The Friction

In a matter of days, we will usher in the year of rats according to the Chinese calendar, with the hope that the appearance of these slick rodents may bring us some lucky auras and kick away those jinxes that may linger from the previous year of stoiky boar.

Each passing year, may it be the Roman, Muslim or Chinese calendar, we hoped for the best. Each passing year, we were briefed about the luck and good things that may pass us by during the period of time. Everyone, from Capricorn till Sagittarius flocking those back pages of magazine or small corners on the daily concerning the prospects and influences represented by one of the twelve animals of the zodiac . Smart as it is, they have categorized it with its individual chunks of forecast including; monetary, relationship and social.

The beginning of various new years gives us the chance of creating a new slate. Like a new season of the-story-of-our life, with a better cast, crews, contents, new direction and perhaps different hair dos. Only thing is no channel is willing to premiere it. We set our sight for a fresher outlook towards the world and people surrounding us. We wished to extend the good things that we had. We planned to achieve many things which we thought it possibly be. We were briefed by motivators that “if we can achieve, we will achieve it! “, optimism, it’s good.

What troubled us is the new year resolutions that we pledge to accomplish were made in a vacuumed friction-less world. A plan which were happily etched in an environment where bad things were never thought to occur. For instance, we wished to have more friends without realizing that somebody might be running a smear-campaign behind us to revert our friends. We wished to expand our business without keeping in mind that someone is taking a deep breath for a blitz hostile takeover. When we had something great to start, there may be people somewhere that mobilize his/her influence for collective anticipation to see us failing, spiraling all the way into oblivion. They thought its fun to do so. Yes, indeed, it takes a primary school kids to know this for a fact that life is full of challenges, but it’s a different thing as we face the problem eye-to-eye.

Then, we have our own mechanism of encountering problem. Because we badly need a clear, smooth and jam-free road to let our plans runs blazing fast outpacing any Looney speedy Gonzales. It’s a separate set of element that runs coherently with our aim to fulfill our goal. These mechanism has robbed our time, energy and concentration. Like watching too much TV takes a toll on our eyesight, whereas we were watching Discoveries or NGEO channel .In short, we are never invincible from these sort of threats.

In organizations, for instance, Proton story, there are such thing called the ‘protectionist’ stance, which are a set of rules imposed by the government so that the carmaker Proton could grow in very trouble-less, obstacle-less and conducive environment ( In turns, a perfect saga ). Yes, our parent too has set a ‘protectionist’ surrounding which allowed us to operate out of the harshness of real world. When reality first laid its cold hands on our skin; we know it sting and hurt real bad.

Perhaps, teenage period is the transitional period where the ‘protectionist’ comfort gets taken away, as year’s passes by, our resolutions gets lesser and lesser smooth in achieving it. With 10 new aim sets, perhaps only 3 may be successfully attained. In my humble opinion, this is what I call ‘friction’. It applies to everything we does. As we rub our hands against each other, as I type on the keypad. As we drive our cars on the tarred road. In fact, friction causes wear and tear. If a motivator keep saying the over-exaggerated slogans like: “ if we believe we can achieve it, we will achieve it! Repeat after me three times!!!“, they must be out of their frigging mind because human spirits does wear and tear. All because of the ‘friction’.

I honestly admit that I no longer make any resolutions each and every new year. Instead, I concentrated on formulating my own problem solving mechanism. If my personal achievement can be represented on a Cartesian graph, the 18 till 20’s would be a recession period. No growth time space, worst, its declining with the line dipping. A lot of schism and ruckuses has plagued which rendered me ''unmovable''. I could only have an upward thrust once I have found a rock-solid problem solving method. A method which can be uniformly applied on various type of problem, thus saving time. Some sort of UHU glue where it sticks universally anything.

Frankly, It's just plain stupid to say: “ Wow! Its 2008/1429 or Golden Rat year, so, I just Ctrl+Alt+Delete those schism like it never occurred and start the brand new season of my life on a clean slate with a smiling face “. Pretentiously living life like the on-going problem may never bug again. A real bad decision. Imagine having a fledging spirit to fulfill a resolution yet still engulfed with old problems. It’s like having a Ferrari on a jammed road. which is real sucks.

Perhaps successful people may have developed resilience towards ‘friction’. They can turn deaf ears on bad things people talked on their back. They may have developed thick skin which can deflect any backstabs. They may have great buoyancy where if any collective efforts to throw these people off a ship, they float and survives it well.