't really agreed with my therapy and he said he was playing a supporting role by not commenting on my situation now. He asked me to check with him on his comment if I was ready to hear

When I reached home, Han was kind to send me an email giving her opinion for encouragement. I paste here for reference as I think quite a few may have the same thinking as her.

{Maybe I am more 宿命,what is yours will come, that is always a timing thing. What is yours will be yours, let H come to you, please don't go pursue him, I agree with you that you should not be a third person, if the time is right, he will know that you are the right one to be. Our girl's strategy，得不到的就是最好的, don't fall into that trap. Let him realize you are the one for him, but not in obvious ways. At the mean time keep looking but more for fun, I really don't think you should work so hard for a relationship, take it easy, have some fun along the way, the right one will definitely appear when fate arrives. maybe you will realize J is charming in someways the more you get to know him, just not those instant attraction kind. I believe relationship can grow over time, but not burn.---- from Han}

I am far away from a skillful writer at my current level. On top of that, I lacked of energy to relate my experiences in full. I can understand the reaction from my friends who reads this blog. I think I can only try my best to give further details to bridge certain gap.

During the end of last session, I asked my therapist directly that what is the common way when a person in depressed get recovered? He said I needed a "cathexis" to pull me out of this. Cathexis is the process of attraction, investment and commitment. I needed to be able to get attracted to a beloved object, invested in and committed to it. And in my case now, relationship is the only desirable "cathexis.

As I pointed out earlier, we have also explored fully the risk of holiding on to relationship as the cathexis. But somehow this can be the only solution at the moment for my situation. There are certainly others form of cathexis like medication, sex and drug indulgence, holiday, work, interest, friend supports, family, community work, etc etc. When the therapist first suggested to keep relationship as the cathexis, I was mildly disappointed in fact as I still hope that I could go diffirent route. But later, I somehow concured with him on his focus as my situation only allowed that currently. I think there were two main reasons why I couldn't accept different route at current stage: (1) I am determined to do it right this time, so I feel very resistance to things that are very against my will like medication, sex and drug indulgence, etc. (2) my energy and logical thinking is very thin, so I am greatly handicapped now to make a reach to holiday, work, interest, etc

I am rather surprised myself of my depletion of energy and logical thinking. It was most obviously in the last two days. Something happened obviously and I stepped into my own landmine. There were few explosions that retracted me to the zero position again. The following are the experiences that clearly indicates my energy level and capability of logical thinking currently:

- The frequency of panic attack increased and fear developed strongly in me are the most obvious symptoms. My mind was not in control and I could only let the panic sensation ran over me again and again

- I was also many a times in very confused stage. A good example was when I was reading Han's email, I was trying to respond in my mind. Suddenly, I was pulled into an unknown dimension of confusion. I didn't know where I was and who I was and what I supposed to do. I didn't feel my self, my body, my existence. I could only feel a pure stage of confusion.

- At times, I thought I could feel my logical thinking in action. I had bliss when I was logical. I could think positive, I could pull myself out for a while from all this mess in relationship. However, these were so scare now that hardly could aggregate enough energy to liberate me from the strong negative forces.

- Sleepless nights and tireness. I think these were the two that constantly exhausting me now. I haven't been able to sleep well and always feel tire easily

- Physical attack. The most common one was breathing difficulty and heavy chest. I need to breathe heavily quite often now in order to release stress all over my body. This morning, worst of the lot, I had an entire new physical attack after I woke up not long. I was still very much in panic state. Things got more confused in my mind. At final stage, my body system was reacting with warning. I felt my lower abdomen started tightening and in sharp pain. I knew clearly that my body was giving red alarm that my stress level was too high. My body was self-destroying to boycott. I tried a few means but in vain. Finally, I had to take lexotan to nectralize the action.

