Passionate about Life

Does it take a lot to give words of encouragement to people you love even though you might not fully understand or accept them?

2009-12-18T00:45:00.016+08:00

Yes, I guess it does for most people. It applies to me as well. I am definitely not at a very comfortable level of giving complements, supports and encouragements to people easily. But I really desire to be much better. I want to be able to do it so easily like I am breathing each day.

I envision one day, my children will look up to me and able to say “My mom is always there to support me even though nobody does.”

The caveat - I know I will not be able to fully understand my children. Times will change everything around us, some generation gaps will appear. I also know at many times in the future, I really think they are doing the wrong things; their actions may even conflict with my principles. I may not be able to believe in their dreams, not able to accepts their friends, partners and lifestyle.

But I want to stay true to one function (among all others) as their mother who loves them tremendously – TO ENCOURAGE and SUPPORT THEM, even when the rest of the world scorn at them, as long as they are not making the world an evil place.

I recently watched “Philadelphia”, a movie produced in 1993 and played by Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington (both actors made a lot of great movies) . Tom played a gay lawyer infected with AIDS, who was fired from his law firm due to the discrimination. So, he engaged another good lawyer (Denzel) to help him sue his previous employer and to fight for his right even though he was nearing the deathbed. It is a touching movie, one that makes you question on how different people perceive each others, perceive what is right and wrong – which there is no absolute right and wrong, except on where you stand to look at it. (In fact, a lot of touching movies do that on different levels – for e.g., another good movie is Crash (2004)).

One scene that really swarms me with emotions and wet my eyes is when Tom Hanks’s family pledge their supports to him, in a way that is so extraordinarily beautiful.

Andy (played by Tom Hanks):
There will be things said at the trial that are hard for you to hear...about me and my personal life.
And there's gonna be publicity. I want to make sure it's okay with everybody.

His brother:
I think it's great that you're asking, Andy…but this is really your call.

Andy:
All right. Thank you, brother.

His brother:
Hey, you're my kid brother.
That's all that matters.
Okay?

Sister:
To be honest, I'm worried about Mommy and Daddy.
They've been through so much already.
And it's possible there are going to be some very tough times ahead.

(Even though the sister was not pledging her support, but notice that she said "I'm worried" not, "You should worry" (sharing what she feels, rather than telling you what you should feel). And she also said "it's possible" because she has no way to know what is going to happen and it is not right for her to judge. See? Small words like these portray a lot of sensitivities.)

Daddy:
Andy, the way that you've handled this whole thing...
you and Miguel...(Miguel is Andy’s gay partner)
with so much courage...

I don't believe there's anything..
that anyone could say that would...make us feel anything but incredibly proud of you.

Mommy:
Well, I didn't raise my kids to sit in the back of the bus.
You get in there and you fight for your rights, okay?

Andy:
Gee, I love you guys.

Incredible, isn't it? Their parents were saying they are proud of their gay son, who contracted AIDS due to his choice of sexuality and probably his own carelessness; the same guy who worked so hard for his company despite his illness, putting himself in danger, only to be fired by the company and now he want to sue the company and putting his whole family in the spotlight and probably embarrassment, as well as putting more stress to himself while he is dying. This story may have been made up but it is definitely a great inspiration.

And, when it comes to inspiration on simple encouragement from the parent, I could almost recite the words from a scene in Pursuit of Happyness (2006) – an meaningful exchange between father and son

Father: Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?

Son: All right.

Father: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I do not think it takes a lot for the speakers to say those words, but the one who receive that, the very same one that may be in difficult situations or greatly discouraged – it means a WHOLE WORLD to them.

But, ask ourselves this - what we usually tend to do in those situations? The answer: We act the exact opposite. We tell our loved one off. We reject them. We shun their ideas. We label them with different names – selfish, stupid, silly, crazy, inconsiderate, etc. And most of all, we want to force our ideas and what we think into them. So that maybe, some where, sometimes in the future, when they realize their mistakes, they would recall what we have told them and we get the satisfaction out of telling them “I told you so but you did not want to follow!”

The irony is – sometimes, when we "fervently warn" the people we love of what we perceive to be mistakes, in some hidden parts in our hearts, we unconsciously wish for them making the exact mistakes that we have warned them, this so to prove ourselves right, whereas our loves for them consciously wish them to be happy and successful – both situations are contradictory like the sun and the rain.

Finally, 10 Rules to remind ourselves on how we should treat them (our loved ones):

1. Remember this - our faith and beliefs can move mountains. So believe and have faith in them because we will help them to move their mountains.

2. When we find them deciding or acting on things that are probably going to be some sort of mistakes, do NOT find 10 things out of the situation to prove we are right, find just 1 thing to prove we can be wrong and stick to that only.

3. Prepare to support and give them a shoulder to cry on when they really fail. Do not feel it is right to retract that because they have not follow our advices.

4. If we feel the urge to say something that sound like “I told you so…” – bite our tongues and just keep that to ourselves. FOREVER.

5. Don’t force our opinion and judgment on them most of the times. We have the right to say what we feel and think but those are just our feelings and opinions, NOT theirs.

6. Remember this – even though we are the more experienced, older and/or smarter people, accept that we may also be wrong sometimes. To Err Is Human.

7. Remember what Peter Drucker said “If You Keep Doing What Worked in the Past You’re Going to Fail” – so do not expect others (especially our children) to follow what we have done last times even though we have proven records of success.

8. Always stand by them, even though when they are wrong sometimes. They need us to be their loved one, NOT the judge, NOT the police officer, NOT the priest and NOT the executor. Everyone will be judged by God eventually.

9. Remember that our loved ones have their other loved ones as well – for e.g. our partner has other loved ones like parents, siblings, friends, relatives, mentors, etc; our parent has other loved ones like their parents, their other children and grand children. It is a very complex relationship. Be understanding and do not demand and measure amount of love and attention among each others and do not criticize and reject the loved ones of our loved ones (sound complex, I know).

10. Love them for who they are, not who we want them to be.

Warning: Do not overdo this, else we will be too pampering, which create another set of problems.

Re-engineering myself to be more assertive

2009-10-28T21:21:00.030+08:00

My poorly designed assertiveness engine is failing me. It needs re-engineering, but it is going to be an arduous challenges ahead.

I remember I used to reminisce a lot about an incident with my old friends. Two of us were having an intense arguments with my other friend. I did not remember now what it was all about, but I do remember 2 of us spent a long time explaining to our opponent why our choice is better. Our opponent sat calmly across us, listening to our arguments. Our spirits were strong, our stands undeterred, almost hostile. After we were finished with our arguments in what seemed like a long time, our dear friend just said one thing in an unperturbed manner. "I still think my choice is better". As much as we were amazed by her answer, we felt the strong urge to reach over and strangle her. All throughout the argument, we were certain she was going to agree with us. Our argument was very logical and it was 2 against 1. Even the pitch of our voice and enthusiasm were on much grander scale. But, I daresay, we ended up losing big time to her. We wasted our time, our energy and even our ego to persuade her into joining our beliefs. Not only she was not persuaded, she also never disagreed with us or spent as much energy to argue back.

She is, as I realize it now, the Master of Assertiveness.

I used to misunderstand assertiveness as being able to prove your point or invalidate other people's points of views. I also thought speaking assertively means having a certain elegant air and tone to your voice that make you sound like when you are giving public speech to thousands of people. Indeed, as I begin to learn more, assertiveness means more than that.

So now, these are the re-engineering programs that I need to put back to my assertiveness engine:

1. I refuse to be pushed or manipulated by other people.

At one time, my HR manager handed me a legal document and asked me to sign and give back to him on the same day because he was pressed by the Global HR Manager from the head office. I knew briefly about what the document is about beforehand, but not the detailed terms and conditions. I obliged and it was a huge mistake, one that came back to haunt me many times. Later, I found out that it is actually illegal for people to pressure me to sign legal documents without sufficient times for me to think about it. Also, I should have consulted people who knew the legality matters more than me. I should have stand by my right, to say I would not sign the document on that day itself, insist to take back the document and to hell with what the local or global HR manager think of me.

Several other times, people would say something that make me feel either guilty or scared to lose what I am having. These are to make me do things for them, against my will. For example, things like "You will be mean to do things like this. ", "You have changed. You used to be very obliging and helpful", "I am in trouble. How you cannot understand my situation and help me?", "If you do not improve, I would give this chance to others. ", "Things are always been done this way." and "If you really want your money back, I would do anything to get it for you, even borrowing from illegal parties."
These are all pushing and manipulation.

I am done with being pushed around or manipulated anymore. It is time for me to say NO and stick to it.

2. I have my rights to my own judgment and opinion.
If what I have done or think is wrong, it really does not matter to anyone other than myself as long as I do not hurt other people. I have the right to voice my opinion and judgment. I do not need to care whether people think I am wrong or stupid or selfish. It really does not matter unless the person who think I am wrong are person who are dear to me.

3. I can accept criticism without getting crushed.

I would respond well and accept criticism. I do not need to argue with people criticizing me, even if it is not true. Other people have their rights to their views also. If they say the grass is blue, maybe someone has sprayed some blue paints over their grass or maybe they are wearing blue-tinted glasses. Or even maybe there are actually blue grass growing somewhere near the northern Atlantic where no people live (yes, grass instead of ice) . From what I see and where I have seen it, the grass has always been green to me. I do not need to argue that with them.

Actually, so what if some people think I am not a NICE person. I just get a bit fed up of being a nice person. A person that shout at you in anger may not be NICE, but a person that gossip about you behind your back is EVIL.

On the other end, if you say my fart is aromatic, I would say "Thank you for telling me that. I shall let you smell it more often then."

4. I do not need to have reasons or excuses to justify my behavior.

I always feel the urge to give reasons or excuses when people tell me my behavior is such-and-such, which is unacceptable. While I usually do not lie, I find that coming up with the reasons and excuses, while it is not always difficult, is actually detrimental to my well-being. It also makes me defensive most of the times.

For e.g., if you reprimand me for forgetting to turn off the light, I would say, hey, I did turn off the light 99.9% of the time. This is just one time I forget, more or less. And we were in such a hurry that I forgot. Cannot blame me. Also, why it is always have to be me who need to turn off the light when we leave? Anyway, how much money we can lose leaving the lights on for few hours?
Okay, in this case, "Yes, I forgot to turn off the light." will suffice. If there are more arguments, here is how I would respond:

A: Why you are so silly to forget to turn off the light?
Me: Yes, I am so silly to forget to turn off the light.
A: Have you no brain at all?
Me: Yes, I have brain, but I guess I do not have enough brain to turn off the light.
A: Do you know how much money we lose every month because you do not turn off the light?
Me: I do not know, but I guess it will be quite an amount.

Being assertive does not mean I cannot admit my mistake or say something bad about myself. Just say it without justifying with reasons or excuses.

On a lot times, people will disagree with your view points. Then you say, of course, I am saying this happens under such and such circumstances, not all the time. Or, something like you say people need to be firm. But someone say, you cannot do that. You need to be soft on people with terminal illness. So, you start by saying, people need to be firm unless dealing with people with terminal illness, kids under 1 year old, mentally retarded people, etc. The list will never end.

I have this problem too- trying to explain but I find by saying "Yes, I understand" when people say things to contradict you is good enough. And yes, there are always exceptions and you cannot cover it ALL.

5. I do not need to put myself in other people's shoes all the time.

So what if my HR manager get scolded if I did not sign and submit my document at the same day? Why do I have to care about his ass getting screw while I screw my own ass by signing that document in haste?

Remember the story at the beginning of the "7 Habits of Effective People"? It describes a situation about a man and his bunch of kids making noises and irritating all people at the place. Then, the author found out that the man had just lost his wife and the kids, their mother. So, he was too distraught to discipline his kids. I always remember that story. The moral of the story is to empathize with people. Sometimes, it may not be what it seems at first. Put yourself on other people shoes.

