Ask this: “Is it really the time of the year?”

People celebrate new days of a brand new year. I bet many make wish list, resolutions or whatever they call it this year. But I believe we will eventually come to think: Hey, it doesn’t need to be a new calendar for me to start new things or to make new plans. It is all on myself.

I like a quote by William Ernest Henley that I personally take to my heart:

“I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul”.

It is indeed true. No need for festive moment to gain control of ourself. It is all there for us to grab. And then, aside from our own expectation, others follow suite; people’s expectation of us. They are our close ones and our distant ones. They expect something out of us. All of them have different kind of approach on how to deliver those expectations to us. Some are nicely packed, some are just harsh words but all with the same purpose: to get something more of us, which is mostly good.

And again, I am gonna referring my favourite quote, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul”. We can take our life where we feel it is the right way. It is not about being persistent or even hard-headed. It is about knowing exactly where we want to lead this life of ours. I believe that others speaking bad or nasty of it, not because they are bad people but merely because they don’t have a clue on what it is in our heart. We know what we got yourself. Or in this case, I know what is in my heart and you know what is in your own heart more than others do. God knows even more of that compared to others.

I love Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Standford. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever . . . As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

So, happy new year to you. As Jobs would say, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”