N.A.T.O

salam and hi to all,

have you ever heard of the acronym NATO? i bet most of us have aite?

well, NATO; so to speak is the abbreviation from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, an intergovernmental military alliance which constitute a system of collective defence. from what i understand, several countries in the world are making an alliance called NATO which requires all members to back up and defense each other to response in any attack by any external party (other than the alliance members). thanks mr google and wikipedia :)

however, i'm not going to write about NATO, UN, UNESCO anything about that yada yada yada,

but still, using the same acronym- NATO, it definitely means something different to me.

back then when i was still in college doing my foundation studies, one of my lecturer used to nag us about the habit of speaking up unnecessarily at the wrong time. all of us, including me, we had this kind of attitude where when it comes to studies or any academic related stuff, we didn't dare to speak up our mind boldly, but we like it best to talk about anything we wanted when we actually didn't have to.

for example, during exam or simply when the lecturer was in front of the class. we would talk and talk and talk like there's no tomorrow until they had to stop us. and she used to say this one statement sound sorta " you guys really like to talk don't you. you guys are like NATO, No Action Talk Only"

it was quite harsh and sarcastic, but i knew her intention was good. she just wanted us to prioritize and focus on what we had to do(at that time).

using the same concept of NATO, later i realized that it was true in every way. people won't respect us if we only talk without taking any actions towards accomplishing it. its like we don't walk the talk.

so you see, it's hard to gain people's attention until we prove them that we really mean what we say, the same goes to respect; it's simple- you didn't respect me, then i won't respect you. that's what the idiom no pain, no gain literally mean.

little did we know that the more we talk, the greater the chances are for us to indirectly exhibit our weaknesses to others.

in one of the book i read before, mencari makna hidup by parlidungan marpaung, it's in malay by the way, however i won't translate it to english to retain the original meaning. besides, if i were to translate, chances are i might alter the whole meaning of it :D

sama ada baik ataupun buruk, percakapan anda adalah iklan diri anda. setiap kali anda berkata-kata, anda membiarkan orang lain menilai anda. tutup mulut anda dan orang lain tidak tahu betapa ceteknya pengetahuan anda. buka mulut anda, kecetekan pengetahuan anda tidak diragui lagi

so, i guess this quote above have speak to itself. don't simply let others know our weaknesses or how limited our knowlegde are by talking unncessarily at the wrong time. keep our mouth shut and speak only when needed.