But, what I find also is there are also a lot of annoying people with no care for other people in this world. So, if someone is making a hell of your world, it does not necessarily means their wife or dog have just died and they are too helpless.

Sometimes, I believe I am too soft on people, especially on my subordinates last time because I always give them excuses when they fail themselves or me. I give myself excuses to fail too. This is bad, so being assertive should help.

Let's say, someone cut the queue to buy cinema tickets.

Me: Miss, you are cutting the queue. Please line up.
Q: Oh, is it? I am sorry. I am in a hurry.
Me: I am in a hurry too. Will you queue up please?
Q: Really, I need to get these tickets as soon as possible.
Me: Really, I think you should queue up.
Q: No, you don't understand.
Me: Yes, I do not understand. I still think you should queue up.
Q: But, I have cancer and going to die. I need to get this ticket now to watch this movie.
Me: (Amazed) I really think you should queue up even if you are dying tomorrow. Everyone is going to die too. At least you still have today and you need to queue up too.
Q: No, I am dying in about an hour, probably while watching this movie. But I really wish to watch this movie before I die.
Me: (Caught by surprise) In that case, I really think you should get your ticket right now. In fact, you can have my tickets too. Or, even you can buy the whole lot of tickets so that you have the cinema by yourself.

Again, being assertive does not mean that I need to be right till the end. Empathizing with other people is important too. (Ooppps, I am doing it again, explaining the exceptional case that can invalidate my views. But if I do not do this, I probably get a comment saying that I need to be more empathizing, of which I already know empathy is good and need to be practiced, but just NOT at ALL TIME.)

Photo courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu

Our Monkeys-Hamsters

2009-09-06T02:10:00.012+08:00

Sometimes, small things in life can really brighten up your day and lighten your heart, like a baby smiling at you, a small child greeting you with smiles, a shy little boy glancing at you, and of course, to watch monkey tricks from the cute little hamsters.

Thus, I can't resist to upload the videos of these monkeys to share with you all.

Warning: Do not try this at home. These hamsters receive special training! (Though I am not really sure where they get their trainings.)

Monkey 1

Monkey 2

Monkey 2 (Continued)

When we really love someone

2009-08-29T01:36:00.023+08:00

When we really love someone, we always strive to give the very best to them. We even willingly sacrifice ourselves or give up on things. Most of the time, we love them based on what we perceive how they want to be loved. But, is that really how they want to be loved? I guess, maybe not.

I read somewhere about this a while ago. Tests were performed on couples where they need to choose which furniture design they think their partners might like. The result is intriguing - most of them were wrong. When asked what make them choose the design - it is because they like it, so they assume their partners like it too. The conclusion of the test is most of us think our partners like what we like. Or, our partners are very much like us.

I remember clearly about a story I saw in a movie many years ago. The story is set in the early time in China.

Chang is a high-ranking government officer, a judge in court. But he is corrupted and much-hated in his community where he services. He takes every bribes offered by the riches and easily twists the justice in court. However, despite all that, beneath him is a very kind man who just want to be a "normal" officer as non-corrupted officers are very rare back then and can easily be out of the job due to political reasons (somehow, it maybe quite the same now) . In fact, behind the scene, he secretly help people and becomes the masked hero to the people. No one suspects he is the masked hero - to everyone, he is very far from being a hero.

Even his soon-to-be wife, Jen, a demure and very likable girl in the neighborhood, is kept in the dark. But, somehow, Jen does see something beyond what other people see - the kindness in him that she knows one day will be shown to the people. So, she stands by him no matter how many people oppose him and question her why she wants be with a man like Chang. She hopes, one day, Chang can change his corrupted ways and turn into a respected man.

But soon, with so many things against them, things turn more nasty and they eventually break up. Despite that, their love still remain. The once strong waves that they have been through suddenly become calm. Everything is calm but also lifeless.

One day, they bump into each other again on the street and decide to have dinner together at their old favorite stall. And their favourite order is a bowl of wanton dumplings noodles for each. When the bowls of fresh hot soup noodles arrive, out of habit, Jen begins to take out 4 wanton dumplings out of 6 from her bowl to pass to Chang's. But before she reaches, she paused momentarily, in awkward realization that she should not be doing that anymore. Chang catches her act, and smile awkwardly too. Jen then takes back her dumplings and they begin on their meals.

Either it is to break the silence or the awkwardness of the situation, Jen reveals to Chang how she actually like to eat the wanton dumplings. Due to her love for him, she wants to sacrifice her favorites to give the best to him. Chang is so shocked by the revelation, that he pauses for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Now, it is Jen's turn to be shocked. Chang quickly reveals that he actually does not really like the wanton dumplings and prefer the noodles and the flavour of the soups. He thought that Jen must have feel the same and want to get rid of her wanton dumplings. All those whiles, by eating all the dumplings, he always becomes very full and it sometimes make his stomach uneasy. He has always wondered why Jen never bother to ask the waiters to reduce the dumplings during orders if she does not really like them.

Though it is ironic to learn that after such a long time being together, but both are very relieved to know these in the ends. They both wonder why they never share these little simple preferences when they were together and just assume that the other person feels and like the same things. Though this is just an misunderstanding on a very small thing, but it is also an indication on how they can wrongly perceive each others' love and sacrifices at times.

Making sacrifices and doing something that we do not really like doings for our loved ones are very admirable and important in a relationship. So are the basic things like hugging, kissing and intimacy. But, on top of that, are these challenges:
1) to find out and understand how our other halves really want to be loved.
2) sometimes, all it takes is ASK.
3) accepts the fact that they are different from us or even different from other people we know
4) accepts there are nothing wrong with them being different from us
5) do things for them which they really like.
6) let them do things that they like even though you do not like

Sometimes, it requires you to not be "yourself". Sometimes, it requires you to get out of your comfort zone. These are all very unique in each relationship and for different couples - means it is totally different situations with your ex and with your current.

The finding and understanding part is the most challenging. And often than not, it takes a long period of observation and probably have to go through a lot of misunderstandings to finally come to the right understanding. Then, it comes to the equally important part - accepting who they are and being able to compromise.

Photo Credit : Stock.xchng

In the story just now, Chang and Jen reunite in the end after they go through a whole cycle of learning how differences they are and yet how similar they are in misunderstanding each other.
Chang also becomes the true hero in this community when his honorable deeds are finally revealed. A fairy-tale story but there are things to learn from too - when you really love someone, just loving them may not be enough - love them the ways they want to be loved.

Hindsight: When I did not realize I could choose my friends

2009-07-18T02:26:00.036+08:00

Thirty is a good age to start to reflect on things that have happened for the past 10-15 years and try to see them in a different light. In most cases, I ask myself what I could have done differently back then when I have my current level of wisdom and maturity .

No, it does not have to be thirty for you to have the hindsight, although it is for me. You can actually start right now even if you are 25 or 35, or even 45. But I find there should be 3 things that should happen first.

1. First, you need to have major changes in any different areas of your life: Career, love, financial, friends, or family. Or all of them.

2. Second, in these areas, somethings are lost and somethings are found. In most cases, the first and second means some crisis that you have been through. In the aftermath, you discover something that would not have come to you if you have not lost anything at all.

3. And third, which happen later, is that you have slowed down on a lot of things. After sometimes, you have cleared out the clutters in your life and you are starting to get things back in order with whatever you have found in the process.

All those three things happened. And THEN, "it" comes naturally like someone turn on a pipe and the water flows out swiftly.

All the past major events start flowing back to you. It is not any events like attending a wedding or even your graduation. The events are those moments that have signaled something to you that you cannot understand or pick up back then. Until Now. It is like replaying a DVD again. Only this time, you knew the ending already. You already knew who are the heroes and who are not. So this time, you monitor each of them carefully to find the telling signs when you have missed it previously.

Since I have many of those reflections, I actually have problems knowing where to start and what to share. (yes, my blog posts are not coming so frequent nowadays)

So, I have to do the obvious. I can only start one by one. And, for this post, I choose this event that happened almost 12 years ago, which was during my college time. It was a time when I have lost a friend who was smart, matured and helpful. 12 years later, I realize that kind of friends is someone who I can learn many things from and may even inspire me to do something great.

Most of the people in the class called him 'Sifu', that means a Guru because of his outstanding intelligence and willingness to help people. I got to work with him in a project in a funny incident. The project was actually our first group assignment in the college. The lecturer asked us to form groups of 4 persons each. At the end of the class, I found myself without group as I barely knew anyone in the class. There are another 2 guys who were in the same predicament, one of them is Sifu. So, we decided to form a group of 3, whereas every other groups have 4 members. At first,it was very awkward for us to work together as we did not know each others' strengths and weaknesses yet. So, when the lecturer asked us to elect a team leader, Sifu was the obvious choice, because he is the oldest among us. Soon, we found that Sifu was actually very smart and knowledgable. The other guy (whom I call him 'Funky' later in the years because it rhymes well with his name) was not bad either. And of course, though I was not so knowledgeable in Computer subjects back then, I am always an avid and fast learner. Thus, each of us contributed our work, but Sifu was the one who compiled, corrected and enhanced the work after we submitted to him. When the assignment result was announced, we were at the top, even though we were short of one pair of hands and brain. Everyone in the class was very surprised. We were too, but were very elated and proud as well.

On the other hand, I started to get real close with a girl in the class who sat 2 seat away from me. We were almost inseparable in and outside the class. She became my best friend in college. I introduced her to my team members. After sometimes, we were like part of a larger group around 10-15 people. We all would hang out after class sometimes and we went on several trips together. There were many happy moments.

Soon after, feelings developed between Sifu and my girl friend. Funny part was there were also rumors between me and Sifu, which honestly speaking, although we worked well together, it was just friendship between us. Anyway, the relationship between them turned wishy-washy. At one point, one would drop hint that he or she want to be together as couple while the other would not respond or even try to avoid. At another point, the same thing repeated but with reversed characters. Since I am closest to both of them, I tried to encourage both of them to start the relationship if they really have feelings for each other.

Finally one day, both of them decided to talk it out openly between themselves whether they should be together or not. Unfortunately, I was pulled along in the discussion as well, which clearly, I shouldn't be there at all- my first mistake. I should have insisted not to take part and just walked away eventhough my best friend requested me to be there.

Long story short, in an already messy situations prior to starting the relationship, let just say, the girl laid out the terms and conditions to the relationship, the guy could not bite it and the girl refused to relent. So, that was end of it, the doom of their relationship even from the very beginning. To make matter worse, Sifu made this clear- since they came to this stage and cannot become a couple, there is no point for them to continue become friends as well. I think that is because his pride and hope were destroyed by a somewhat, unjust demand from the other party. One of the demand, was that the boyfriend must accept that his girlfriend who will always put friends on top of him in terms of priority. You can very well imagine the reaction on a guy if he is so unfortunate to hears that kind of thing. Though at that time, I was also very surprised and knew the demand was a bit illogical, but I chose to let it pass my judgment. I let myself think Sifu was at greater fault because even though relationship did not work out (who can guarantee it always can anyway?), he should at least be graceful and try to maintain friendship. That was my second mistake. Though my best friend also obviously did wrongs that day, I did not scold her or anything, which I should. I should be more impartial.

After that day, Sifu never talked to us anymore. Over the time, the group also split because some of us would continue our second year in other location/branch under the same college. So, we seldom cross each others' paths. I also lost touch with the other group who studied in the different location, also partly because they are closer to Sifu. I guess that was my final mistake, as I have done nothing to salvage the friendship between Sifu and me. I could not remember whether Sifu clearly stated that he could not even be friend with me because of what happened that day, but I did think, we maybe still can be friends if I have taken the initiative and show my impartiality. But I also did what I did because I did not want to hurt my best friend, who was already angry at Sifu for how he just wiped off the friendship like that.

