Selambakodok chillin' on a lily pad with his kodok family, watching a slow moving stream. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh....

Unbeknownst (what a gila glamer word) to the world, selambakodok has been chillin' with his kodok family and bonda kodok in cyberjaya for the past couple of days to vegg. I decided i needed to get away and spend time with my family so that we could bring back the balance to our lives.

You see i am a workaholic. I am sure many of you are the same out there and the reasons that you are, for the better part, is mainly known by you. As for Me, it is partly due to conditioning from when i use to study architecture, BUT mainly i guess it is due to the fear that, if i don't work, my family will not be fed.

You might think it insane for a person in my position to feel this way, but there you go.

Early in my life, i decided to play a BIG game. To take big risks in my life.

BIG RISKS = BIG GAIN / BIG FAILURES.

Not to be afraid to be Ridiculed / Maki-ed / Laughed at / Passed over etc. in trying to succeed in my life. In trying to become Afdlin Shauki. (So, although i am new to the blogging game, i am not new to people talking s**t about me. Don't get me wrong, the whole point of the last blog is that i would just like people to develop a culture of owning up to what they do if they so believe in what they say.)

Anyway, I was not ok with the life i had. That means i had decided that i didn't want to be poor all my life. I didn't want to see my mom stuck in that hole in the wall called the DBKL Sri Sabah Flats, forever. I want to give my children what i never had as a child. To many of you, i guess this story will sound all too familiar to yours as well.

So i menebalkan muka setebal tembok china dan menyondol sahaja seperti khinzir hutan yang terbau darah ke mana ada peluang / opportunities that was open to share what i had. What did i have?

The gift from god to somehow entertain some people. BUT this gift had to be polished, disciplined, trained, honed through education and mainly thru FAILURES.

I am who i am today because i have failed many times. The difference is to a lot of other people is i never considered myself a failure but a student of failures. Which is after for 2 suddenly i got good at my MATHS / ILMU HISAB because i realised the more i failed, but then tried again and again and again to get it right, the closer i got to understanding how to get to the answer.

I don't really remember all th sine and kosine and tangents anymore because it's true what a lot of people say , we don't use it in our daily life, but what i really learned thru maths was that getting the correct answer was just a bonus, the process of getting the answer was more important. So that meant not giving up if u fail to get the answer, it was merely the beginning of the challenge. So you keep plugging away. again and again and again..

So, from "apa nama budak gemuk yg. datang audition tu?"... it became, " Mr. Shauki, we would like to offer you the role of the interpreter in our film Anna and The King, where you will be playing opposite Miss Jodie Foster and Mr. Chow Yuen Fatt (or as he would say," Juust cor me FATT!")

At this point in time, you might be asking yourself , yes..yes... but what has all this got to do with the price of crude oil or apa kena mengena dengan mukadimah mamat ni tadi?

Well that is why i became a workaholic, because i am working for the bonus. And the bonus is to be able to give all my family
a great life. Help people who are talented but have no LOBANGS / connections, achieve their goals. Teach people what i know. Share my knowledge with others.

BUT....

SOMETIMES we have to give ourselves a TIME-OUT, so that in chasing our future we don't leave and forget the people in our present. I have gone down this road once and my family nearly fell apart.

So here i am at a hotel room with 2mb internet connection in cyberjaya, sharing my thoughts with you... while my family lay soundly asleep after two days of goofing around with each other, in our two chalets that i have taken for the weekend.

Before i sign off i found this gem of a story in my GMAIL and when i read it, i got like a japanese anime character and water started to well up at the bottom of my glassy eyes and started to vibrate furiously before slowly running down my cheek. It is something i think we can all learn from. Thank you Mohd. Khairul Alias, from Johore Baru for this.

here it igoes... cue lights ..... roll sound... camera... and action!

DRAMA MINGGU INI

Seorang bapa pulang ke rumah dalam keadaan letih dan disambut baik oleh anaknya yang berusia 7 tahun. Sambil mengangkat briefcase ayahnya, si anak itu bertanya kepada ayah.....

Anak: Ayah...ayah.. boleh Amin tanya satu soalan?

Ayah: Hmmm....nak tanya apa?

Anak: Ayah...berapa pendapatan ayah sejam di pejabat?