I declare I am a fighter now. I will fight till the last day in this world. I am receptive to try all ways to heal but it is really dependent on my current energy. I have over and over again combing through what is the best for me. At the same time, I have also to be mindful of the landmine I don't even know myself. There will be a danger for disaster if the the landmine is just beyond my own control. With the current stage, I can only trust my therapist's profession in helping me to provide a rationale plan to get me out of this situation. This plan requries time, heavy effort and resistance to much negative forces. Though I also have my doubt in the current plan, I tell myself I need to trust my therapist when I feel that he is trying his very best to devise a best plan to help me with empathy.

Obstacle in action

wow, didn't expect writing about my grandma this time would trigger such a mood swing. I was a bit happy yesterday that I thougth I had managed to muster a bit of inner energy in me for recovery. It's definitely a bad plunge so far. The most I plunge downward the most I miss H. I now can understand a bit why my therapist keeps suggesting me to ask H to re-consider his relationship. Well well well, don't think I can overcome that route of breaking out other's relationship. I feel the whole panic attack running over me now. Again my logical thinking is thining every second. I am engulfed in full emotion currently.

My healing reset to zero once again..........

50 years of sorrow in silence

I called my elderest sister when I was in SH the first night feeling very down. That was the first time I decided that someone in my family should be informed about my misery. I didn't know how to put accross my feeling but kept weeping in the phone. My sister was trying to console me and she mentioned my maternal grandma to encourage me.

She related a conversation with our grandma to me. Grandma would sometimes come over to our house to stay when she was still alive. She always slept with my eldeest sister in her room. They normally had small chat before they slept. My grandma divulged to my sister that she had been in silent sorrow for the past 50 years. My sister encouraged me that gramdma could contend the sorrow for 50 years and still remained in life till her last breath. We as the grandchildren should carry on with the energy and live strongly regardless of any difficulty in life.

Grandma was the second wife of grandpa after the deceased of grandpa's first wife. The first wife left behind 2 sons and a daughter. Grandma was not much older than the eldest son. It was not easy to be a step mother and the eldest son had never see eye to eye on everything with grandma. Grandma's life became more miserable when she gave birth to her only son. Typical to a rich family, my eldest uncle always had this thougth that Grandma and her son were there to snap the wealth of my Grandpa. He was not only cautiously guarding the wealth of my Grandpa, but also hostile to Grandma and her son worrying that they might snap the wealth from him anytime. He had never been kind to Grandma and her son all his life even though he had finally inherited all the wealth left over by my Grandpa.

I will never forget the day when grandma left us. Grandma had been bed-bound for quite a while due to her heart problem. She finally couldn't hold on any longer and was about to leave all her beloved one surrounding her on one of the night. We were all painful to see her struggling to stay alive in order to be with us. At that moment, my eldest uncle was shouting loud at my Grandma demanding her to hold on her breath till morning. He believed that an elder in the family shoudn't pass away at night as this would bring along the wealth of the family. So he shouted again and again to my grandma asking her to hold on to her breath until day break in order to keep the wealth for his family. I saw my grandma trying very hard to respond to my eldest uncle's request and to hold on her breath. But her heart was just too weak to hold on any further after an hour of effort. She still left behind all her beloved one at that night

My uncle was angry and kept grumbling bad about my Grandma saying that she was an evil woman and deserved to die. He even wanted to go against my Grandma's will to cremate her immediately. His son finally managed to persuade his father that Grandma was scare of fire and wouldn't want to be cremated. At least, my grandma could leave in peace after my eldest cousin took over to oversee the funeral process himself in accordance with my grandma's will.

Contrary to my uncle's attitude to my Grandma, all her grandchildern liked her alot. We always felt her warm and caring. None of us had experienced her tantrum once. She was always kind and soft spoken. Her life was miserable also partly due to her only son. My youngest uncle was a bit retarded from young. He created alot of trouble for my grandma. However, my grandma still worried for him and took good care of him till he passed away with cancer at around the age of 40. That was the first time I saw my grandma lost her usual calm composure and broke down so much in tears.

There was a few encounters with Grandma that would always stay in my memory.

