“Sometimes in our attempt to give children what we did not have, we forget to give our children what we did have.” Connie Podesta

What do our children want?

Have you ever heard your friends or relatives saying this, “When I was young, my parents could not afford to give me the toys that I wanted; now that I am able to, I will give whatever my children wanted. I do not want them to have the fate as mine.”

So you might have heard this before, or are you guilty of being one of these people. Often as parents, we gave in too easily to our children demand and inadvertently we have taught them to succumb to peer pressure.

About a week ago, a friend of mine called me to have an afternoon tea, and we went for a cafe near a Cellphone service provider as there was a promotion for the latest 3G Plus IPhone. Subscribing to their phone package will entitle the subscriber to  buy the IPhone at at reduced price.

While y friend was admiring he iPhone features, I was talking to the promoter about the usage and charges, I have to admit, I am too melancholy at times. Personally, I did not see any attractiveness of the package except for a discount on the phone, more over, the broadband limit that they provided will only last my surfing for at the most a week. After which, it will be pay per usage and I knew from some of my friends who subscribed to such package were paying through the nose when they were not careful and use over the limit.

What  really surprised me was the conversation I had with my friend after I spoke to the promoter. I turn to him and he show me the features and I can sense that he really enjoy touching or shall I said fondling with the touch screen function and playing with the buill in game. He then said to me, “So smooth, no wonder my daughter loves it and pestering me to buy for her.”

I was a little astounded and thought I was hearing wrongly and asked,” Are you saying you are going to buy this for your daughter to play games? Why don’t you give her Gameboy or PlayStation2?”

“Oh, she got all that and she get fade-up with them. Saw her schoolmates have this, so wanted one too.” my friend said.

BTW, my friend’s daughter is only six years old.

Need I say more, are we all guilty for caring our childrn for the worng reason.

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Are we taking people for granted too conveniently?

This question has been lingering in my mind for about a week. It was Sunday Starprobe on Abandon Aged Parents  by Children that prompted me to think over what our society had became. We seems to pay more attention to our growing children than aging parents. It reminds me of a Chinese New Years Commercial directed by the late Yasmin Ahmad, the video ready depict the deteriorating bond between parents and children as the society getting more and more materialistic.

In the above video, 4 women were having a festive dinner in an old folks home, 3 of them were boosting about how successful their children were and how much they earned. The 4th woman was a little uneasy talking about his son success in front of the other 3 women, apparently her son is not doing as well as the other 3 women children.

When her turn came to talk about her son, all she can said is her son is coming to pick her up every time they are going for some outings.At that very moment, her son’s car arrived and with the envy of the other 3 women, she left with her son’s family.

Each time I watch this video, it give me mix feeling as I never have a chance to really care for my parents. Both of them passed away at a young age while my younger brothers and I were still in our teenage years.

Most of us only appreciate the person we have lost but conveniently ignore the pleasure of having the person around us. Spend time with them even simple gesture like going window shopping together or just driving around chitchatting. The video depicted indeed touch many Malaysian hearts and arouse the feeling of piety toward our parents. But there is one question always trouble me, I once asked an Character First Consultant who share this video to emphasize the important of building a righteous character.

“Why was the 4th women in the old folk home?”

The question was not answered by the consultant as he was taken aback by my question. Perhaps, the late Yasmin Ahmad is leaving it to us to appreciate the bond that we have with our loves one. To me, the 4th woman was just paying a visit to her old friends in the old folk home during the festive season.

At times, I believe it is better to leave gap for each of us to fill it up ourselves.

I feel rather sad when I read an tribute article for the late Yasmin that one of her friend who is working nearby to her office, always wanted to have lunch with her but never have the time to, and he is feeling regret for not making the time.

Treasure what You have and always make time for your love one.

So who have you been neglecting thus far or who do you want to spend sometime with but never have the time to make up to? Do it now as the sometimes may never come!

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I have an interesting conversation with a friend over lunch today, and he told me that he wanted to build a website to boost hos business and help his potential customers to know more about Financial Planning. Well, a very  Noble ideas . What matter is, every time when some one told me that he or she wanted to build a website for their business, it sure turns me on.

My question to them is always,

1. How do you proposed to build it?

Then follow by

2. How do you proposed to promote or market it?

Most  people will find a web designing firm to do it for them; it only naturally. Nothing wrong about that. Here is a comment given in my other business blog by Arthur

“That is so true. I’ve worked in web design myself and I know first hand that most web designers are programmers, not marketers at heart. So yes, they will make you a website, but will it sell? I’d rather have an ugly website that makes me money than a pretty one that doesn’t.”

What Arthur said is very true, most web designers are programmers, not marketers. You may have a very nicely done website with all the animation, flash and layout, but your site hardly have any visitor except those customers that you already had, who log in just to obligate as per your request. This situation is just like you start a grocery shop, except that the location of your shop is in the middle of a plantation, only those people who know and live there will pay you a visit one a while for the sundries when they need them. That’s defeat the purpose of having a website.

I personally have a few very interesting encounter with website designers, in due respect, these people produce professionally look website, if that is all you wanted, fine! But as Arthur put it in my blogpost, Your Website Need Revive! here, “…I’d rather have an ugly website that makes me money than a pretty one that doesn’t.”

Talk about promoting and marketing of website on Internet, you will sure heard about the buzz word SEO And by the way, just for some fun here, if you go to Google Page and type “Online Business Success” you will find that #6 on page 1 of Google SERP of out of 72,100,000 is www.clickabiznes.com, my very first  website that I build with all the Free Tools  found on the Internet.

You can read the story from the blogpost there.  I turn this site it into a blog like website after it lie dormant for 2 years.  Restarted last year and stop again for about 10 months since October 08 and started again this July. Hopefully when you read this post, the position stays.  

Wow! Google SERP Page 1 - Nothing To shout About lah.

The Screen shot is taken at about  10:31:00 pm 24/07/09. Click here for FullView

So you see, if you are talk into building a website and pay through your nose every month for the service of SEO, you may want to get a second opinion first, for many of the self proclaimed SEO expert (in my opinion) is telling the truth about what they can do for your site promotion but probably not the whole truth!

It always wise to get a second or even third opinion.

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