Here is the top-ten list of the little solitary things that never fail to lift me up spiritually:

1. Listening to Il Divo’s or Josh Groban’s dying sonata in the car during sleepy morning-rides to college or sleepless late-night rides to nowhere.

2. Waking up early on Sunday mornings (which is quite unearthly for other normal eight-to-five office slaves who take revenge on Sunday mornings, right?).

3. Reading a page or two of my expiring novel during “erotic” bedtime hours (I digest and enjoy every single page of a novel, so it normally takes a century for me to finish one).

4. Going to Pasar Keramat, having breakfast, eating the best roti bom in town, swallowing the best nasi berlauk in the universe, reading The Star in the middle of deafening noise, walking through the ever busy market, buying nothing.

5. Riding past Titiwangsa Lake Garden every time I am in the middle of a busy KL (just a glimpse of it will definitely stimulate the sense of encouragement I need).

6. Doing stuffs with a lake-garden view – walking, jogging, reading, completing thesis, or lazily daydreaming, for as long as I want, until I have to force myself to say this aloud: For God’ sake, please get bored Cekmi!

7. Watching watched-already musical movies, like inspiring Evita or classical The Phantom of Opera, and this includes musically-enchanting Hindustan movies, like tear-jerking Kal Ho Na Ho or classically-mesmerising Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

8. Driving past the nostalgic places I used to live and cherish, such as Sunway or Section 17 in Petaling Jaya, or Jalan Genting Kelang in downtown KL, even if I have to go through a deadly congested traffic.

9. Sitting down by the glass window on the second floor of Mac Donald’s in Bangsar, reading books or just staring blankly at the happy faces of children laughing merrily with their loved ones (pathetic?).

10. Going to a Chinese night market in Cheras every Friday night, dressing almost like them, looking for legally-questionable audio CDs, eating famous Uncle Bob’s halal fried chicken, and most of the time, roaming aimlessly (my demure sister used to detest my multi-cultural taste).

And there are many other little things that continuously provide the crucial zest I badly need in life. Oh, you have no idea what the heaven these things have done to my confidence (aha, stealing Jennifer Hudson’s line).

So ladies and gentlemen, if you feel like your doomed personal life is driving you crazy, that you are going to be helplessly sucked up by the office insanity, that professional life seems endlessly threatening, that love life makes you even more pathetic than a famous Bridget Jones, that dreams seem impossible, just look around you and ask yourself:

What makes me inspired?