My father was at his most ridiculous rowdy behavious during my university time. I was so stressed as the whole family was shouting and crying most of the time at the period. Coupled with stress from school work, I found difficulty in managing it. I dropped by Grandma's place one day to visit her and accompany her by her bed side. She was already bed bound at that time. I was so stressed that I grumbled so much to her about my feeling. She listened quietly throughout and she consoled me gently after I finished my heart pouring. She reasoned the difficulty of my father to me and asked me not too hold grudge on him. She also asked me to talk to my father about my feeling. I felt that she could understand me well. I left her place with less stress that day

My grandma always liked to be surrounded by her grandchildren. I thought I should do something one day. Taking the opportunity of one of my cousin's birthday, I organized a big birthday party at my house gathered all the 13 grandchildren of grandma to celebrate for our cousin. Grandma enjoyed the party very much that night. Towards the end of the party, Grandma came into my room suddenly and gave me a red packet. I was a bit surprised and laughted at Grandma explaining to her that I wasn't the birthday boy that day. She insisted that I took the red packet. I accepted it puzzlely according to her will. Not until much later that I found out what was the meaning of the red packet when I talked to my mum's about the incidence. We felt that grandma must have understood my real intention of organising the birthday party that day. It was mainly meant to gather all the grandchildren to spend time with her. In appreciation, she returned a red packet to me. She was such a sensitive and affectoinate person.

The only solution is a genuine partner!!

I attended the second session of psychotherapy at 2pm. The therapist had just finished his previous call, my session only began at around 230pm. We ended the session around 4pm. The therapist told me previously that the session should only take about 45 mins, but we ended up doubling the session due to the extensiveness of my problems.

We first chatted about my current update. The original plan was to contend the problems on present situation first before jumping into early life experience. I told the therapist that I had, on my own accord, went into analysing my ELE based on Scott's book. We therefore drilled into the topic quite a bit subsequently. The therapist was a bit taken aback with my ELE and agreed that there were major unhappiness in every phases of my life till now. He was trying to use my academic and job achievement to balance the equation. I told him that I had also tried that route too but it didn't work out as well

He told me he would go back and disgest a bit more on my ELE and my current problems. At the mean time, it seemed to him that to find a life partner was the only solution to get myself out of my current situation. We discussed the difficulty and risk in searching for the right person. He suggested that he could be the referee to help to confirm and strengthen the relationship if I ever found a suitable life partner. He further stressed that this person must be a genuine person in nature, not someone would take advantage of me.

We re-visited my ex, but I told him that it would be difficult as my ex had his own set of problems to be solved. H was also been ruled out as I felt that he still quite in love with his bf and I would feel guilty to break out other's relationship. J seemed to be still dealing with his own problems with his ex and on his tantrum.

Currently, it seems that there isn't any suitable candidate yet.

A morning as usual

I talked to J till late night yesterday. The talk somehow had healing effect that I went to bed feeling at ease around 130am. Not so bad a night sleep, but I still woke up about 6am in the morning feeling fear and slight panic attack. Took a cup of water. I started meditation. The untanned wild monkey ran even more aggressive today. Almost an hour past, I came out of meditation not knowing if my mind was any calmer. Went down for breakfast and paper reading. Reading was easier today and I took a bit more time to finish the paper.

The second therapy session will be at 2pm in this afternoon. I have already few questions in mind to clarify with the therapist.

The load is still pretty much on my chest. Guess I have still to befriend with it for a while more.

Looking forward to a happier mindset.

Happy, Happier, Happiest, Happiness

I am on a roller coaster ride

I woke up in the morning feeling stress and slight panic attack. I did a half-an-hour meditation trying to calm myself now. As I haven't been doing meditation for quite a while, my mind ran like an untanned wild monkey. I was exhausted and sunk myself on bed again, letting some light music running on the background hoping to achieve healing effect. I dragged myself out from the bed after an hour past thinking I should be more discipline to get myself out of the down mood. I went downstair for breakfast and paper reading. With not much apetite, I only took a cup of water with two slides of bread. Still restlessly, I found no interests in anything I read. I went back to my room to start my computer to search for something to focus. I watched a variety program from Taiwan. I was a little relieved that I managed to aggregate a bit of attention on something. After watching the program, I held on to the momentum to prepare myself to head for the gym. I had not been to gym for the past week. Health is ulmost important now for my recovery, I at least need to take good care of it.

