Chew Piin Huann 丘品焕

I grow up witnessing hundreds of people around me talking about lotteries. Some of them are frequent purchasers while some, although proclaiming that "I only buy occasionally for entertainment purposes", are still mystically fervent to participate in any conversation about lotteries.   Those conversations typically consist of the following:  The amount of cash prizes if one wins An astronomical amount of hearsay stories about a person's friend's friend's cousin's friend's neighbour winning a 100,000 bucks of cash prize last month (Normally being received with a huge "Woah" by the listeners) A person's almost-winning attempt 3 weeks ago (E.g.: He/she bought the number "677839" and the winner number turned out to be "677838") and him/her claiming it as a near-miss like how Neymar missed a penalty kick The conversations almost never entail the following: Who was the founders of the lottery companies and how they were founded

Parents vs Teenagers Every single parent used words like "Fuck", "shit" or "damn" when they are speaking to their friends. When they are back to home they avoid all those words like how a soldier avoid land mines.  Every single teenager used words like "Fuck", "shit" or "damn" when they are speaking to their friends at schools. When they are back to home they avoid all those words like how a soldier avoid land mines. As a result, two of the phenomena converge into one: A household without a single "bad word". There are also a bonus of two assumptions that are spectacularly far from reality: a) The parents extrapolated their kids as teenagers who have never spoken any vulgar words in life; and b) The kids extrapolated their parents as adults who have never spoken any vulgar words in life.  On Procrastination Most humans have the superpower to avoid completing urgent tasks.  The conventional advice to solve this proble

[Part 1: How to trick employees] If you are a manager, a boss or in whatever position that requires you to lead some people, this is the tip for you: Give RM50 raise (or any other small perks) to every employee, and tell them "This is specially for you only, don't tell the rest".  You now successfully made the whole team love you. And none of them will tell the rest, because everyone believes that he/she is special like what you have assured them.  If you are an employee, team member or in whatever position that requires you to be led by others, this is the tip for you: Be very careful when your leaders tell you that you are the special one, because very often they are telling all of your colleagues the same line.  [Part 2: How to make people dislike you] If you want people to like you, talk only about him: his job, his family, his hobby, his frustrations, his fear etc. Ask everything about him, talk nothing about yourself. If you want people to dislike you, talk only abo

We now take for granted that living to an age of 70 is normal, while living for only 40 years of life is tragic. But that wasn't the default in most parts of human history. Many people died very early in the past. Some died of Addison's disease at 41. Some died of tuberculosis at 40. Some died of tuberculosis-induced heart failure at 34. Some died of meningitis at 24. Some died simply because of having eaten a rotten fruit at 36. Some died of airplane crash at 34. Some died of epilepsy-induced accident at 29. My grandfather died of appendicitis (can you imagine?) at 28. I am not even talking about self-inflicted deaths like that of rock stars who died of drug abuse or depression-induced suicide. I am talking mostly about pure misfortunes, mainly due to some completely random diseases, either genetic or bacterial. We can safely conclude that if most of them were born in the world today, they would have survived way longer. Almost no one dies of tuberculosis

Very effective tips on how to be unhappy: Always worrying about making mistakes  Afraid of rejections Never talk to janitors Always hoping that one day you will be lucky Following thousands people or liking hundred pages on social media Always envy Always playing sport games with artificially certain and finite rules (E.g.: Football, basketball, badminton, ping pong etc.) Afraid of criticising friends Always saying "I have no choice" Reading famous self-help books like "Think and Grow Rich" or "Rich Dad Poor Dad" Pornography and "babes" on social media Eating sugar all the time Always texting instead of calling Afraid of being stupid, afraid of unknown Speculating stock markets Having a "bucket list"  Attending motivational seminars to get "motivation" Comparing salary and bonuses Always desiring to be special, afraid of being normal Thinking atheism is better than religion Believing that Social Science

If you are naturally an unhappy person, after being rich you stay same as an unhappy person. In fact, isn't it very unscientific and illogical, to think that money is an alchemy that can transmute happiness for you out of thin air? If you are naturally a happy person, money will augment your happiness. Money is just a multiplier. Whereas you yourself is the base. When you base is 0, even if you multiply it with 1,000,000,000, your end outcome is still 0. When your base is non-zero, even pennies can lead you to non-zero outcomes. If you have to wait until you become rich to be happy, you never will. No mathematicians will be able to make multiplication of 0 into anything.  Don't focus so much on multipliers until you lose sight of your base, not realising that it has become 0.

Some close friends know me for being philosophical. In fact I am often accused of being too philosophical. While I vehemently disagree with the idea of "studying philosophy" [1] , today I will try to give a brief account on what is philosophy in general. I have never received "formal training" in philosophy studies. I "learned" it mainly via self study and partly because my major back then (law degree) is a key branch of formal philosophy studies. To start with, I will talk about the formal 5 branches of philosophy. Philosophy can be divided into: Aethestics (What is beautiful? What makes beautiful things beautiful?) Logic (What is true, accurate and correct?) Ethics (What is morally good? What is evil?) Epistemology (What is real?) Metaphysics [2] The first resembles all the arts in general. Music, painting, sculpting etc. The second resembles Mathematics. The third resembles what judges and lawyers do da

I don't know why are people against pessimism (In fact there is this whole self-help industry convincing people to be "optimistic" and "positive"). It's probably the best thinking I have ever learned and adopted. If you are pessimistic and only think about the worst, even the tiniest improvement feels like a huge bonanza for you. You believe that you are not important to your company and your work is menial and trivial. One day your boss decided to increase your salary for 200 bucks. It feels amazing! You think you don't deserve anyone's love, then a random guy/girl came to you and told you that he/she likes you. Greatest surprise ever! You think you take bad photos or write bad essays not worth being appreciated by anyone. For years, the essays and photos that you posted online always receive 0 likes and 0 comments. But you don't care, cause you are doing this for yourself. Then suddenly, 5 people came and said that your ph