Few years later, I heard that he started a cybercafe business with some of our college mates last time. At that time, I was still very much an employee. I had not the slightest idea on how to start anything on my own yet, even though I always know during college time, that I want to do that sometimes maybe after 5 years of working. When I think back now, it would be good if I can still be part of that group that is obviously entrepreneurial. Maybe I can learn something from them or even join in the venture.

DECISION
Photo Credit : Stock.xchng

My biggest mistakes in this story when I reflect back is not my inaction or my lack of initiative to right the wrongs. It is this -- I did not realize that I CAN and actually SHOULD CHOOSE MY FRIENDS. It was a very grave mistake that I continued for more than 10 years. What I did is just tagged along with any groups I got close with. I stood by and helped a lot of them whenever they needed me. I wanted to be a loyal and helpful friend to others. And I think now, I have done too much, but too little for myself. It is mainly due to my fear of being criticized and not being accepted by people. I want to follow the gang. I want to be nice to everybody.

Following are some of the good advices that I should have taken long ago:

1. You cannot choose your family but you can choose your friends.

2. Choose your friend wisely, carefully, and by their characters.

3. Hang out with people who are smarter and more successful than you.

4. Stay away from negative people, complainers, and losers.

5. You become like the people you hang out with.

6. (And even in Bible - Proverbs 12:26) The righteous should choose friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.

7. We should also pick the people we work with.

I have too many stories about friends (some good and bad things) that I feel like writing about. Sometimes, I fear that people will attack me when all I tell is how bad people are, like stories about my ex. (Actually, I did get started on the book. It has almost 30 pages now). It takes times to conquer the fear - but for now, what the heck on what people think!!

A man who has been through a lot of hardship

2009-05-10T11:52:00.011+08:00

When a thirty-years-old man share with you part of his life stories with tears in his eyes, some part of you will just melt down together with him, touched by how some people really have a hard life compared to you.

An Indian Muslim, Naz is a bankruptcy with eleven mouths to feed, which includes a wife and 9 kids. A entrepreneur himself, he ventured into several business and failed, mostly due to working with the wrong people. Now, he is still in a business but struggling with limited capitals and resources.

As a newcomer to our business-sharing group, he was telling us his stories with great self-containment from the embarrassment and the fear of being laughed at or treated with disrespect. But in our group led by Jeff, laughing at people's plight and acting disrespectful are not condoned at all.

Naz told us the times where he had delivered excellent performance in most of his jobs. In one of his jobs, we managed to sell all the bricks which has been in the company inventories for more than 1 year and he had managed to sell it all in less than 3 months. From 3 lorries to transport the bricks, he made it into 16 lorries in that 3 months. Despite his outstanding performance, he realized he would not be given any chances to move up the corporate ladder. That is because the boss and majority of the people in the company are of different races, and having another race to head them with be unacceptable. Such is the world. Thus, he talked to his boss and decided to give up the job, taking with him, approximately RM 68,000 as the commission and pay for the short 3 months. With that money, he started his own business.

Unfortunately he did not make it. Soon, another acquantaince asked him to help him in his business as a partner. He worked day and night, clocking in at 7 am until 12 midnight almost everyday. Soon, he grew the company into a lucrative business in a relatively short term of times. Because he is a bankruptcy, during the start of his work, he was not able to formalize any documentation to declare his ownership on part of the company shares, a major mistake that would soon caused him to lose everything he had achieved in the company. When he approached his so-called business partner to request to put his wife name in the company share, he was terminated the very next day. Since then, he had been in a legal lawsuit with that company, seeking the help of the worker union. That was 3 years ago. But many were lost and he had not been able to recovered for years. However, by fate, it was that lawsuit that brought him to us after 3 years. Though a broken and tired man, he was ready to be 'mold' and transformed.

He said each day, he have to pretend to be happy even though he have a lot of things to worry about to keep his family afloat. Just imagine someone trying to kick and swim with water just under his nose for years, pulling 10 others with him. Naz's eldest son, a 15-year-old, have to work on the weekend despite a major PMR exam coming soon. His family eat happily at every meals even though that usually consisted of just rice and eggs.

Though facing tremendous hardship and on the verge of giving up, I feel Naz is desperate for a break in life now and he will put all his life to make it for the maybe one last time. Not only he is answerable to himself, he has to face 9 little faces and the woman he love, whose future are unknown, but who have never leave him despite the hardship.

By good chance, he met a good person in the worker union who is not only helpful to him, but who also believe in his capabilities and potential. That person in the worker union is a long buddy of Jeff and who is also in the business group. So, that is how we met Naz.

I want to share this story because I learn that most people who achieve great things in life, are the same people who at one times, are so broken and fail so many times that they may not even be able to go through life without the help from some good samaritans, who respect them despite their failures and willing to lift them up. But, of course, eventually, it also depends on abilities to work through the hardship and their persistences.

Previously, in my 29 years before I met Jeff, I rarely meet people has been through great hardship in life, except maybe my parents. But since one year ago, I found myself meeting and learning from a lot of people who have great misfortunes in their life. All of them would tell their stories with glimpses of tears in their eyes and some even broke down and really cry. Sadly, not all those people are able to change or break through from repeating their mistakes. But I learn the turning point is when a person is willing and ready for a 180 degree change. They may need to learn something that are so foreign to them that they may have a sense of feeling that they are learning from an alien. Of course, this is not easy and it is not something that can be achieved in months, but it is usually in years. All one needs is the opportunity to be trained, able to accept new things and persistently make changes or adjustment.

I ponder on this question:

If Naz is to know in 4 years ago that he will go through these 4 years of hardship when he starts to venture out in his own business, taking a big turn in his career, will he reconsider not to do that?

Maybe.

But, what if, in his next 1 or 2 years, he not only can recover from his lost, but he can have a chance to be a really successful business man and financially free?

That, we all do not know what his future will look like.

But I think he can make it because he has already shown a lot of courage and persistence for a man to first move into his own business and has not given up until now. And that is what I respect and admire in people, not the status or how rich he is, but this -
though sometimes weakened, but an undying spirit in a man (or woman) to excel in life.

How ordinary people become monsters ... or heroes

2009-03-09T23:44:00.012+08:00

"The world is always filled with goods and evil."

There are many times as conveyed in many of my previous postings, I wonder at how good people can turn bad, how and why people condone evilness, how we sometimes struggle within ourselves to want to be good or bad when our life goes off-course, and whether to forgive people who did evil things to us.

It is always fascinating to me to explore the subject of goods and evil. My INFP personality describe me as the following:

An INFP describes the inner conflict as not good versus bad, but on a grand scale, Good vs. Evil. Luke Skywalker in Star Wars depicts this conflict in his struggle between the two sides of "The Force." Although the dark side must be reckoned with, the INFP believes that good ultimately triumphs.

Thus, when I recently stumbled across the talk by Philip Zimbardo in TED, the author of the book "Lucifer Effect - understanding how good people turn evil", I am very much excited to continue on the subject. Click on this link to watch the interesting talk.

Here are the summary of the talk:

1. When our most favourite angel, Lucifer turned into devil, it shows that ordinary people can transform into perpetrators of Evil.

2. Evil is the exercise of power to intentionally harm (psychologically), hurt (physically) , and/or Destroy (mortally) and commit crimes against humanity.

3. There are 8 social processes that grease the slippery slope of evil (there are a lot of similarities with the points I tried to make in my posting Human Crime Today, so I show it here side-by-side) :

(1) mindlessly taking the first smallstep.

(2) dehumanization of Others

(3) De-individuation of Self (anonymity)

(4) Diffucation of Personal Responsiblity. - DON’T THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS.

(5) Blind Obedience to Authority - FOLLOW THE CROWD. FOLLOW THE AUTHORITY.

(6) Uncritical Conformity to Group Norms. - IGNORANT. AFRAID TO DO WHAT OTHERS CONSIDERED AS UNCONVENTIONAL OR NOT COURTEOUS.

(7) Passive tolerance of evil through Inaction, of indifferent.
WAIT AND SEE. DON’T RESPOND TO THE SITUATIONS UNTIL IT BECOMES CRITICAL. IT IS NOT URGENT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS (ACTIVE). MAYBE IF WE DO NOTHING, IT WILL GO AWAY

(8) In new or unfamiliar situations.

4. Give people power without oversight can cause evilness.

5. We should refocus away from Evil to understanding heroes- most heroes are everyday people, who emerge as heroes only in particular situations. - For e.g. Joe Darby , who stopped the Abu Ghraib abuses by exposing the photos to a senior officer. HE DID THE RIGHT THING WHEN OTHERS WERE DOING THE WRONG THING.

6. Situations have power to do 3 things:

(1) The very same situation that can inflame the hostile imagination , in those who become perpetrators, of evil can also inspire the
(2) Heroic imagination in others of us, or
(3) render most people passive bystanders and guilty of The Evil of Inaction. (they follow momma's advice: don't get inolved and mid your own business!
But momma humanity is my business.)

So, we can choose to be a Perpetrator of Evil, Guilty of inaction or Be a hero!.

7. We should encourage children to develop the heroic imagination and talents - Hero-in-Waiting.

8. You have to know how to be a deviant to be a hero. Act when other people are passive, be social-centric not ego-centric.

9. A true Hero said "I did what anyone could do, and waht everyone OUGHT to do".

I also learned from the Nuremberg Trials, why the Nazi leaders can commit evilness on such a grand scale to the Jewish under the influence of just one man - Adolf Hitler. There are 2 main reasons which I could not have agreed more. There are: 1) the lack of empathy for other people and 2) the culture to follow the authority without questioning.

Let's put on our halos and fight for the goodness in the world!

Desire and Faith – 2 things we need to achieve great things in life (Part 2)

2009-03-06T02:52:00.010+08:00

In part 1, I talked about how desires and faith get me my first job. Of course, desire and faith are not the only things we need to achieve what we want but it is rather a beginning of great achievements, where plans, opportunities or even the new shift of paradigm will come along.

So, in the next 2 years from the time I got my first job, I threw myself into work so much that I really could count with my fingers how often I went to cinema or shopping. There were a good stretch of periods where I went home after 12 midnight everyday during weekdays and worked full day on Saturday and Sunday. I enjoyed the overtime though because those were the times where the office was so peaceful and I could fully concentrate on what I was doing. Also, I learned more when I did more on my job. On top of that, I got paid allowance of roughly RM10 per hour (after 8 p.m. on weekdays, though) and additionally RM10 for travel allowance after 12 midnight. So, on the many nights I risked my safety and got back home at 12 plus midnight, I actually earned RM50 extra for that day! In fact, I was not really thinking about my safety at all. With my overtime allowance of RM1,000 exceeds in average each month, I managed to pay my college fees and all my living expenses without needing a single cent from my parents, though they helped me pay my car installment.

Two years later, I earned first class honours for my Degree. My final year project supervisor was amazed by the programs I demonstrated, a stock broking application, which 70 percent of the coding was actually taken from my job. I got some good increments and also year-end bonus. Bonus was good at that time too; best performers got 4 to 5 months of their salary. Ironically, it was my first and the last time I ever received bonus from any companies since. Anyway, it was a great plan, wasn’t it; to study and work at the same time? And, most of all, I earned my independence and both rewards and recognition for my hard work.

So, I still believe desires and faith are the beginnings of great things. Posting my story here actually help me remember and renew my desires and faith for things ahead of me. Things usually get more difficult and complicated the longer we are in a career or life. Perhaps, we are laden with too much worries and responsibilities. Or maybe, there have been so much grieves and pains we have gone through; that ALL make us forget to nurture our desires and faith, to see the Child in Us even though the world and things looks so gloomy sometimes.

And maybe these:

1. We should communicate our desire more and not fear whether people will make fun of us or our dreams.

2. We should think everything is possible to be achieved. We should not think negatively so that we can console ourselves when failed by saying somethings like “already know it is hard or impossible” and “most likely is going to fail anyway.”