I reached gym at about 11am. Jogging cum swimming is my normal gym routine. I can't do any weight currently due to neck and shoulder injury. I decided to jog outside the gym since the sun was bright today. I am a Sun person, I hoped I could draw some energy from direct contact with the Sun. My mood was again down when I started jogging. Negative thougth kept creeping in here and there. I was already planning for my suicide at the moment when I discovered the thought. I suddenly felt guilty of involving so many friends this time round in my situation. If I couldn't pull through, I was sure many of them would feel guilty about not been able to do something. I was thinking ways to write my will to let them know that I appreciated all their help and concern. If I couldn't pull through this time, no one should be at fault. This would be my detiny. I should have fought a good fight if there was such a day to come.

Many a times I felt like quitting the jog right away. I was jogging up Mt Faber. I thought I should apply some positive thinking to nectralize the negative thougth. Looking at the steep slope infront of me, I told myself I was going to challenge the slope just like taking the current challenge on my situation now. I had to overcome it. I started my pace again. Not easy, I found I was both hungry and lacked of energy. Negative thought came again. I was very groomy and exhausted. Suddenly, my grandma, my aunt and my sister appeared in my mind. They were encouraging me on the challenge. I shouted at myself that I had to persist. I want to continue to live happily in life, including the part from my grandma, my aunt and my sister. My grandma had suffered quite alot when alive. My aunt commited suicide around my age. My sister passed away because of cancer. They all didn't enjoy much when they were alive. Therefore, I told myself I had to continue their life for them now, living happily and joyfully each day. I ran and continue running. Finally, I managed to reach the peak of Mt Faber. I was quite relieved and able to enjoy the breeze blowing past me under the bright Sun. The world was so beautiful, I should live in peace and joy. I slowed down my pace and jogged down the hill. I then changed to swimming truck and went for ten laps swim. At around 1pm, I finished my shower and found stomach grouching at me.

Thinking that I should maintain the positive mood, I tried calling Shifu, M and J for lunch. Unfortunately, no one could attend to my last minute request. I took a quick lunch on the way back home. The moment when I reached home, my moody friend visited me once again. sign... with much physical exhaustion, I couldn't resist but could only sink myself on bed the second time in the day, letting the music ran at the background again. I dragged myself out from the bed at about 4pm and went online to seach for something to focus. I got acquinted with D through Fridae and we started our chat on MSN animatedly. We chatted for an hour before we continued our chat on the phone. My mood was getting better now. My gosh, is relationship the only cure to my situation now?? I shouted subconciously when I was chatting with D. Am I pushing myself into another dangerous zone again? I really don't know. Guess the question is to be answered by my therapy during my next visit.

师姐驾到

When I was on my way to psychotheraphy session, I received a simple SMS asking how I was from my Shijie. My tears rushed into my eye uncontrollably. Consciously knowing that I have declared not to cry, I forced back my tears with all my might. Shijie and I haven't been talking since 2004.

Before I knew my Shifu, Shijie was already a long term close mate with him. So naturally, I had to call him Shijie, even though I was two years older than him. We got along very well since the first day of meeting. Shijie always got good, sharp and sarcastic humorous sense. Time with Shijie had never been boring. We went through thick and thin together since the day I came out of closet. I can't account for my initial few years of gay life without the presence of Shijie. There was too much happiness muddled with unhappiness at the same time.

The connection was broken after an incidence. The incident occurred that shook the fundamental trust between us. I was so hurt and disappointed that I cut off the connection immediately and impulsively. I didn't answer Shijie's phone for a while and he turned angry and didn't pursue further. Thereafter, we were strangers to each other.

There were many a times I thought I should patch back with Shijie. Our friendship had been frank and direct. I always thought it was a great loss to me that we should ended up this way. However, I haven't got enough energy to initiate the patch back.

Shifu was kind enough to tell Shijie about my current situation, probably hoping he could render some support to me. I am really grateful to all the kind gestures from both of them.

