Rights for what's right

It is my birthday today! A cute bear given as a present now sits in front of my desk. I told myself to be happy today.

Yesterday, my family attended a violin concert where I was supposed to accompany my brother's violin on the piano and play my violin piece too. I stumbled quite a lot on the piano, probably due to nervousness, and even started dreaming while playing. When I hit an unfamilier part, I struggled to find out where I was on the score. My violin performance was still alright though. We left the concert halfway for dinner at a restaurant in Bukit Timah.

I shall start off with a "joke". Its totally unrelated to what I am going to talk about later.

My father's company wanted a 100% share in being another companies supplier. Finally, after managing to get that company to cancel its other supplier's contract, they realised they had nothing to sell. Make more? Nah, the company does not even have the machine. The products were bought.

Then, my father colleagues lied that the machine was malfunctioning, and some person came down to check it out. As to what happened after is out of my knowledge.

Honesty is simple, yet how complicated things get in its absence...

-End of story-

Sunday, my family planned to watch 'Bolt' the movie at PJ. We entered the car park. As we circled around, we found that one of the parking lot detectors are malfunctioning as it remains green although the space had been occupied. Anyway, we could not find a lot, and the number of cars accumulated. We were so unlucky, or should I say, some people are so lucky, that whenever we saw a space, it got occupied when we were about to reach it.

In addition, we saw a few people standing in the middle of the road chatting with one another in the carpark. If they were carpark attendants, they are idiots, as they did not do anything about the traffic or guide any of the cars. If they were not, they are idiotic for standing in the middle of the road and blocking traffic. Either way, they are idiots. Unless there was a threat behind them! We might have accused them wrongly as they saved our lives yet we scolded them behind their back! But we did not see any black bag so the chances of that would be very low.

After circling for 10 minutes or more, my father was really pissed off. This carpark had no idea of traffic control at all. At MT, there were two entrances and the guards between the two co-operated so as to ensure that there were not too many cars entering compared to exiting, which was better, although there was a long queue of cars trailing behind. 10 minutes in the carpark, that means 'pay-up'. As he drove towards the barrier, he realised his mistake just in time and whisked out his cashcard before the machine could deduct any money, and complained through shouting. The guard let him out free immediately.

He did something different from all the other cars which went out without getting a lot. He voiced out. 2 dollars might not be alot, but our rights do. We did not use the car park, so why should we pay? If this goes on, some people could get too confident in swallowing money and it has to be stopped.

This reminded us about another incident which made my father 'famous'. Our maid went to buy shoes at PL. The store attendants gave her the wrong size. My father went to the store and requested for a change. They turned it down. No negotiation worked and he started shouting at them, bringing in a crowd. The store attendants threatened to call the police, but he did not move. Probably knowing that they were wrong, they gave in. Its not a matter of money, but a matter of principles.

Once again, these triggered up the incident at sentosa earlier this year. I believe it is one incident that would not leave my memory easily. I succumbed to the peer pressure and gave up my rights on deciding for myself, whether to participate in their cheating act. I might be looked down upon, but at least not by myself, which is most important. If you know that what you are doing is right, then build your actions upon it. Be ready to voice out.

Many people come and go, just like a moving foundation. To build your actions upon their requests, everything can just topple once they leave, leaving what you have done in a rubble.
Principle is solid. Principles like "Being Honest", "Caring" are the solid foundations of living a life.

You might say that being petty over money (like in the first two examples) isn't a very nice way to live. Here, if a beggar comes to you and say, "Please give me some money". Sure, any kind soul would give. What if, he said "Please, I beg you to let me cheat off your money." Well, won't that make you think twice?

What's more if no one bothers to fight back when they have been 'bullied', would not that make them even more sure of carrying out such underhand means for their personal gain, and making more people suffer? And sure, this applies to robbing of other's rights for them to decide their own path.

Do not be let others trade off what's yours for their selfish gain, intended or unintended. If unintended, be nice; if intended, 'fight'. If dealing with a bunch of gangsters, retreat.