Ayah: Itu bukan urusan kamu, buat apa sebuk- sebuk nak tanya?

Si ayah mula menengking.

Anak: Amin saja nak tahu ayah... Tolonglah beritahu berapa pendapatan ayah sejam di pejabat? Si anak mula merayu pada ayahnya.

Ayah: 20 ringgit sejam.. Kenapa nak tahu? Jerkah ayahnya lagi.

Anak: Oh..20 ringgit.. Amin menundukkan mukanya.

Anak: Ayah.. boleh tak bagi Amin pinjam 10 ringgit dari ayah?

Si ayah mula menjadi berang dan berkata, "Oh, itu ke sebabnya kamu tanya pasal pendapatan ayah? Kamu nak buat apa dengan duit tu? Mintak sampai 10 ringgit?

Nak beli mainan lagi?? Ayah penat-penat kerja cari duit, kamu senang-senang nak membazir ya.. Sudah, pergi masuk bilik..tidur! Dah pukul berapa nih...!!"

Si anak itu terdiam dan perlahan-lahan dia kembali ke biliknya. Si ayah duduk di sofa sambil memikirkan mengapa anaknya yang sekecil itu meminta duit sampai 10 ringgit. Kira-kira 2 jam kemudian, ayah kembali tenang dan terfikir kemungkinan besar anaknya benar-benar memerlukan duit untuk keperluan di sekolah kerana anaknya tak pernah meminta wang sebegitu banyak sebelum ini.

Dengan perasaan bersalah, si ayah melangkah menuju ke bilik anaknya.
Didapati anaknya masih belum tidur.

"Kamu benar-benar perlukan 10 ringgit? Nah.. Ambil ni" Si ayah mengeluarkan sekeping duit kaler merah.

Kanak-kanak itu segera bangun dan tersenyum girang. "Terima kasih banyaklah ayah!" Lalu dia mengangkat bantalnya dan mengeluarkan sekeping note 10 ringgit yang sudah renyuk terhimpit oleh bantal.Bila ternampak duit itu, si ayah kembali berang.

"Kenapa kamu mintak duit lagi sedangkan kamu dah ada duit sebanyak itu?? Dari mana kamu dapat duit tu??"

Amin tunduk... tak berani dia merenung ayahnya. Sambil menggenggam kemas duit itu, dia menerangkan.....

"Duit ni Amin kumpul dari belanja sekolah yang ayah bagi hari-hari tu.
Amin minta lagi 10 ringgit kat ayah sebab Amin tak cukup duit..."

"Tak cukup duit nak beli apa??" Jerkah ayahnya lagi.

"Ayah.... sekarang Amin dah ada 20 ringgit.. Nah..ayah ambil duit ni.

Amin nak beli sejam dari masa ayah di pejabat tu.

Amin nak ayah balik kerja awal esok. Amin rindu nak makan malam dengan ayah.."

Jelas Amin tanpa memandang wajah ayahnya...




The moral of this story...

Kongsilah cite ni ngan sesape je yg anda suka tapi..yang penting skali, sharelah masa sebanyak 20 ringgit itu bersama2 dgn insan yang anda sayangi. Ini hanyalah setitis peringatan kepada sesiapa yang bekerja keras sepanjang hidupnya..yang bakal kerja sok lusa... Atau sesiapa saja yang selalu sibuk...
Jangan biarkan masa berlalu begitu sahaja tanpa dinikmati bersama2 dengan mereka2 yang begitu rapat dengan kita..yang sentiasa berada di hati kita..

Bayangkan...bila dah kerja nanti...kalau kita mati.. pihak syarikat akan senang2 cari orang lain..gantikan kita. Tapi..keluarga, rakan2 yang kita tinggalkan kat dunia ni pasti akan berasa suatu kehilangan sepanjang hidup mereka.....

Fikirlah...selama ni.. apa yang kita dah buat untuk keluarga kita?.. untuk insan yang kita sayang??"


MOHD KHAIRUL ALIAS

think about it...

POWER TO ALL OF YOU
MAY YOU ALL BE SAFE ALWAYS

AFDLIN
ps. all photos taken by MIASARA SHAUKI, 6 yrs old. (except last one)