Confrontation (II) - The incomplete fate

Y happened to come by SH for business trip the week before last during my down period. There was always a score yet to be settled between us. I saw it the right time to make a closure during his visit. He arrived on Wednesday night and called me from hotel without early warning as usual. I was too tired to meet him that night and arranged to take him out after his meeting the next day. He supposed to call and tell me the time to meet. As his usual self, the phone didn't ring till 4pm. I decided to call him to check on his schedule. He had already finished his meeting and was ready to meet anytime. We arranged to meet at 6pm at a bookshop in Fuxin Road. He later texted to ask if his female colleague and one of his friend in SH could come along. Helplessly, I replied him that that supposed to be the meeting between two of us, but he could bring anyone he liked if he so wished. He texted to protest that I should have told him earlier.

We met at the bookshop with his female colleague. I brought them to shop along Nanjing Dong Road, then later proceed to the famous SH Bund for sightseeing. The dinner was at a Cantonese restaurant and we finished the night at around 10pm. I went to his hotel room to chat after dinner. We started casual chat at first and slowly I told him about my depression and crying that few days. He was a bit shock to hear that and I jokingly said that he was partially responsible for this. He was puzzled on why he had a role in this as we had not met for a while. I recounted the history for him.

Before our first meeting at Tower Record in Pacific Tower, I had longed to meet him as all our mutual friends had been saying he was my type. I was studying in Sydney at that time and he had already stayed in New York for a few years. We both came back to sg at the same time for holiday. One of our mutual friend organized a dinner to receive us together. While the mutual friend and I were talking at the entrance of Tower Record waiting for the others to come, I saw a boy taking the escalator coming up to our way. Before I could admire at his cuteness, the mutual friend shouted and pointed at him to me saying that he was Y. We met and immediately got attracted to each other. We started our date the next day till the day we ended our holiday in sg. The proximity of our house further accelerated the intimacy of our relationship. We talked leisurely everyday during our meeting. It was a perfect holiday romance for both of us. We went back to where belonged at that time and continued our life.

The second year came and the holiday romance repeated itself. We would somehow came back together to sg and continued our sweet dating here. We both enjoyed each other company alot in sg. This pattern ran almost every year since we first met. However, a strange phenomenon was that we hardly contacted each other when we were out of the holiday romance. Nevertheless, this had never lessen our intimacy whenever we met in sg.

I moved to Tokyo for work after I finished my studies in Sydney. During the second year of my stay in Tokyo, I decided to write him an email to discuss our future. I wrote to say that if we were to remain at the current stage, our life would be parallel and would never cross at any point. I asked him if he would want to plan with me a time in future where both of us could move back to sg and build a fruitful relationship. The email was sent but I had not received any reply from him for the next three months. I was rather disappointed and lost confident in our relationship. After much thought I wrote him a second email to talk about the same thing. The result was the same and I still didn't hear from him. I vaguely remember that there was again a third similar email sent to him on the same subject and with the same outcome. I lost hope completely and the subject was dropped totally from my mind.

After nearly 3 years of stay in Tokyo, I decided to move back to sg after half a year of serious thinking. The decision wasn't easy as I was enjoying a well paid job with good exposure and colorful lifestyle at that time. The rationale to come back was because I desired to settle down with someone here. In Tokyo, I still didn't have strong belonging there.

After I came back not long, Y scheduled his holiday visit to sg. This time he was a bit strange. I sensed that he was also thinking seriously of moving back to sg for some reasons. And, it was rather obvious that he desired me to ask him to move back to sg. He told me casually about his thinking to move back. He insisted that I went to source for an apartment with him at the time. He hinted that I had to like it as we might stay there together. I refused to view the apartment with him indicating to him clearly that he had to make his choice of moving back to sg himself. I actually also intentionally explained to him my long struggled in deciding to come back. I hinted to him that I couldn't be the reason for him to return. In retrospect, there were three reasons to my action. Firstly, he told me that he had just been promoted to the post of regional director in his company. He was working at a top 4 advertising firm in New York. I felt burden to ask him to forgo this good opportunity cost to come back for me. Secondly, I had just struggled to reach the decision, I knew clearly that this had to be made by himself. Lastly and most importantly, I think the three unanswered emails were at work then. There was an overwhelming question mark in my mind on the unanswered emails.