3. We should convey our confidence in achieving what we want even if it seems impossible. We should not be afraid to have people call us liars or boastful, especially when we fail sometimes as there will be a lot of failures before we have success.

4. We should persist with our desire and faith when things fail because we know these are just temporary defeats but success is just an inch away.

5. We should also have more faith on other people, especially those who are knowledgeable, positive and more matured than we are; those who has helped us; and those who are kind and helpful to us or to other people.

The conclusion:
It is most important for us to always know and communicate about our desires and faith instead of our concerns, our worries, and our incapability. Yes, we can complain like a wife complain to her husband and vice versa, but we also need to convey a large dose of positiveness.
And definitely, we want to be associated with positive people, and get as far away as possible from negative people.

Desire and Faith – 2 things we need to achieve great things in life (Part 1)

2009-02-25T18:24:00.009+08:00

In my 9 years experience of working and climbing the corporate ladder as well as more than 3 years experience of managing people, I decide it comes down to two things to find people who I want to work FOR me or who I want to work WITH. That is, DESIRE and FAITH. Unfortunately, more than 80% of the people I encountered do not have both and they usually portray a kind of negativity that make it seems impossible to achieve anything at all in life.

So, I want to share my own experience and my explanation on what I come to value most in people, especially if I am considering them to fight a war with me – their desire and their faith.

I start with Part 1 which is my story and Part 2 which I explain more on desire and faith, especially when people show me the opposite of them.

My story:

In 1999, when I went to the interview for my first job, I did not do the normal preparation like going through some common interview questions and rehearsing how to answer them well. It was not because I was very confident to get the job. On the contrary, I was just a Diploma holder and during that time, the 1997 recession caused the job opportunities to be scarce, especially for fresh graduates. And this job, which I heard, was paying quite well, around three hundreds more than other jobs I have tried and what my other college mates were getting.

I wanted the job very much, not just the additional three hundreds, though at that time, it made a lot of differences to me. The three hundreds can give me all the food I need in a month. (At that time, I remembered my heart aching over a 5-or-10-ringgit meal, which I only indulged once in a while. My meal is usually 3 ringgit, 4 ringgit if I ordered drinks). I needed this job because it was a key step for my plan to pursue my Degree on part-time basis. My parents had offered to let me do Degree full-time using their hard-earned money, which my course fees and living expenses will be equivalent to the salary of my father, if not more. Knowing all that, I insisted on pursuing my education on part-time basis. I had a definite plan and knew very well what I wanted to achieve, which included to get to work as soon as possible so that I could get as much working experience as possible. I figured working experience is more valuable than a piece of certificate.

So, I was very determined to get a job. Not just any job, but a job that allow me to pay my courses as well as my living expenses. Also, a job that allow me to learn new things and also maybe help me in my Degree final year project. Since I was in Computer Science course, my final year project involved creating a workable application by going through a well-documented software development cycle. What would be better than to take from something I would be learning at work?

I was lucky also as I had a senior working in the same company and the interviewer, also my potential superior, was my senior’s superior. So, he was able to put in some good words for me to get me the interview opportunity. But, job is a job; I still need to prove myself to the interviewer to get hired.

Amazingly, I just know how to convince the interviewer to give me the job. And that did not require me to answer the common interview questions well, except how to describe myself. I already have some sort of plan in life – my desire to excel in life, to get ahead of most people and my faith that I am able to achieve anything I desire, even without knowing exactly how to get there. Thus, despite my lack of working experience, which was none – what I just needed to do in the interview was to show myself by conveying my desires and faith.

So, I sat through the interview, without much preparation per Se, as I already prepared for the life ahead of me.

I talked about my keen interest in programming and what the job can offer to me, especially learning to work in real environment and building software that are really being used by people in real business life.

I talked about my plan to pursue my Degree on part-time basis. I know I can use my working experience to do better in my Degree study.

I highlighted my great track record of excellent academic result; I was mostly top of my class, sometimes even the whole batch of students in the same year; that means I was ahead of more than 300 others. It showed I was consistently working hard to achieve great results.

I convinced the interviewer that I could handle both my work and studies without compromising the work performance. In fact, I have every intention to excel in both my work and studies.

At the end of the interview, which I remembered vividly even now, I looked at the interviewer earnestly and said to him I am a very hardworking person. I said it with full conviction and sincerity. I remembered the interviewer smiled at me in response, maybe because of surprise or because of awkwardness of my unsolicited remark, but I knew he believed what I have just said and that would have made an impact.

Yes, I got the job, with a starting paid of RM1500, a good rate for a Diploma holder at that time. The offer for Degree holder from my company was RM1800. In the next seven years, in 2006, a degree holder freshmen can get up to RM 2,500 for starting paid; some can get even higher than that from a minority of great companies. However, I also knew some other graduates were still getting RM1800 in 2006. So, when people ask me what is the market price for fresh graduates in software engineering field, I usually answer, it is largely determined by what the applicants are asking for and how they ‘carry’ themselves. By carry, I really mean how strong are their desire and faith and whether they show it during the interview.

To many, this story of mine cannot be considered a great achievement. But for a girl with no working experience, came out from hometown to study in the big city 2 years before, the same girl who traveled more than 80 km to class each time by bus (I lived in a housing estate in Klang with my aunt’s family, traveled to KL Central for classes by 2 buses per trip –one air-conditioned and one without), sometimes had to get out from house as early as 5 am, walked through a sport field (badminton, jogging) when the morning was still dark to wait for bus if there were early morning classes; this achievement is a great mark in my life; that all the sweats, persistence, the fear of unknown or danger were well justified. I had proven to myself and to those who invested in me, especially my parents. Because for the 2 years of studies, when most of my classmates have settled down comfortably at home, probably after some nice baths and dinners and were probably watching their favorite TV drama, I was usually still on a bus on my way home. On top of that, I even worked as the college librarian to earn extra bucks. So, I spent longer hours in college than most people.

The fact is I still have a long way to go, to achieve my ultimate dreams. But it will be very soon that I will get there. Then, I will start telling another story of my desires and faith that get me there.

Till then, wait for Part 2 where I will continue on desires and faith. Or maybe, drop me an email at susanlimkw@yahoo.com to share your story of desire and faith.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

Photo courtesy of http://g8.no/

Three most touching movies that I watched (and rewatched) in 2008

2009-02-15T02:03:00.003+08:00

This may seems a little bit late to be nostalgic about 2008. But by chance, I happened to see 3 old but inspiring movies that I might otherwise missed, if not for the best of fate - definitely must-see movies!

There is one common theme about all the three movies - the realm of possibilities. They tell us about people who achieve things that may at many times seems impossible to them and everybody else. They are not scared to try every ways to make their dreams come true. They do not give up when things are at their very worst.

And these are the most remarkable thing in life - the simple love, the faith ,the pursuit of happiness and changing the world by helping others.

Movie 1: I Am Sam (2001)

Movie 2: Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Movie 3: Pay It Forward (2000)

Let us be Passionate about Life cause Life is ever so Beautiful!

He's Just Not That Into You

2009-02-12T21:12:00.003+08:00

I can’t wait to see this movie. After all, I have literally lived that kind of life for more than 6 years in my past relationship, trying to figure out what were wrong in our relationship, when the answer is so obvious. It was my first relationship, anyway, so I did not know any better. I wish I had known earlier.

I start to read the book too. It makes me wonder why women can be so dumb sometimes. Unfortunately that includes me!

I think this is a very good education book for women. So, I would like to share the catching introduction here.

Introduction by Liz

It started out just like any other day. We were all working in the writers’ room of Sex and the City, talking, pitching ideas, our personal love lives weaving in and out of the fictional lives we were creating in the room. And just like on any other day, one of the women on staff asked for feedback on a the behavior of a man whom she liked. He was giving her mixed messages—she was confused. We were happy to pitch in and pick apart all the signs and signals of his actions. And just like on any other day, after much analysis and debate, we concluded that she was fabulous, he must be scared, he’s never met a woman as great as her, he is intimidated, and she should just give him time. But on this day, we had a male consultant in the room—someone who comes in a couple of times a week to give feedback on story lines and gives a great straight-male perspective: Greg Behrendt. On this day, Greg listened intently to the story and our reactions, and then said to the woman in question, “Listen, it sounds like he’s just not
that into you.”

We were shocked, appalled, amused, horrified, and above all, intrigued. We sensed immediately that this man might be speaking the truth. A truth that we, in our combined hundred years of dating experience, had never considered, and definitely never considered saying out loud. “Okay, he might have a point,” we reluctantly agreed. “But Greg couldn’t possibly understand my very busy and complicated possible future husband.” Soon we went around the room, Greg, the all-knowing Buddha, listening to story after mixed-message story. We had excuses for all these men, from broken dialing fingers to difficult childhoods. In the end, one by one, they were shot down by Greg’s powerful silver bullet. Greg made us see, after an enormous amount of effort, that if a (sane) guy really likes you, there ain’t nothing that’s
going to get in his way. And if he’s not sane, why would you want him? He could back it up too: He had years of playing the field, being the bad boy, being the good boy, and then finally falling in love and marrying a really fantastic woman.

A collective epiphany burst forth in the room, and for me in particular. All these years I’d been
complaining about men and their mixed messages; now I saw they weren’t mixed messages at all. I was the one that was mixed up. Because the fact was, these men had simply not been that into me. Now, at first glance it seems that this should have been demoralizing to us, it should have sent us all into a tailspin. Yet the opposite was true. Knowledge is power, and more importantly, knowledge saves us time. I realized that from that day forward I would be spared hours and hours of waiting by the phone, hours and hours of obsessing with my girlfriends, hours and hours of just hoping his mixed messages really meant “I’m in love with you and want to be with you.” Greg reminded us that we were all beautiful, smart, funny women, and we shouldn’t be wasting our time figuring out why a guy isn’t calling us. As Greg put it, we shouldn’t waste the pretty.

It’s hard. We’re taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side, to be optimistic. Not in this case. In this case, look on the dark side. Assume rejection first. Assume you’re the rule, not the exception. It’s intoxicatingly liberating. But we also know it’s not an easy concept. Because this is what we do: We go out with someone, we get excited about them, and then they do something that mildly disappoints us. Then they keep doing a lot more things that disappoint us. Then we go into hyper-excuse mode for weeks or possibly months, because the last thing we want to think is that this great man that we are so excited about is in the process of turning into a creep. We try to come up with some explanation for why they’re behaving that way, any explanation, no matter how ridiculous, than the one explanation that’s the truth: He’s just not that into me.

That’s why we’ve included questions from women taken from real situations. They represent the basic excuses we all use that keep us in situations far longer than we should be. So read, enjoy, and hopefully learn from other women’s confusion. And above all, if the guy you’re dating doesn’t seem to be completely into you, or you feel the need to start “figuring him out,” please consider the glorious thought that he might just not be that into you. And then free yourself to go find the one that is.

Introduction by Greg

So I’m sitting in the writers’ room at Sex and the City pondering my good fortune to be the only straight male on the predominantly female writing staff (actually I’m just eating a cookie), when the writers begin talking about guys they’re seeing. This is a common occurrence, as it is part of the writing process for a show that explores romantic relationships. It is endlessly fascinating. I know that sounds sarcastic, but I’m being for real.

So on this particular day, one of the ladies pipes up with, “Greg, you’re a guy.” She is very observant, this one, for I am indeed a guy. Then she says, “So I’ve been seeing this guy…. Well, I think I have.” I know the answer. “See, we went to a movie and it was great. I mean he didn’t hold my hand, but that’s cool. I don’t like to hold hands.” Still know the answer. “But afterward he kissed me in the parking lot. So I asked if he wanted to come over, but he had a really important meeting in the morning so he didn’t come over.” C’mon. Are you kidding me? Know it!

