Be resilient

As I was imaging the happy moments for the wedding of my 2 very good friends, I got a call from another really close friend. I was shocked to hear the bad news... The whole day, I could not get my mind off the thought that life is so full of drama. While the happiest chapter is unfolding itself for someone, tragedy just stroke someone else. Perhaps life is always like this. Just that it's only now I start to feel it so strongly because they are happening closely to me.

We are very vulnerable... we can only be resilient.

Read and travel

The old Chinese teaching: Travel thousands of miles and read tens of thousands of books.
I would add one more... meet hundreds of people.

Align

It takes a lot of aligning to get together, let alone for two from drastically different background. It is a painful process to discover the mismatch of expectations, to crystallize and pinpoint the issue and to spell out each other's stand. Feelings are hurt, bad thoughts are open in the air... but the end is extremely gratifying because you know the other person has complete faith in you to tell you what he truly thinks, and believes the two will come to a common ground.