He left sg without any decision being made. On the day right after his departure for New York, I received a call from YP shouting and accusing me why I let Y left sg with sadness. He was angry that I didn't ask him to come back to sg. I didn't explain my position as there was history that only Y and I could understand. Y didn't decide to move back to sg and I didn't ask him further anymore. I got attached with my ex first and subsequently Y got attached with an American in NY a year later. We still meet in sg very closely when Y come back each year for home visit.

I recounted the history and confronted Y directly about the three unanswered emails that night in his hotel. I jokingly told him that if he would have answered the email, we might be happily living in sg together now. More importantly, my ex would not be in the picture and I would not be in depression now. He was quite sad after hearing the story and he claimed that he didn't receive the three emails at all. He asked why I didn't check with him directly the following year we met in sg. I told him that I couldn't as I had lost confidence and hope after I had mustered all courage on the three attempts and failed completely. He was silent and slept on my shoulder. Some 10 minutes passed, he suddenly murmured to me in dreaming voice saying "please don't cry, don't cry anymore." I was very touched at that moment on his concern to me. I asked him directly if he really liked me at the time. He gave an shy but affirmative answer.

He left the next day after his meeting for HK. I received a call from him asking for my address in SH. He said that he had bought me a jacket and wanted to DHL to me. I was a bit surprised and told him that it was not necessary. He insisted as he had already bought the jacket. I thanked him and gave him my address in SH. DHL called fast the second day to inform me on the procedure to claim the jacket. China custom required me to pay 20% custom tax before the jacket could be released to me. I was shocked when I knew the price of the jacket. It was too expensive a gift from Y. I am not too sure if this was the gift to show his apology for the unanswered emails.

I am very happy that I have made a closure on a mystery long in my heart between Y and me. I think Y and I are a very close kin to each other now after ten years of relation. We were fated to fall in love with each other and enjoyed our moment together very much, however, we had incomplete fate that forbid us to go further.

First session of psychotherapy

Finally, I mustered all my courage to visit a psychologist yesterday. The therapist concluded that the part of my brain that control the emotion and feeling has hurt and suffered great pain from all my recent experiences. The pain is overwhelming and it is affecting the part of my brain that manage logical thinking. Therefore, I am experiencing all signs of depression.

The therapist suggested medication and therapy concurrently as a recovery plan. I rejected the medication part as I still hope to manage the situation out of my will. I confirmed all my rationale with the therapist on all the recent experiences and actions. I am not too sure if I should be happy or sad as the therapist concurred with all my analysis of the situation. The therapist also didn't object to anything I did and didn't think I subconsciously dramatize the experience. The therapist suggested that he would first work with me on managing the present situation, then would proceed to work on early childhood experience to uproot the problems at a later stage.

The first session of therapy confirmed my pain is real.

Enjoying the torture of depression

I woke up a day without good sleep. Mood was ok and I was able to take a bun before I went to work. After the morning meeting, I rushed out to settle utility payments. Along the way, I felt difficulty in breathing, an urge to shout and cry. I ignored the feeling and breathed heavily to release stress. I continued to run my errand till lunch. There was no appetite for food at all. I skipped lunch and headed back to office for meetings again. Meeting stretched to 4pm and mood swing visited the second time of the day. I endured till 5pm and decided to leave office earlier. I went back home straight as I was already quite exhausted from insufficient sleep and a day of work. The mood remained with me for the evening and I had no appetite to eat at all. I was very hungry, could only take water as dinner for the night. I also couldn't do much the night then I decided to end the day early to escape from suffering.

Mood swing would visit me 3-4 times a day since then. I befriended with him and observed the feelings in pain. The pattern varied from bad to worst. I woke up in the morning feeling difficulty in breathing everyday now. My chest was heavy and my heart was crunching. I needed to breathe heavily more and more to release the stress. Good night sleep was far away from me now. I could only take a short nap here and there. The stress finally resulted into panic attack yesterday.

