Two things want to add to yesterday's episode -

The one is the "bird example" in yesterday's episode -

A previous version of me, before knowing Zhuangzi, used to think that in order to challenge myself, I should go to a foreign country to compete with all the outstanding people around the world; if I can make it, I am really "something".

After knowing Zhuangzi, what I learned is, in the Nature, there is not such comparison as that in the human world - the birds I am seeing flying high to conquer the high pressure, is because they need to, they are driven by the survival instinct, and they won't look sparrows who jumped happily and chattered around the ground small, or at least, we have not found a way to prove that they are doing such comparison among different species - yet, they lose their lives if they cannot compete with their predicators, and humans seem luckier in that sense.

The other thing is, a movie I watched on the place to Seattle, Anatomy of a fall - Its NY Times Review. What I learned from the movie - "Sometimes we have no ways to know what is true, we can only make decisions."

Zhuangzi said, all the adversity are going to develop our minds and hearts, and to help us make decisions.

I have been sick for quite a long time, even now, sometimes it took me a little more effort to stay awake given the remaining effect of previous medication. But an Oriental Philosopher, Zhuangzi, helped me a lot, both in my recovery of sleeping disorder (now I can sleep really well), and my viewpoints of the world. So this was the reason I recorded this episode.

I believe most of the Western philosophers and/or people who have studied philosophy have heard about Zhuangzhi, and if not - Kung-Fu might sound like a Hollywood movie title, but what's rooted in Kung-Fu from the outside is the inside - how to care about our heart, our brain, and our body.

Could you imagine how many decades this body has carried you along? Have you cared enough for yourself other than anyone else? It is not telling us to hurt other people in order to protect yourself, but don't cling onto anything other than caring yourself. How to? Sleep well, eat well, be peaceful (love too much is equal to no love at all), and understand it's natural for things to go wrong, and when that happens, imagine my heart is a mirror, regardless how much love / hate, nothing stays in a mirror.

Reference - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Hiring a skilled professional to complete home-improvement projects seems to be a common thing in the USA, but this is my first time hiring a person setting up a standing desk other than hiring movers. I was lucky this was a somewhat comfortable experience.

When my mind was wandering today, I was thinking, is it possible to let myself not too worry about if I could carry on a conversation? Could it be fine to have that couple minutes of silence without the anxiety to fill in anything?

Frankly speaking, at a certain phase of life, do we still have to care that much about if we could hold a conversation with a coworker/acquaintance for like 30 minutes? It is definitely recommended to prepare for common talking points, and show attention and give smile to your counterparts, but I guess at the end of the day, everyone is pretty aware of the game, so how about give ourselves a break, that no one really care that much how we performed except ourselves. Life itself is stressful enough, be kind to people, but if they happen to be not that nice, be polite and stay away, is probably what I found more valuable.

Hey y'all,

I believe most of you in the North Pole might have been celebrating the long holiday weekend, but have anyone of you experienced any family conflicts during the holidays?

In this episode, PhenPhen is sharing something that really have bothered her quite a long time.

I guess for an relatively older adult who has started over in her career to face the aging pressure herself, as well as the psychological pressure that parents are aging, and maybe they will leave this world anytime soon, it's tougher to face that "I know time is ticking, but I have to take care of myself first." Because, "even though I am not as successful as I wish myself to be, this is me. "

Hope we all learned to face this real "me".

How many of you have bad experiences with noisy neighbors? I believe throughout a lifetime, you might have bumped into once, twice, or if unfortunately, triple times of noisy neighbors. Poor Granny Phen had a crazy upstair neighbors perpetually moved their furniture items during midnight, to be more specifically, 1 am to 5 am! That was really devastating and brutal!

On the flip side, this is a good opportunity for Granny Phen to start looking at houses, and hopefully, after one year, Granny will be able to have her own house!

ps, sorry for not able to edit the episode a little better. For some reason, Spotify just did not allow Granny to edit further. So, this is another raw, unscripted, unedited episode.