So I asked, “Have you heard from him?”

“Well, that’s the thing. This was like a week ago”—now you should know the answer—“and then today he e-mails me and is like, ‘Why haven’t I heard from you?’ ”

I stared at her for a moment while the answer was bursting out of my eyeballs. (Oh, ladies, you make me so mad sometimes!) Here is this beautiful, talented, super-smart girl, who is a writer on an awardwinning TV show, a show known for its incisive observations about men, who you would think could have her pick of just about any dude around. This superstar of a woman is confused about a situation that to me is so clear. Actually, confused is the wrong word, because she’s too smart for that. She’s hopeful, not confused. But the situation is hopeless, so I broke the news to her: “He’s just not that into you.”

And let me tell you, that’s the good news, because wasting time with the wrong person is just time wasted. And when you do move on and find your right person, believe me, you’re not going to wish you had gotten to spend more time with Stinky the Time-Waster or Freddy Can’t-Remember-to-Call.

Look, I am not a doctor, neither real nor imagined. But I am an expert that should be listened to because of one very important thing: I’m a guy—a guy that has had his fair share of relationships and is willing to come clean about his behavior in them. Because I’m a guy, I know how a guy thinks, feels, and acts, and it’s my responsibility to tell you who we really are. I’m tired of seeing great women in bullshit relationships.

When a guy is into you, he let’s you know it. He calls, he shows up, he wants to meet your friends, he can’t keep his eyes or hands off of you, and when it’s time to have sex, he’s more than overjoyed to oblige. I don’t care if he’s starting his new job as the president of the United States the next morning at 0400 (that’s 4 A.M. ladies!). He’s coming up!

Men are not complicated, although we’d like you to think we are, as in “Things are really crazy right now. I’ve just got a ton of shit going on.” We are driven by sex, although we’d like to pretend otherwise: “What? No, I was totally listening.” And sadly (and most embarrassingly), we would rather lose an arm out a city bus window than tell you simply, “You’re not the one.” We are quite sure you will kill us or yourself or both—or even worse, cry and yell at us. We are pathetic. But the fact remains, even though we may not be saying it we are absolutely showing you all the time. If a dude isn’t calling you when he says he will, or making sure you know that he’s dating you, then you already have your answer. Stop
making excuses for him, his actions are screaming the truth: He’s just not that into you.

Move on, sister! Cut your losses and don’t waste your time. Why stay in some weird dating limbo when you can move on to what will surely be better territory? Don’t want to hear it? Fine. Here’s the answer you’re looking for: “Hang in there, baby. He’s not the loser everybody’s telling you he is. If you wait and keep your mouth shut and call at exactly the right time and anticipate his moods and have no expectations about communication or your own sexual needs, you can have him!” But please don’t be surprised when he dumps you or continues to drag you through a completely unsatisfying relationship.

We’ve heard it and you’re sick of it. That’s probably why you’re in possession of this book now. You know you deserve to have a great relationship. We agree. So grab a highlighter and get started. Liz told you I was going to say it: Don’t waste the pretty!

When we get more from the household appliance than we expect

2009-02-11T13:45:00.006+08:00

Jeff and I bought a thermal pot few weeks ago. So now, we can make our instant coffee, Milo, and tea very quickly without the hassle of filling the water into the kettle, boiling it and waiting for it to get boiled. And we can drink warm water instead of room-temperature water anytime of the day. I think it is an excellent product, a great innovation from kettle and thermos.

I gather it would save me at least 1 minute each day for making one hot drink a day. So, if I live for 40 years more from now, it would save me a total of 10 days. 10 days is astoundingly small compared to number of days I spend on doing nothing but daydreaming all these years. But the most worthy thing is that, in 40 years, it saves millions of my brain cell from having to remember to make my drinks after the water is boiled. In result, I can use the same brain cells for other things and save me a lot of headache. Maybe this theory is as laughable as the myth that human only use 10% of our brains – a theory started in eighties and have many people believed that they can still function if 90% of their brains are removed, so to speak.

There is another interesting theory too – that is regarding WHEN to refill the thermal pot. Let’s explore it based on a conversation between Jeff and me.

J: Why am I always the one who refill the thermal pot?

S: Because you always manage to do it before I do.

J: Why don’t you do it before me then?

S: Because you always refill it before it is less than half the water. And I want to wait until it almost reaches the minimum level for refill. I gather it will save more electricity that way.

J: Say you wait until the water level almost reaches the minimum. Then, you start pouring out the water until it is below the minimum. And you are blithely unaware of it and you forget to refill. How’s that?

S: (Silence…. Sigh! I can’t argue that since I have bad track records of forgetting things.)

J: What if our kids next time pour water from the pot. You expect them to refill each time it reaches below minimum?

S: (Still silence…..Since we do not have kids right now and we still have to wait 5 to 7 years before they can start using the thermal pot, nevertheless, this is a undeniable point – when it comes to safety of children)

J: Why do you always have to wait for things to reach its critical point, then only you want to react? Then, if you miss it, troubles come. Isn’t it you blog about sense of urgency a while ago?

S: Yeah, I did. 2 posts actually (Sense of urgency – Critical Asset in Life and Human Crime Today). I guess it is because I am a procrastinator. It is like a curse or something – keep me from doing right things sometimes.

J: You want to use that as an excuse to fail in life?

S: (Short silence - then) No.

J: There, you get me!

This is not actually the exact conversation because most of the expressions in regards to the sense of urgency happened several times to other topic of discussions. Nevertheless, since last week, I have refilled the thermal pot more than 3 times. The water levels never get below half of the pot.

I do not know why I want to blog this. But then, since I deal a lot with household stuffs when I have become the home-based consultant, I guess it is naturally a big part of my life that I need to talk about. Even my old classmates ask me teasingly every times they see me- so, what food/dish have you learn to cook nowadays?

TEAM - Are you a hare, owl, turtle or squirrel?

2009-02-05T10:29:00.014+08:00

I just picked up The One Minute Millionaire by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen and found it to be very enlightening.

I like the "Multiple Streams of Income" and "Together Everyone Accomplishes Miracles - TEAM" concept.

For team concept, to create wealth - one must first build a diverse team as success is not a solo project. The diverse team consisted of four different categories of workers, known as the Hares, the Owls, the Tortoise, and the Squirrels. Each one has own strengths to leverage on to make the team successful.

Hare - Creative Types, but bad at follow-through.
Owls - Planners and go-getters.
Turtles - Cautious Types who point out issues.
Squirrels - Details oriented person who get the job done.

The one-minute millionaire site offer a survey to determine which type of worker you are. I found out to be a Hare, which I had guessed right. Here is the link to take the survey:

http://www.oneminutemillionaire.com/tools/hots.asp

Below are the explanations of the roles of Hare, Squirrel and Hare/Owl (a combination of role). If you have result of Owl or Tortoise or other combination, maybe you can post it here in the comment section. It is interesting to know more about the other types of people that we have to work with, and most importantly since we all have to deal with each differences and also improve ourselves. For e.g. I learn that I need to be more detailed like a Squirrel, plan more like an Owl and be able to anticipate problems like a Tortoise.

A Hare Role

APPROACH: Conceptual/Spontaneous

DESCRIPTION: The Hare generates the concepts and ideas. They like to reframe the problem and look for solutions that may be unusual, unique,and/or outside the boundaries of traditional thought. Hares are good at exploring alternatives and perceiving the "big picture".
Hares want freedom from constraint, and when a rule exists they may break it. They may act impulsively, letting their feelings guide them. They derive satisfaction from the process of creating,discussing concepts and ideas,and overcoming obstacles.
When everything is in its place,the Hare may become restless,get impatient,and have a tendency to move from one subject to another.

CONTRIBUTION: Fresh, original concepts that go beyond the obvious,and are not constrained by fear of failure.

WEAKNESESS: Because the Hare enjoys generating ideas, they may move from one idea to another without stopping to evaluate the consequences.
If left alone to refine concepts, they will solve the problem within the problem within the problem, and eventually lose sight of the objective.

INSTINCT: Reframing problems to achieve breakthrough solutions, moving in new directions, examining possibilities without regard to risk.

A Squirrel Role

APPROACH: Methodical/Practical

DESCRIPTION: The Squirrel, more interested in protecting the system than being in the meeting, follows-up on team objectives, and implements ideas and solutions. They focus on ensuring the implementation process runs in an orderly manner, and achieving high quality outcomes.
Squirrels prefer proven, familiar ideas over the novel and untried. They pay attention to details, and see that plans follow an orderly process.
The Squirrel is comfortable being methodical. They tend to be cautious in trying out a new approach, and prefer to think things over carefully before acting.

CONTRIBUTION: The details. Spotting easily overlooked problems before they occur, and minimizing inefficiencies and errors during implementation.

WEAKNESESS: If working without clear and focused objectives or guidelines, the Squirrel may lose sight of the goal and pursue irrelevant strategies.

INSTINCT: To finish what they start,and do things right.

A Hare/Owl Role

APPROACH: Conceptual/Spontaneous/Practical

DESCRIPTION: The Hare/Owl is an idea generator who is also a true entrepreneur. They are good at exploring alternatives and concepts, and they are also more comfortable with an insightful plan. The Hare/Owl is able to generate ideas and develop a plan, based on past experience, to promote those ideas successfully.
The Hare/Owl derives satisfaction from identifying good ideas and developing solutions and strategies to overcome obstacles to implementation. They enjoy working on multiple tasks and like to be involved with the creation and advancement of ideas.
When everything is in its place, the Hare/Owl may get impatient, ready for the next challenge.

CONTRIBUTION: Development of new concepts and ideas that can be advanced within a known process or structure.

WEAKNESESS: The Hare/Owl may become frustrated with the details of an orderly implementation plan, and may pay little attention to the danger signs and barriers associated with implementation.

INSTINCT: Creating new ideas and advancing them in pursuit of team objectives.

No Result for Tortoise and Owl. Please post it if you have.

There are other types of personality test if you are interested. One of them is Meyer-Briggs personality test.

Are you and your partner Auditory, Visual or Kinesthetic?

2009-01-04T02:09:00.005+08:00

While I was reading to improve on my communication, I learn that I need to recognize which senses other people rely on to experience the world and then I need to use this information to deal with them.

It seems like people can be categorized into 3 types, depending on how they filter their world by their senses. They can be:

1) Visual – They see the world; inspired by what they see externally, or internally in their eyes as an image or a vision.

2) Auditory – They hear the world; inspired by something they hear either externally or emanating from that little voice inside.

3) Kinesthetic – They feel the world; inspired by something they feel or touch.

Usually, combinations of these 3 senses are used, but for each people, one of these tends to dominate the other two. If we want to relate better to people, win their hearts, impress them or just to make them understand us more, recognizing Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic people based on their primary senses and communicating to them on their wavelength can be very invaluable.

As with every couple, Jeffrey and I have our fair shares of miscommunications and misunderstanding. So, when I read about the 3 different senses, I went “Wow !! This can be a lifesaver”. Lo and behold, I am Visual while Jeffrey is Auditory. To make it clear to you, these are how we usually communicate:

Jeffrey:
Listen to me.
You are not listening.
I do not hear you.
What I am saying is ….
I like to play my music loud.
You need to speak up. I cannot hear you.
Anything you want to say to me?

Me:
I do not see what you mean.
I cannot picture that.
I like daydreaming.
You need to write that down for me.
I print that out for you to read.

Isn’t it obvious? Mind you, it is not until I understand about the 3 types of senses and how these sensory preferences impact our day-to-day communication. When Jeffrey asked me “Can you hear what I said?”; the truth is I cannot, at least not at the beginning. It is because since it is auditory, my brain has to take the extra step to translate his language into something I can relate to. If he say “Do you see what I mean?”, it will register immediately.