I experienced the first attack when I was waiting for a friend in a shopping centre. I felt a tinging sensation ran all over my body. I felt myself shivering lightly. I didn't know what was it at first, but I came to term with it after few occurrences. Phobia also decided to join the fun and visited me often now.

I have to entertain all these "good friends" very often nowadays. I try to talk to them patiently and enjoy the suffering they bring onto me. I only have a wish to them. They can come and go anytime as they like in a day, but I hope they will not affect any part of my body system. I will not have energy to host them if any part of my body system is giving way.

The earth is still rotating and life is still moving on. Day in, day out, I am having great fun with all my "good friends".

I am the boat vs Throwing stones into the pond

A follower of zen practice encountered problems in life. He approached his master hoping to find a way to get rid of his agony. The follower was pouring his problems out of his heart to his master at a beach. His master listened casually while watching the boats in the sea gliding to and flo. After an hour of heart pouring, the follower asked the master for a solution to liberate him from his suffering. The master seemed oblivious of the follower's request and pointed to the boat and said "the boats are moving so fast and hardly can stop easily."

The follower was puzzled on why his master didn't address his question. Thinking that his master might not understand his problem, the follower did another hour of heart pouring again. He asked the second time for a solution to his problem. The zen master, still at his calm and peaceful composure, pointed to the boat and repeated to the follower "the boats are moving so fast and hardly can stop easily." The master then walked away, left behind the follower there in total confusion.

After a period of time, the follower met the master in the beach again. The master casually asked the follower what was the progress of his problem solving. The follower lied on the beach and acted himself like a boat. The master smiled at the follower contently and the follower was back again to the stage of calm and peace in life.

I am struggling now whether to be the boat once again. I am using different way to approach my problem this time. I am actually throwing stones, big and small, one and many, into the pond to stir myself up in order to see the real problems buried deep inside. I have tried the boat way all along but could only obtain temporary relief of suffering. I think I may have practised wrongly. However, I am all tired about the dramatic consequences of throwing stones at this stage, I am so tempting to be the boat once again.

The road less traveled (I) - Discipline

Life is basically a series a problems. Therefore, life is difficult because it is painful to go through the process of confronting and solving problems in life. Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. There are four techniques associated to discipline, namely, delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. (summary from The road less traveled, section I by Scott Peck)

I suspect my persistent problem in life is very much due to lacking of discipline. I don't think I am an ill-discipline person, but I think my current level of discipline is far from able to uproot my problems. I am a 5 mins person. My discipline can only work very well for the first 5 mins. Just like the current situation, I think I disciplined myself well in managing the healing process since my break off with my ex. But now, I am feeling very much exhausted and getting relax each day. Consequently, I see my problem is heading out of track each day.

Out of the four techniques associated to discipline, I manage half quite well and the other half is still very much in the process of improving.

I was quite a prolific reader during my primary and secondary school time. A large amount of books I read were about individual struggling much through life to obtain ultimate happiness, eg: “汪洋中的一条船”，“孤儿历险记”，“苦儿流浪记”, etc. I think the theme was somehow the main morale of that era. While I was engrossing with all the stories, I developed subconsciously in me that life had to run on a tough ground first before happiness would follow. Therefore, I practice naturally delaying of gratification. But I am not too sure if I am over doing it that I forbid gratification entering my life.

I am basically a neurotic. When I am in conflict with the world, I always automatically assume that I am at fault. When things got clear with my ex, I didn't see it that it was his fault entirely. Most of the time, I actually attributed the fault to myself as I didn't have sufficient love to help him to grow. I always assume responsibility on problems in my life. I think this is also because I am a buddhist. Buddhism teaches strongly that one has to be responsible to solve own problem.

The two aspects I am doing quite badly are dedication to truth and balancing. I am not too sure if it is because the previous two factors that shield me from properly executing these two techniques. I always assume too much fault on my side that I hardly want to attribute the wrong to the other party in conflict. I maybe aware of the truth but my strong belief that I am at fault and should shoulder the responsibility to handle the situation always muddle the truth.

