The news about the New Zealand couple running away with several million had spread all over by now.

Interestly, there seems to be quite a bit of support for the runaway couple. There are even two Facebook groups created that support them – Go Leo Gao – Go You Good Thing! and We Support Leo Gao and his 10 Million Dollars – Run Leo Run.

The question I ask is not whether this is right or wrong or if you support is. The question I ask is…

If you had also gotten the money from the bank, would you choose to runaway?

For me, it is obvious that it is not worth it. First, there is the risk of getting caught. It is not likely that one can get away with something like this so easily. Secondly, even if I manage to get away at first, it will mean that I had to play hide and seek for, at least, an extended period of time if not my entire life, and that means I cannot even enjoy the money. Lastly, the instant money would not be something that I had earned myself and that simply takes away the entire enjoyment factor of earning it and thus no longer can I enjoy what I earn.

What about you?

Awhile back, I talked about how people often Mistake on Extremity. That topic is directly related to the existing duality in life and our ability to perceive them. Why is perceiving duality important? Because without such perception, how are we to make informed and optimal decision big and small? How else can we find a balance in our life?

People love to identify themselves with certain identity or idea and then become advocates, enthusiasts, or zealots. Nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a hindrance when we forget that identity and idea are merely identity and idea, which is creation of someone’s mind or of our own and that other identities and ideas exist outside of the realms.

More specifically, we love to identify the good and the bad in life, and we do whatever it takes to stick with the good and avoid the bad at all cost. As such, we overlook the opposites are never apart from each other. Opposites exist because of each other. We have forgotten this.

The degree of goodness is solely dependent on the degree of badness that exists. In the pursuit of the greatest happiness, we inevitably generate the greatest sadness. In the pursuit of greater excitement and thrill, we create even greater boredom.

Good does not exist without bad.

Just like for a hero, for one to continue to be a hero, he needs a villain, and to be a greater hero, a greater villain must be created. Without villain, there is no hero. That is how either a hero becomes a villain, or go crazy holding onto the title of hero when his villain dies, and thereby becomes a villain himself… and allowing someone else to become hero.

Therefore people shall be thankful for their opposites. Like most recently, the anti-abortionists protesting about Obama… They should be thankful for his and pro-abortionists’ existence, otherwise, they would not be so important, be able to perform “meaningful” actions, and perhaps be bored doing nothing. The opposite is also true.

The same can be said of something more mundane — being a parent. When does someone become a parent? When his or her child is born. However, as the child continues to grow, one day would no longer be JUST a child. But, often time, parents are not able to cease and let go of the role of being parents (especially Asians). You see, parent is just a role, a label, an identity. It is not you, not your entire being. Yes, perform the responsibilities of a parent, but you too shall grow out of such role, as the child has from being a child. When you holds on to being parent, you lose the self.

You are not just a parent now, are you? If you must act like and think like you are completey and only as a parent, aren’t you turning yourself into someone who is capable of no tasks outside of being a parents?

It’s the same when people hold on to any identity. Holding on to anything makes one lose the self. It is the desires for permanence for these labels and things that are and will never be permanent that causes pain. What’s the saying?

Desire and attachment are suffering. [only if we don't see them for what they are]

We don’t need to discard our current ways of life. We do not have to discard our identities. Otherwise, don’t we all need to become monks and nuns?

We can simply see that they are just ways of life and identities. Then we start to learn and begin to see more and more inside and outside of ourselves. From seeing, we will naturally behave differently. And if you must want a reason, you will change for the better.

We can still pursue happiness or whatever else, but perceiving duality means that we then know it is a mere pursuit, not everything, not our entire life. When we find awareness to see this, we find peace. We learn to be content. We see things as they are, which include both the good and bad. Because of that, we learn to flow with the way things work, enhancing our effectiveness, confidence, and decisiveness.

Therefore, the capability of letting go lies not in literally letting everything go but being aware that things are just what they are. Ideas are ideas. Feelings are feeling. Thoughts are thoughts. Good can mean bad. Bad can mean good. All such concepts are mere creations of someone else’s mind or of our own. If we are controlled by them, does not it mean we are controlled by our own minds?

Seeing is letting go.

It’s almost like a game. And it is. It is a game, though we live as if it is not, and we get lost because we have made things so complicated. It is a game, where many many dualities work opposingly, yet cooperatively. A symbiotic relationship.

Though, one may need some courage or so called “leap of faith” to accept this “absurd” idea that life is a game. Anyways.

Ironically, this is not a game to be beaten. Because how can someone beats life? If one beats life, wouldn’t it be death?

Instead, enough is for us to see that it is a game. When we know it is a game, we stop living as if we a struggling to live. When we stop struggling to live, we begin to live, and our perception improves (no longer held back by illusions). When we gain perception and awareness, we learn to see dualities. We then learn the rules and learn to live better. As we live better, we learn more and more and become more interested about life — this wonderful game. Then we simply keep learning and living, truly as a human being, and it is no longer because we need to beat it, or that we must survive — as we already know it is a game.

From perceiving duality (awareness), we find peace amidst chaos.
From finding peace, we flow calmly within the game.
From seeing it’s a game, we let go and simply play.
From letting go and playing, we become curious in the seemingly mundane.
From curiosity, we gain more and more awareness (perception of duality).

From all those, we lose our identities and grow the real Self.

A friend who is taking a philosophy class asked me this question. Here it is with my answer with minimal editing (shorthands, spellings, and such).