Conversely, I usually say “I am trying to see that” when he is talking to me and sometimes I look away from him because I am trying to picture the things he is saying in my head or I am trying to refer to the materials on screen/printed materials that he is talking about. I bet he thinks I am rude because I am looking away when he is talking or looking distantly (when I am trying to picture things in my head, my eyes will sort of look up and away from the speaker). The fact is I am just opposite from him in our primary senses. But I know now that if I want to connect directly to his sensibilities, I should say “I am listening.” Or “I hear what you said.”

These seem so simple to apply, yet extraordinarily effective. Try it on your partner. A quick tip:

Visuals usually talk very fast.
Kinesthetics tend to talk slowly.
Auditories fall somewhere in between.

So, Jeffrey and I are opposite each other in our chart, because we are both secondary in kinesthetic as we tell how we feel about things, but auditory is last on my senses while visual is last on his. It is also important that we bond in the middle; the kinesthetic; that always get us through the rough times and add sparkle to the good times. So, we can really understand each other when we discuss on we feel about things in our life. The good news for us is that in one of the research, relationships that have endured more than 20 years have sensory preferences that are complete opposite.

I guess that is why people always say “The opposite attracts”.

Sense of urgency - a critical asset in career and life

2008-12-13T19:21:00.026+08:00

On the fateful day of 25 January 1990, Avianca Flight 52 crashed into Long Island, New York after ran out of fuel, killing 73 of the 158 people on board. The plane was put on hold from landing by Air Traffic Control several times on its way to New York due to bad weather. After on hold for more than one and a half hour, the crew asked for "priority" landing, which at their critical level of fuel shortage, they should have declared an emergency. The delays, a failed landing attempt at the about 10 minutes from the crash, and communication failure between the crew and air traffic controllers; all these caused the disaster where we all have so much to learn from.

The Avianca Flight 52 is a story of catastrophic result due to poor sense of urgency. There are several things we would find ourselves asking:

Why the crew failed to use the word "fuel emergency" to declare the extreme seriousness of their situation instead of asking for "priority landing"?

Shouldn't the sound of fear and urgency in the pilot and co-pilot's voices have been enough to show to the air controllers they are facing an emergency despite the culture and language barriers, had it been there?

Shouldn't the crew be more forceful and insist on being given immediate landing when they were redirected elsewhere, such as using some forceful words like "NOW" and "We can NO LONGER WAIT"?

A true sense of urgency is an exceptionally important asset for one to become successful in career and life. A true sense of urgency is not about being impatient on everything; it is not about rushing around energetically, running from meeting to meeting and screaming at people to execute. No; that is a false sense of urgency.

True urgency, according to John Kotter, a famous author, focuses on critical issues, which is needed now, not eventually, not when it fits easily into a schedule. True urgency is driven by a deep determination to win, not anxiety about losing. Now means making real progress every single day, not leaving ourselves with a heart-attack-producing task of running one thousand miles in the last week of the race.

With an attitude of true urgency, you try to accomplish something important each day, never leaving yourself with a heart-attack-producing task of running one thousand miles in the last week of the race. Critically important means challenges that are central to success or survival, winning or losing. A sense of urgency is not an attitude that I must have the project team meeting today, but that the meeting must accomplish something important today.

I still have a lot to learn on having a real sense of urgency, because I have always been a procrastinator on a lot of things. But slowly, I am improving; starting by doing the right thing and planning ahead. (Actually, to be honest, it is largely driven by working with a bunch of people with super sense of urgency. Haha....Ahem....).

In my previous blog post, I also mentioned that the lack of urgency caused an innocent girl to die of abuse because no one responded to the situations before it got critical. In Avianca Flight 52, it caused the death of 73 people. Although, not all things are matters of life and death, but I am sure we have a lot of things to learn from the past disasters caused by simple lack of urgency.

A week ago, I was absent from a special occasion; a wedding dinner of a wonderful couple, whom I personally get to know both of them really well. Earlier in the week, I made plan to work with my co-worker (also my partner) on the same weekend as the wedding dinner. My co-worker was working with me on part-time basis so the only available full days for us to work together is only during weekends and holidays. I had casually suggested to her that we need to work on certain outstanding issues, which seems quite important but not so urgent. She said she was busy but she might be free on coming weekend. I thought to myself then "I have a wedding dinner to attend on the same weekend" , but I did not say anything about that to her. Few days later, she confirmed she can meet on the weekend.

I know it will be marvelous for us we work together full day on the weekend because we can really make good progress with one whole day without interruptions. Unfortunately, this also means I could not go to the wedding dinner. So, I made a choice; to work on something that are important to me but relatively not so urgent; not because I have to but because I want to make good better progress in my work and maybe have the rest of following week free to do other things.! In fact, on that day, we worked from 1 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next day, on something that was totally not urgent! But we really did achieve something important because we have completed what we set up to do, and we are satisfied to know that we might be able to use our new-found knowledge anytime in the future.

So, if anyone of my friends ask me now or in the future why I do not show up at certain occasions, my general answer will be:
There are always a lot of choices we can make in our life. It is up to individuals to evaluate the priority and urgency of any of their choices. Since I want to be a business owner, having a sense of urgency in my work is very critical now.

I believe a sense of urgency is more than making the right choices, it has to be synchronized with our thoughts, feelings and actions; our attitude altogether. It should not only be used in work, but also in our everyday life. It is not rushing through things like I used to do last time; it is doing important things NOW instead of LATER.

Human Crime Today

2008-12-01T15:19:00.012+08:00

I watched a quite disturbing movie last week that left me pondering on a lot of things about life. The reason why the movie is disturbing is because it is based on a true story and it shockingly reveals how cruel and uncaring people can be. Unlike most of the true stories with inspiring theme, this one does not have a happy ending; and the good does not always triumph over the evil.

The movie is called “An American Crime”. It is about an innocent teenage girl, named Sylvia Likens, who was tortured violently to death by a group of abusers. The abuse, triggered by a struggling woman with health problem and huge stress of taking care of seven children with virtually no money, eventually joined by her children and a whole neighborhood of youngsters.

Though Ginia said in her very excellent review on the movie, that the victim had the bad luck to grow up in a time and a place where “ignorance was understood as its own brand of wisdom”; somehow I feel, ironically, that statement still applies today. Thus, the title of this post is "Human Crime Today".

With a close examination, we can see the same things happening in societies today, although largely with less severity than brutally torturing a girl.

IGNORANT. AFRAID TO DO WHAT OTHERS CONSIDERED AS UNCONVENTIONAL OR NOT COURTEOUS.

The neighbors did not take any actions when they heard heart-wrenching screams on many occasions. They choose to ignore so they do not have any troubles.

Sylvia’s father did not bother to check out the condition of house where he was going to put his two daughters to live there. He was afraid to be prying even though this will concern his daughters’ safety and comfort! If he had, he would have found that the household had no stove, only three spoons in the kitchen drawers and there were fewer beds than were needed for those already living there. And, how he could completely trust a woman he had just known for a day to take care of his daughters is beyond understanding.

FOLLOW THE CROWD. FOLLOW THE AUTHORITY.

The children followed what their parent do or ask them to do without thinking whether the actions are right.

The neighborhood youngsters joined the crowd to torture Sylvia and decided since everyone was torturing and hating her, she must have done something really bad to deserve this. No one question what Sylvia had really done; whether she deserved these; whether the accusations upon her were all true.

Even Sylvia’s sister was forced to follow the crowd so that she would not be receiving the same condemnation or injustice done to Sylvia.

WAIT AND SEE. DON’T RESPOND TO THE SITUATIONS UNTIL IT BECOMES CRITICAL.

Sylvia and her sister had not done enough to stop the abuse, for e.g. by making police report.
In fact, when probing into the inaction on Sylvia’s part, investigators were wondering whether Sylvia is masochist. But they arrived at the conclusion that Sylvia was too young to know what was done to her was incorrect. After all, how could an adult and bunch of kids be so wrong?

Maybe Sylvia and her sister were waiting for the time when the abusers would have mercy and stop the torturing. In fact, in many occasions, it seemed the torture would end and Sylvia was given back the normal treatment. But very soon, the Sylvia would somehow engage the wrath of her’s abusers and the tortures started again. Some evil people just would not change.

DON’T THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS.

It seems like the abusers never anticipated Sylvia would die from all the tortures and inhuman treatment done to her.

Neither did they think they would go to jail for that and that would all change their life enormously.

IT IS NOT URGENT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS (ACTIVE). MAYBE IF WE DO NOTHING, IT WILL GO AWAY (PASSIVE).

Somehow, until the Sylvia’s death, no one had done anything to help her in time; else; fate would be reversed. In one part of the scenes in “An American Crime” (WARNING, some spoiler here.), the director wanted us to believe there would be a happy ending if someone would have done the right thing then. We hope very much that was what happened.

But the neighbors, the children or the youngsters, the parents of the youngsters, Sylvia’s family and even the reverend, and more countless people; all failed to do the right things on time to save her. When they found Sylvia was dead, then only the youngsters tried to resuscitate her, called the police and the sister finally revealed the whole story to the police.

....................................................................................................................................................................

A lot of people mourn Sylvia after so long, especially when "An American Crime" shows the world, some parts of how it happened.

I guess the compassion and sadness are also due to the fact that most of us experience or see something similar in the world where we live in (most probably in smaller scale); not just the injustice, but also the rest of the people that do nothing to help. Indeed, human crime today in that part is very abundant.

Five effective actions for solving a corporate conflict

2008-10-02T00:08:00.005+08:00

In a corporate world, there are bound to be conflicts and miscommunication between different parties or organizations. When problems occur, finger pointing is not the logical response of solving the problems itself.

However, most resort to such behavior, often overwhelmed by emotions such as anger, frustration, distrust, prideful, and so on. This results in bad feeling in the air for both parties and keep people away from solving the issues at hand which are the objectives.

Recently, I am able to witness a corporate conflict involving a vendor and a dealer. Jeffrey’s help was engaged to solve this conflict. Thus, I have a valuable chance to see and learn how to solve this problem in an efficient manner. Since this is a real incident for corporate environment, I would use fictitious names to preserve the anonymity of the parties involved.

Johnny, the dealer, gets a project to supply products and services, consisting of software and hardware, as well as training and support services to a customer. The customer gives the project to Johnny because of his good experience and reputation in the industry. However, Johnny does not produces the products himself so he sources the products from a vendor company XXX whom he was previously working for. Johnny has some rough experiences with the vendor company before, especially with Eddie, the superior of the sales manager who is managing his deal. Eddie was also his ex superior in XXX.

He was dealing very well with the vendor so far in getting the products and services delivered to the customers. However, in the third purchase, the vendor not only raises the price of the products but also decides to not supply to Johnny anymore. Hence, Johnny faces the risk of not fulfilling his customer’s orders, breaking the customer trust and also ruining his reputation in the industry. In summary, he is in dire state.

When dealing with conflicts, it is important that we keep the following five actions in mind:

1. Stay focus on the subject. Do not deviate. Do not get clouded by emotion.

Since Johnny has some bad experiences with Eddie before, he is filled with frustration and anger. Instead of trying to understanding the other side of the stories and solving the problems, he keeps on thinking that Eddie is making things hard for him on purpose to get back at him.

When Jeffrey talks to Eddie, it is found that the reason why Eddie does not supply to Johnny is that Johnny has not settled the earlier two payments. Johnny argues that he cannot settle the payment yet because the customer does not want to pay him until the implementation is fully completed. The customer complains some features are not in the system and the last training cause their staffs to enter wrong data into the system. Thus to the customers, the implementation is not fully completed yet.

Eddie argues on his side, he has delivered fully and should get the payment. Due to his company policy, Eddie cannot continue to supply to Johnny if he cannot clear the payment. To Eddie, he is only dealing with Johnny and not Johnny’s customer, so Johnny needs to settle the payment regardless whether the customer has paid him or not. Eddie also admits his subordinate has previously given the wrong quotation and which cause him to re-adjust the pricing on the third purchase.