This was most obvious when I was handling my break off with my ex. I assumed that it was mostly my fault that I didn't help him much in our two years together. On top of that, I was the one who initiated the break off, so I had to ensure that he could manage and went through the process smoothly and easily. I masked off all my feeling initially to help him through, at the same time, I muddled lots of reality that resulted in lots of confusion in myself later. I am still very much in the process of sorting thing out myself I think.

I guess this also got to do with technique on balancing. Scott indicated in his book that a free person must assume total responsibility for his own problem, but in doing so must also possess the capacity to reject responsibility that is not truly his. I think I fail in this completely. I am never good in balancing, both physically and mentally. I am not too sure if the two have connection. I had ever tried very hard to improve my capability in balancing physically in hope that this would indirectly help balancing mentally. I tried standing on one leg, learning ice-skating, etc. Somehow, this is still the weakest spot of me in life.

Confrontation (I) - My flyaway-love

I decided I wanted to take the confrontation route to all my problems. I hope I can grow by taking a different way from my usual self. On the next level, I believe I will see the truth and reality of situation. I hope this will facilitate more accurate problem solving.

I proceeded to my stage 1 of self-therapy by making a dinner appointment with my ex on the night I was back to sg. I supposed to pick him up from his work after 8pm as what we had normally do when we were together. I texted him to confirm when I landed in sg, but the reply only came an hour late after to change the timing and pick up location. He had forgotten that it was his off day so our dinner appointment had brought forward an hour.

I picked him up at 630pm at his place. He was still as "pretty" and charming to me. I decided to go to our usual dinning place for yong tau fu. He chatted animatedly about his job and his life. When we were about to reach the eating place, his call rang and he answered it. I could tell from the conversation that he was talking to someone he was very interested in. A jealousy rose in me and I felt very uneasy. I casually asked if he was talking to his date, but he answered that they were just friends in good term. I further inquired about his status and he said that he was still single but multi dating a few people with no intention to get attached at the moment. We proceeded to dinner, everything seemed the same. We continued chatting about each other routine.

I needed to buy a Christmas present for a friend and I asked him to go along to help to pick one. On the way to the shopping mall, we talked about our relationship. He was cleared that he wanted to be single and he was enjoying his multi-dating lifestyle currently. He didn't want any commitment and he didn't want to be committed now. I specifically asked him if he was ready to come back to me as what I had promised him before to take him back whenever he was ready. He said he didn't want to hurt me again and he had no confidence that he could be committed. He was happy with his life now and he would leave thing to fate about what would happen between us.

I have this bad trait that I like to confirm thing to every detail by different way of interrogation. The near official answers from him just weren't good enough to fulfill my purpose of getting the reality of situation. I persisted further to examine him just like a legal counsel interrogating a plainttiff in court, but with very much gentle touch. He knew me too well and he knew also that he could get frank with me on everything. This was the mere positive outcome from our two years relationship.

I understand his feeling and situation exactly now. I am a very slow respondent. After I know the outcome of a situation each time, my natural response is always like "hmmm... this is logical". I will consciously suppress all feeling associated to the outcome. I always require a few days the minimum up till sometimes a few months for me to really know the exact repercussion. On the surface, it's logical again to me that he is "he" right now. And this "he" is someone not familiar to me anymore and very far away from me now. The only familiar thing that remained the same in him is still the problem that cost our relationship.

It was not easy, and I felt turbulent inside me. I could only try to ignore. I returned home feeling deteriorating, lying down on the bed with a blank mind. I couldn't sleep till 2am then I finally decided to resort to the help of sleeping pills. I popped a strong does of lexotan enough to knock me down right away, temporary free of problems and troubles.

I am still not too sure now what will be the real effect of this confrontation, though I believe I have the realization of the truth situation now. In a way, I am happy to see him sorted out our relationship problem and living happily now as per his will. I guess the problem is in me now that I should move on and I yearn to see myself able to reach the stage too.