I was at the bookstore last week, browsing through the many books and novels. I was particularly looking for a book written by one of my favorite author, Kristin Hannah.. but to no avail. So to pass time, I browse through the row of ‘Best Seller’ books when I chanced upon this book by Robin Sharma, titled, “101 Life Lessons from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari“. As I was reading through the book, (yes, I’m a cheapo, I free-read sometimes.. he he) this one advice he gave really caught my attention: Listen to music daily.

If you read his other book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, he mentioned about music again.

i. Spend a little time with music every day.

ii. It is one of the finest motivators

iii. Music makes you laugh, dance and sing

iv. It gives you a big spiritual boost

v. Make sure that you are selective in listening to music as well

…which really makes sense. Now I know why I listen to music every day. Even when I work. It is my soul that wants to listen to it. And my choice of song every morning? Vocal New Age. Enya, Celtic.. all that sort. It really soothes me that sometimes it brings me to tears! Other people might not understand my choice of music at times, not even my partner. He listens to heavy music most of the time. It’s no wonder when he purchased a cry baby wah at guitar center at time. He plays guitar and loud music.

The point here is, whatever music you listen to, it’s really a matter of your soul’s choice.

Read this recently from The Telegraph Online:

“New research suggests that regularly playing an instrument changes the shape and power of the brain and may be used in therapy to improve cognitive skills.”

In short, learning a musical instrument makes you brainier!

Now that makes me feel like picking up a new musical instrument to learn. The tremendous electric guitars maybe? Or a ukulele for that matter. What I really wanted to learn all these while is to learn how to play the Conga. It would be awesome if I could master the Violin and Conga. I can imagine being useful whenever I join my partner or brother for a jam. lol

“Experts said there is growing evidence that musicians have structurally and functionally different brains compared with non-musicians – in particular, the areas of the brain used in processing and playing music.
These parts of the brain that control motor skills, hearing, storing audio information and memory become larger and more active when a person learns how to play an instrument and can apparently improve day to day actions such as being alert, planning and emotional perception.”

Isn’t that enough reason why you should pick up a musical instrument as well? :P

Was having some conversation with my colleagues last night, about the shop next door who just got robbed by a group of armed men. Scary, of course. But we’re also thankful that nothing bad happened to anyone at the shop – and that the group of men did not went over to our place and rob us as well! *touch wood*

We all agreed that the safety level of being in a big city like this is at the low.. I mean, we hardly see or hear stories about people getting robbed in a very small town. Even if they were, the number of these crimes are so low.. I think it’s the pressure of living in a big city that caused people to do such thing. Not having enough money, scarcity of jobs, not having the ability to get cash advances from their employers are among the causes of such crimes..

Well what can we do? To live in a big city, one would have to endure such things. We all can only be very careful with our everyday life… :-(