Thus, in staying focus on the subject, on business ground instead of personal matters, we now know the only way to solve the problem is to pay Eddie and quickly get him to fulfill the third orders. The other matters are histories.

2. Present things in a pleasant manner.

When Jeffrey presents the issues and prompts both parties to talk, he avoids having both parties finger-pointing at each other. Instead of focusing on “me” and “you”, he focus on the powerful word – “WE”. In many cases, he emphasizes that “WE” are doing business here and the deals are beneficial to both parties. So, “WE” should solve the problems together instead of harping on who is at fault or on the past issues like bad services, wrong pricing, etc. “WE” is A VERY POWERFUL WORD.

3. Keep a non-tempered and cool composure.

Confronting the problem on hand, Johnny is very frustrated and angry since the beginning. To him, Eddie and his teams have not delivered a very good service to him and his customers. And this is the cause that the customer is not paying him. Thus, he is unable to pay Eddie’s company. On the other hand, Jeffrey tries to keep the situation in a cool manner by not delving too much into these issues. He asks Johnny to calm down and remind him being angry does not serve any purpose. Several times, when Johnny gets into an angry tone when talking about his pain, Jeffrey asked him to pause and talk slowly to keep him in a cool composure.

4. Discuss on problem-solving and future co-operation issues and also channels of communication.

After understanding the issue, it is obvious that the most important issue to attend to is to continue to provide the customers with the products and then prompt the customer to make payment. Although Johnny has not get the payment from the customers, he must pay Eddie for his company to continue provide the products first. In the future, Johnny needs to be careful in managing the customer expectations and also service delivery by the vendors. Johnny may also take over the training and support services from Eddie’s team so that he can provides better support to the customer if he wants to.

Johnny, being the middle man and consultants in the deal has to bear the responsibilities in keeping both parties (vendors and customers) happy at all times.

(Up until now, I always think being a dealer is a simple job of getting the supplies and delivering to the customers. But the fact is a dealer has to take the double pains from both the vendors and the customers. He also has to bear any risks of any parties not doing their jobs well enough)

Since Eddie admits one of his sub-ordinates has made the mistake in the quotation and thus creates all the confusion, he agrees to remove him from the future correspondence. Eddie will assign another sales manager to handle this deal in the future.

5. Provide a compromising situation for both parties for future collaboration.

After getting each parties to understand what needs to be done immediately to solve the issue, Jeffrey goes on to discuss what it is like for future collaboration to prevent the same problems from happening again. There may be more deals between both parties in the future and they need to learn how to work closely.

What I know is Johnny certainly has a lot to learn from his mistakes in this conflict. He need to start by practicing the 3 principles in doing everything in life.

And you know what? Jeffrey bought some of Johnny’s share in his company and the deal was sealed. Eddie was very surprised that Jeffrey, who actually owned the company, was logical and not single sided in handling the matter.

Thus, what we have learned today? Ask yourself….

The hardest question to ask your spouse (and even yourself)

2008-10-01T01:42:00.007+08:00

The question: If your mother (or father) and I fall into the sea and both of us cannot swim, who will you save first?

I always wonder if I am nuts to think of asking my spouse such a difficult question. I think I learnt this question from a movie. I wonder if any of you readers have the same question lingering in your mind that you want to ask your spouse. Or if it is just me. Or maybe you have similar question which I hope you would share.

One day, I got into this funny mood (which I cannot really remember why and how funny my mood was) and asked Jeffrey this question. His answer blew me out of the water. Of course, since I have toyed with the questions multiple times in my head, I have, very much, anticipated what kind of answers I would get. And I have also formulated my response to each possible answer and maybe another question to ask in addition to that.

If you have this question in your mind before, I recommend you to stop reading for now. Go and think about how you would answer if you are asked this question. And then go and ask you spouse. I hope you can share your answers. :)

Honestly speaking, I anticipate everyone would choose his mother first. I have not really collected any statistic on this. I never ask this to anyone before, including my ex, whom I have been with for six long years.

That is because I think I already knew what his answer would be. So, I never thought about the questions much when I was with him. Most probably he would not answer and say I am too childish to ask such kind of question. Or, he would say he can choose me but that would make him a very bad son. This will make me feel very guilty because I make him leave his mother to die for me. In fact, I felt guilty even without asking him. Thus, I already reached a conclusion about this question long ago. He should save his mother and I would be totally supportive of his decision. I will even make sure he would choose his mother because I do not want to feel guilty. And I am prepared to brace myself and keep myself afloat, for maybe he would have the chance to save me after he saves his mother. Maybe that is why when I was in my previous relationship; I am always independent, tough and strong. At least, I pretended to be even if I was not.

I assumed everyone, especially sensible, logical and unselfish girls or boys should think like I did then. When you do the math - a young woman certainly has a better chance of surviving and can stand longer in the sea than an old woman. So, logically, when a person save an old woman first and then get back to the young woman, the total chance of survival for both increase. I never get to question my assumption until Jeffrey’s answer.

And I am glad for his answer and the way it completely changed my view of things, particularly make me question how I used to view things in conventional ways, or in my own assumption, oblivious to the world.

This is his paradox (or, is it?) answer:

“Since you are my wife and the mother of our children, I will definitely choose you to save first. I do not want to lose you and I do not want our children to lose a mother.
My mother is old and already been through most of her life. She would want happiness for her son and grandchildren too.”

Even though Jeffrey and I do not have children yet and we are not officially married, I always like the way when Jeffrey think of us in the future context.

On the other spectrum, if I am the mother and my son give such an answer, would I be jealous? My answer will be no because I already have my husband who chooses to save me over his mother so I would be happy that my son wants to do the same thing.

But, what if on a baffling twist of fate, my husband chooses to save his mother, would I expect my son to do the same? I think I would then. If my son chooses his wife and my husband chooses his mother, wouldn’t I be a miserable mother and wife then? What would become of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?

Isn’t life full of puzzles and wonders?

Growing up through the Quarter-Life Crisis

2008-09-11T12:17:00.009+08:00

The other day while I was chatting with my best friend, we both conceded our lives had changed a lot during the past one year. Break-ups, new love relationships, re-prioritization between work and love life, relationships with family, moving places, new career, new directions in life - either already been through or under way.

We both heaved the sigh of relief that our worst may already passed. But at the same time, we know there are more for us to go through while recovering.

"Hey, you know what?" I exclaimed to her. "I read about this. It is called Quarter-Life Crisis. It means now we have really grown up." I did not get to see her expression, but I knew she concurred vehemently.

"After coming out from college and working, we thought we were grown-ups but we were still very much like teenagers, having no idea of our future and hardship that we need to endure." I added. "So now, we are officially a grown-up."

In fact, it is not just me and my friend. I know most of my twenty-somethings or approaching-thirty friends (and new acquaintances) are going through the same quarter-life crisis. Some learn from it and become better. Some are still in denials and unable to accept why these happen to them. Some may have totally given up. In fact, I begin to meet more and more people who are in the midst of quarter-life crisis because Jeffrey has a way of attracting them. Most came to him to ask for helps and advices. Others (like the first time I met him) were drawn to him because there are things we want to know about this world, about ourselves and we know he can provide that knowledge since he been through a lot (crisis, failures, success, etc.) in life.

According to him, there are 5 main problems with us:

1. We never do the things that we should do
2. We do not take good care of ourselves
3. We are not making enough money because we work the wrong way.
4. We have not cared for others and nobody care about us.
5. We have not learnt well because nobody is teaching us.

I do not think I need to delve into what is quarter-life crisis as there are already 2 excellents posts about it: One from my favourite blogger, Penelope Trunk and another one from Holly, a member of Brazen Careerist.

Marrying the two posts, it means:

We're all just growing up. Finally. Let us take some risks now to achieve our dreams, because we do not want to be eighty and regret not taking these risks.

Growing up involves being able to reflect back on the past and understand more about my own self, where I come from and where I want to be.

I like this photo of myself - the way I happily climbed on the gates to take this photo with my brothers, who looked cute themselves too.

Maybe what you need is a Paradigm Shift

2008-09-07T16:16:00.015+08:00

Dr. Stephen R. Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, speaks of Paradigm shift. Here, I adapted his illustration to my version of what it means to shift our paradigm.

Let's say you need to go to a town called, “Growing Journey” to receive a very important award at a place called “Success” in the fine Sunday evening. Since you never been to the town, you ask the organizer to send you a map for directions to “Success”. Happy to oblige, the organizer photocopy a map and send it to you, along with some directions. The only problem is it gets mixed up and the map of another town is sent to you instead. Unfortunately also, the map’s title gets cut off during the copy and you don’t realize it is the wrong map.

On Sunday morning, you get on you car and head to the town. Once arriving in the town, you follow the directions as in your map. Soon you are hopelessly lost. You give the organizer a call.

"I got your directions," you say, "but I can't find any of the roads you mention on the map."

"It's really easy to find," the organizer reply. "It's right in the end of the town from where you come! You need to try a little harder."

"Okay, I'll try harder," you reply, and you're off and running. You are driving twice as fast and getting twice as lost. After lost for more than an hour and getting discouraged, you call the organizer again. Sensing your sinking spirit, the organizer says "It sounds like trying harder wasn't the answer. What you really need is a positive mental attitude."

Well! That wise suggestion strikes you like a bolt of lightning, and your mental attitude is instantly transformed. You get back in that car and you start driving, and everything is wonderful. You're still completely lost, but that doesn't matter. You are happy being just where you are, wherever you end up in.

The problem is, you are still lost and you might never going to make it to “Success” in time to receive your award.

You first try to change your behavior by trying harder. Then you try to change your attitude by looking at the positive side of things. But what really you need to change is your road map. Trying harder is good. Having a positive attitude is good. But if you are following the wrong map, changing your behavior and your attitude won't do much good. You need to change the map you are following. You need a paradigm shift.

Mostly, people struggle to find their maps. Sometimes, they have the maps, but they do not know they are holding the wrong maps. And they are lost because they start their journey even without the right map.

Let me take this adaptation from Steven’s illustration further. Let’s say you get smarter and know something is wrong. You think you should seek help from another person. So, you stop to ask a young man you run into for direction to “Success”. He looks trendy and seems to be doing nothing in the middle of the day, unlike other passer-bys who rush by.

“"Success"? You mean "Success-In-Progress" right?” he asks. “Cause I just know the latter. I have been there for a couple of times. I could not stand the heat there; it is very hot at that side of the town.” he adds.

Unsure, you answer “Hmm, I guess it is the same. Can you show me the direction to get there?”

“If you are touring around, I think you should go to a place called "Being-Content" because there are some nice parks there.” the young man offers his suggestion unsolicitedly.

“Oh, I am not here for fun. I come to receive an award.”

“It is pity that you have no time for fun.” he replies smugly, for he clearly knows what fun is all about. But he also wants to show that he knows the way around this town very well, so he continues to give your a detailed direction.

Thanking him, you get on your journey again. You miss some turns and get lost a couple of times but finally you reach the place in about an hour later. Well, it IS really hot and uncomfortable there. You call the organizer and say you have reached “Success-In-Progress”.

“What? No!” the organizer exclaims. “"Success-In-Progress" is different place from "Success". But you are getting nearer. It is just another hour drive from there. Just continue on south. And do get here fast cause time is running out.”

“South? I wish I have a compass with me. ” you think to yourself. But, you don’t.

Then, an old man walks towards your direction. You decide to ask him for direction. Fortunately for you, he knows the place and has been there before.

“That area is the best in town. Great scenery and refreshing air. Not much people there. Quiet and tranquil places for relaxing. You can just do anything you like there..........." The old man rattle on as if he just get so happy thinking about that place called "Success".

