"Tell me something...you have been very quiet this month?,"enquired my friend while we are sipping our  teh tarik   at our local mamak stall."Well ,I have been busy with my work and myself. I just got a new project that needs my personal attention and at the same time I am looking at my life as a project. On top of it, I am comtemplating about my level of understanding of myself, my world and my relationship with my God." My friend looked straight into my eyes and said," Don't tell me the hardcore stuff. Tell me something lighter like some juicy stories about UMNO politicians fighting for posts at UMNO branch and division levels. Or some rumours about Malay/Indians fightings at Jalan Klang Lama."
 

As they say,'common minds' talk about events and 'great minds' talk about ideas or the reasons/meanings behind the events; not to mention about little minds talking about others and tiny minds talking  about themselves. I believe, all of us have 'great minds',but we subconciously switch it to 'common mind' because it is the easier way out. I dare not elaborate further about little and tiny minds because it may offend some of my friends who love to talk about other people and about themselves. We prefer to think only skin deep . Now, I know the reasons why the sale of cosmetics is a few times more than the cost of medicines!

As I wrote this story, I heard that my friend in Bachok,Kelantan was hit by a dissatisfied UMNO member with a handphone.I don't know how bad it was, but the Bachok UMNO Division Secretary   received six stitches! I thought hanphone is a communication tool to tranfer messages and ideas via radio-waves, but that angry UMNO member  really took it literally to communicate his anger ! And barely a week ago, a TV personality was attacked at 2.30am near my house when she came to visit her untie. The weapon used was a motor cyclist safety helmet! Anything can be a weapon nowadays and things are getting more violent as days go by.That reminds me of six deaths at Kampung Medan and a few hundreds deaths in Palestine! I thought I am the lucky generation for not having to suffer the last two World Wars. But considering the all the violent events that have taken place all over the world for the last 50 years, we actually have had  World War III many times over!All these are symptoms of something not right within us individually, within us as a community and as a nation and within us as citizens of the world. I believe we have to look and dig much deeper to find out the real causes of these symptoms.

Now,let me get a little bit more selfish but something within our grasp -something that you and me can do something about it. Let us look at ourself as a project and manage it as best as we could in accordance with the discipline of project management body of knowledge.Most people wanted to change the world except himself/herself and in the end or rather in the process, nothing much has changed for the better. Things/people  tend to abide by Newton First Law,preferring  to remain in their present state!

Honestly, this is a big topic to talk about and almost impossible to have a meanigful discourse in this short article.Just let me introduce this subject matter for you to explore further on your own.First,let me define project management as the management of change. The project is not a building or a product;but it is you personally. You are the project! Or I am the project! Not only we are changing,but also the environment where we live is also changing and it is changing faster than we can adopt and adapt.Since change is constant,we must constantly monitor and manage ourselves. If only everyone were to try harder to manage themselves well as projects,we all could live in a better world....Sad to note,most projects fail to achieve the stakeholders objectives,so are our lives if we fail to manage.
 

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