Iron

Armed with encyclopaedic knowledge on genetics and what appears to be a magnetic attraction to storytelling, Sharon Moalem has written a book called Survival of the Sickest, in which he muses on such intriguing questions as the battery life of Apple products.

As always, a mind clear enough to think of the theory of relativity – like Albert Einstein – would be able to explain the theory to anyone. Sharon Moalem has managed to explain evolutionary advantages of "sick" genes in a way layperson can understand.

We might not comprehend the reason of programmed aging, for example. But it isn't that difficult to figure out why we wouldn't buy an extended warranty on an iPod if we were only going to keep it for a week. That's how Sharon Moalem makes use of simple scientific writing and drawing analogy.

One of my favourite chapters, "Ironing it Out", eloquently unravels the mystery of Sharon Moalem's grandfather who loved to donate blood. How does blood donation make one feel good emotionally and physically? And that's not all. How did off-the-charts excess iron levels nearly kill an ultramarathon runner at the Sahara Desert? How did iron boosting or iron-supplemented food kill the anaemic Maori babies who were lacking iron? 

Whatever the evolutionary reason, it is clear that every gene – like haemochromatosis mutation – has flip sides like that of Janus.  

Frog

Few things symbolise tough task as much as swallowing an ugly animal. Isn't it gross to think that the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog?

That's exactly what Brian Tracy, a consultant on personal effectiveness, taught us to do. His first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. That means tackling the hardest and most important task, a discipline we all wish to master when we open the page of a new diary or journal on the first day of January. 

Procrastination being one of the deadly sins, anyone might suppose eating frog demands mighty efforts. It pains me to say that I am also inclined to procrastinate on the top 10 or 20 percent of items or frogs that are most important, and busy myself instead with the least important 80 percent, the "trivial many" that makes little difference to results.  

As I read the book Eat That Frog, I started to think of the best way to deal with this animal. Procrastination to eat the frog can't be tackled without new angle to look at it. If we want to look at the ugly frog differently, we might have to borrow the Disney theme from Tiana. Or else, from the Chinese tradition of frog eating which dates back to the Ming dynasty. The popularity of frog delicacy means we can often change our perception of whatever considered ugly. Even when US President Ronald Reagan visited China in 1984, deep-fried frog's legs were on the menu at the national feast. 

In short, re-invent the frog with new meaning and make use of cognitive reframing. Then you can eat the frog. Bit by bit. Bite by bite.