Do you believe, that much disclosure embarrasses the listener without providing a means to cope with the embarrassment? Relationships function best when moderate disclosure, not total disclosure, is offered. In other words, total relational intimacy may be an ideal, but it is not functional or realistic.

It says so in my book.

I think that only works in superficial relationships…

So what did you think about the disclosure thing? Do you think attraction lowers if there is too much uncovering of yourself?

Haha, you want a long answer or short answer? j/k, here is what I think as short as I can make it.

Life is all about relationships. And the key to relationship is honesty and sincerity. Now, that doesn’t mean a person spills everything all at once. Each and everything relationship takes time to develop but that should not limit the fact that you can still always be honestly expressing yourself.

Once again, the key to relationship is honesty and sincerity. To be able to be honest and sincere in all relationships, people must first have those qualities with themselves. That’s the biggest obstacle. Being completely honest with oneself sounds easy but not. I dare say, 99.99% of the people do not have that. What with each culture, religion, nation, advertisement, school, government, family, friends, neighbors, politicians, advocates, experts all telling us what we should be and should do, most of us don’t even know who we are but mere identities pieced together as one from all those sources. We THINK we are those things, and because we think we are JUST those things, we are limiting ourselves. Therefore, we get embarrassed.

As it is now, with most people not even knowing their true selves, henceforth all the dis-functional relationships there are. To have “realistic” relationship in current days means we have to be part of the game, which is fundamentally, the struggles of identities. Attraction lowers for most people because they think they are part of this game, consciously or unconsciously.

Real, genuine relationship (romantic or not) only begins when two people each had come to discover and know themselves, amidst this chaos. There is an old saying, “In life, if one has come to find one such person in life, he can die without regret.” (人生得一知己, 死而無憾)

I use online bill pay for all my bills and manually schedule them each month.

I just finished scheduling payment for credit cards, and I noticed the due date has slowly crept earlier and earlier over last few months. How sneaky of the credit card companies! I am not going to fall into this late-charge-trap.

And I’d like to warn everyone who comes across this post to be extra careful about credit card payment due date (and probably all other bills also). tThis is especially if you make use of monthly automatic payment.

Needless to say, this is credit card companies one of many sneaky behaviors to get more money, not excluding extra/increased finance charges and increased interest rate. Only understandable in this economy, right?

That means it will do us no good to be mad at them, but just that, we, anyone who is a credit card user, are to take care to keep money in our own pockets.

Personal Finance — including saving, debt elimination, investing, insurance… All these topics have been reviewed and re-emphasized and drilled to death on PF blogsphere.

Now… why is it important?

Is it because it is good to have money? That we can afford luxury when we are rich? And that we are free to do as we want?

Well, it is good to have money. I cannot deny that. I can use more myself :) But, is money that important? That many people do just about anything they can to have more of it.

Most certainly, one cannot survive in today’s modern life without money, which was invented and evolved from thousands years ago to facilitate trading. Now, it is essential to our survival. So we have to be practical and take care of this aspect of our life. To say that we as a part of current system/society can do without money is simple arrogance.

On the other hand, as the so-self-claimed highest form of intelligence on earth, is money all we can ultimately think about? Is our life just about things that we can get with money, in order to be secure and to survive? So the smartest beings on earth is stuck worrying about survival like all the other organisms?

Setting aside all the details, that is exactly what we are doing. We fight and we quarrel with each other for money (power) to be able to obtain and impose in order to have resources to survive, hopefully in the company of family and a few friends. In between, we add luxury to make ourselves feel a little better. Even when we are talking about green and saving the planet now, we are merely striving for our own survival (The planet does not need us to save it).

That’s it to human life? Wow, mind blowing…

Borrowing from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (not that I totally agree with the way he arranged things), I suggest that we manage our money so we can move beyond it. By that, I mean, once our basic needs are secured and that we have obtained a certain level of comfort and security through accumulation of “enough” money, it is only suitable for us to explore further about life. It’s time to ask yourself some [tough] questions. And there is so much to learn about yourself, your mind, your body, the world, the universe!

Additionally, we cannot counteract the absurdity that springs from money by managing our money better because that will only generate more absurdity. To break the chain of absurdity that which is driven by money-greed, we must move beyond thinking at the money level — the level where everything is evaluated by money.

We cannot fix the chaos of the world by doing things that will generate more chaos (which is exactly what we are doing) — in reference to entropy, which is the 2nd law of thermodynamics, with my humbly minimal understanding — so either we find a way to calm down or we let chaos increase to its maximum level at which it will plateau, and somehow the system will correct and reset itself over time.

Think of it like a video game, you cannot move to the next stage until you beat the current stage. Nobody talks about this because this is a road that is far less travelled by humans. Everyone is busy being comfortable or trying to be comfortable. It is a road without a map. It is an exciting journey yet scary at times. You have nothing to rely on except yourself… by learning and unlearning about many things and discovering yourself, you find your next step.

So the true importance of personal finance is not about personal finance.

That is, the importance of personal finance is to allow you to move beyond what the system preaches. It preaches the idea that we are to think and identify for ourselves all the things it preaches, mostly just superficial and material things. When you start to think about the greater whole, with wider perspective, you become free from your previous perspective because there is so much more now. You don’t have to try to be free. You are free. You no longer have to “deal with” all the desires to control your spending.

Take good care of your personal finance and realize at certain point that you CAN start looking further. If you do not realize, well, personal finance is personal finance. You are stuck thinking personally, mostly about yourself.

Last thing, has it ever crossed your mind that without humans, money and all the “precious metals” would be worthless? They are just what they are, a part of nature, beautiful but not worth anything. Thought I’d throw this related question out too.