"You have to go uphill to reach there." He continues. "But the road there is very misleading and has a lot of ups and downs. It is quite difficult for me to give you the exact direction. If you miss a turn, you will probably end up somewhere else but only realize it couple of hours later. If that happens, you will never make it in time to receive your award. I wish I can go together with you, but I have things to settle here. " He pauses for a second, then he continues. "Young man, why don’t you get yourself a map?”

“I do have a map! Give me one sec. Let me get it”. You take out the map given by the organizer from your car and show it to the old man. After looking at the map for about a minute, the old man said, “Young man, I pretty sure you have a wrong map. I have gone to almost every places in this town, even the most grisly place. But I do not think it is near to any of that in this map.”

“No wonder I cannot find the place no matter how hard I try. Finally, I know what the source of the problem is. Thank God I met you.”

“You got it, man! So, you know now what you should do. I am sure you will reach your destination in no time after you get a right map. The bookstore is just right at the corner of that building over there. You won’t miss it. Remember to check for the “Success” place in the map. It should be at the north of the town.”

“Wow, thanks. I am glad to meet you. Just hope I have met you earlier, so that I won’t have to travel to all the lost worlds, making time so pack now.”

“Yeah, you better get running, young man. I hope you reach "Success" in time.”

In the first meeting with the young man, you learn that:

- There are people who will mislead your goals with their own.
- Some people have given up on success and be contented with wherever they are.
- Everyone has their own definition of success. Other people's definition of success might not be same as yours.
- You have to clearly know your goal and your definition of success in order not to be misled or influenced.

In the second meeting with the old man, you learn that:
- you are not aware that you have the wrong map until someone point it to you because you are not clear-minded and easily influenced by the wrong people.
- you most probably travel to all the wrong places before you realize your map is wrong. In some case, you might not want to accept you have the wrong map. Maybe you continue to work hard and have positive attitude but still ended up nowhere.
- if you have spent a long times getting lost, it is harder for you to reach success for you cannot afford a lot of mistakes or wrong turns.
- someone can point to you on how to get the right map in life, but they cannot just "bring" you to success. You have to make the journey yourself. With your own copy of map.

So, ask yourself this. Do you need a Paradigm Shift?

It is not just what you do; it is how you do it

2008-08-17T15:06:00.008+08:00

Imagine that you are a superhero who can fly, deflect bullets and sharp objects, does what a superhero generally can do and save lives. Don’t you think you will have millions of fans, clamoring for your attention, trusting and dependant on you to save them when major crises hit them?

But that did not happen to John Hancock in the movie Hancock (2008), the non-typical superhero whom everybody disdained. Why this particular superhero suffers bad public image although he is actually saving people lives?

That comes to the moral of the story: It is not just what you do; it is how you do it.

What did Hancock try to do?
He saved lives and fought crimes with his superpower.

How did he do it?
He had no regards for damaging anything that gets in his way of getting the job done.
He caused damaged to public property, costing the city millions of dollars. He was rude to everyone who gets near him. He was depressed, drunk and looked filthy like a homeless person.

The result ?
He was universally despised among humanity.

Fortunately, a public relations man named Ray came to his rescue by teaching him HOW to do this job well. Here are the few things that Ray taught him:

1. Teamwork and giving credits to others: To work with the police and fire personnel and say “Good job” to them.

2. Control of Power: Land without leaving a giant crater. Do not damage properties.

3. Responsible, Own up to one mistakes: Serve jail time for his various misdemeanors, attend the anger management course.

4. Better Outward Appearance: Have a clean look and wear a good outfit (which Hancock described jokingly as “homo” but this is not the point I am trying to make).

Overall, Hancock is not a very great movie, but I guess some movies do give us something to learn. And I appreciate this lesson from my mentor.

Do you want to become a Hero or a Zero?

2008-08-09T02:10:00.009+08:00

I am not going to compare between Batman and The Joker (the villain, in the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight). I would not say heroes as just those people who are noted for courageous and noble purpose, especially those who risked and sacrificed their lives. And I would not say a zero is a nonentity, one having no influence or importance. I think everyone would have some sort of influences or importance.

I mean the heroes and zeroes whom we meet daily, even the hero and zero entities that are both inside us depending on how and when we want to use it.

In life, I do not think hero and zero are easily identified as Batman and The Joker. That is why my most unforgettable hero and zero from the movies are not the conventional iconic figures. To me, a hero or zero emerges when one is in danger. A hero will rise to the occasion and do the right things regardless of how afraid he is in the painful situation. A zero will flunk or run away when there are pressures and crisis.

In the popular Saving Private Ryan (1998) movie, I always remember this character, Upham. Upham is a translator who had never seen any fighting and killing action before the mission. He was supposed to carry ammunition to his comrades. But he lost his nerve amidst the shooting. Frozen on a stairway just beyond the reach from his comrades, he did nothing when one of his comrades was brutally killed by a German solder just a few steps away. It was the most excruciating scene as the German soldier slowly drove his bayonet into the heart of one of his comrades. At that split second, we all know Upham would have save his comrade just by being there and maybe just as much as given the German a kick. And we all wanted so much to shoot Upham himself at that moment for his cowardice. When the German left and approached Upham, he was so in shock that he took his hand off his rifle’s trigger. Surprisingly, the German left him alive; maybe thinking a coward like that is not worth the time to kill him. In the final twist of fate, when the Germans surrendered, Upham pointed his rifle at the group as if he was a “brave” soldier. He even went further to shoot at one of them, when he realized he was the one who killed his comrades, the comrades who would not be dead if he had done something. The stinging realization that really beat me every time I think about this is that Upham would return to his home, not only alive even though he caused the death of his comrades, but he would also be celebrated as a hero. It is something that I really do not want to accept. My epiphany from this story is no matter how “pure” or “innocent” one might be, that does not allow him to be irresponsible, be a coward and have a bad judgment especially when the situation is critical and calls for him to act.

I certainly would not go near Upham, least become his comrade. To me, Upham is the ZERO, real total ZERO. He did not act when he was most needed to.

Ironically, in the movie Hero (1992), a cynical and amoral man, named Bernie, did a noble thing by rescuing the passengers from a crashed airliner, only to see someone else take credit and have no one believing he was the true hero. Although, Bernie was not really likeable in generals, but he took the right action when he was required to do it, even though at that time, he did not really seem to know or care what he was doing.

To me, Bernie is a hero even though he is not a nice guy.

I learnt from my experience that Mr. Nice Guy can be more evil and he usually hurts us behind our backs while Mr. Bad Guy can be the one who comes to help and save us when we most need it.

How do you know if you act like a Zero?

Through my own experiences and observations as well as experiences of others which are mostly painful, the following behaviors are found in the zeroes:

1. They do not want to admit their own mistakes, either because they are too prideful or they are afraid to face the consequences or punishment. Or, maybe they are scared of how other people will view them when their mistakes are known.

These are the few variation of the behaviors:
a. They do not apologize.
b. They may apologize when they are pressurized into doing it even though they do not realize or admit their mistakes.
c. When they apologize, they never commit to improve or prevent the same things from happening again.
d. They only apologize to the person who confront them about their mistake(s), but not to the rest who also deserve the same apology.
e. Even when they apologize, they make some excuses to try to put the blame to someone else, some other things or circumstances, maybe like the wind, the rain, etc.

2. They tend to play stupid games behind the back and appear to be innocent and nice at the front. They do not dare to compete head-on because they are usually incapable and stupid. Moreover, they are easily threatened by people, who are smarter and more capable than them, especially if the smarter guys are younger too.

3. They always want to avoid conflict. This is also driven by the fact they do not want to admit their mistakes (point #1) and cannot compete head-on (point #2). Instead of trying to resolve the conflict by open talks, they pretend to be fine but keep the revenge or judgment at heart.

4. They do not face their lives and take action. They always give themselves excuses not to act. They always want to wait for something to happen, and then only they act. They want to wait when the path is totally cleared from the mist, and then only they can start walking their life. For most of them, they are still waiting until the final breath of their lives.

5. They always want to play it safe. They do not want to take risks. They always have thousands of reasons why the risks are not worth taking at all, especially when they try to take care of all the people and their opinions in the world.

6. They do not want to get out of their comfort zones. It is always same paths, same mistakes, same faces and same stories over and over again.

7. They are doubtful when good things happen to them or when people offer them good things. So, sometimes, they just reject the good things or people. They continue to push them further and further away from them.

8. They feel embarrassed and ashamed more easily. They always avoid being open. They are usually not assertive because they usually say things in a vague way and like to drop hints. This is intended to create the leeway in case they say something wrong.

9. They always give up on things. They start things without knowing the goals or objectives they want to achieve. They are not persistent enough to pull through until they reach the finishing line. Sometimes, they just give up even though they are only just an inch to getting what they want.

10. They like to follow the crowds. Instead of following the successful people or people who have made it, they use the failures of others as a reference to limit themselves. For e.g., Andy sees a lot of sales person in his group of friends who are not doing very well and come to a conclusion that he should not go into sales.
On the other hand, they might follow the crowds to do something even without knowing what are their strengths and weaknesses. In the “Saving Private Ryan” movie, Upham should not have taken the job. Do not take the fighter job if you are not a fighter.

Of course, there are a lot of ways to overcome the Zero in us to emerge as a hero. This is done not for all the people in this world, but mostly for ourselves. The measures are, of course, to avoid all those that have been said above.

"Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts." - Cicero

Captain Miller famous quotes From Saving Private Ryan: "Ryan...I don't know anything about Ryan. I don't care. Man means nothin' to me. It's just a name. But if...you know....if going to Ramel and finding him so he can go home, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife....well, then, then that's my mission."

I’m a home-based consultant

2008-07-24T12:41:00.007+08:00

After reading Milena Thomas post “I’m Staying Home From Now On. Will you Still Respect Me Tomorrow?”, I am tempted to write about my own stay-at-home experience.

I have “stayed at home” for almost 4 months now since I left my last company. I feel I really deserve this break since I have been working non-stop for almost 9 years except for some small vacations each year, which are usually shorter than 5 days. I am grateful to Jeffrey for making this experience possible for me.

You might imagine me lazing around. I hate to break your imagination but I have to tell you I am not. It is just like Dogbert’s saying: “I’m not unemployed, I’m a consultant.” So you see, I am training myself to be a consultant!

Why? First of all, being a consultant requires one to be organized and have great time management skills. It requires me to plan my day and do the things I need to do for the day. Here, I am practicing these skills to perfection each day. Practice does make perfect and after four months, I think I have graduated. So, I will be moving on to the next level. ( I will talk about this in later post)

Of course, I have gone through problems and overcome them.

Sometimes, I feel good because I have all the times in the world to do things and that is usually in the morning. At night, I feel that “time really flies” and I usually do not finish what I set to do for the day. Sometimes, I do not even wake up until afternoon due to my “late” nights (I really mean wee hours in the morning). I really like staying up late.

Sometimes I can be very relaxed. Other times, I can be quite agitated because I am afraid I will turn into a lazy bum and enjoy being that.

Staying-at-home is not hard and it is not easy either. In fact, I find it to be harder than working because it requires much more discipline and “keeping to the flow”. I can be washing the bathroom, cooking, blogging, reading books, doing laundry, reading online news, going to gym - all in one day and keeping the flow going. It is most probably not in one day because I have all “the motivation” to take things very slowly.

I know I should focus on fewer activities than that, but I am adamant that even though I am not working, that does not mean I cannot learn new things, keep up-to-date to what is happening, and improving my knowledge.

In Chinese saying, there are "big woman" and “small woman”. “Big woman” is someone capable, strong, and independent. She is the type that can either put guys off because she is too smart and powerful or she can get a lot of respect for being assertive and successful in the place prevalently dominated by male. And "small woman" is someone who whines and feeds the ego of guys, with guys taking care of her and being pampered. “Small woman” also stay at the “castle”, taking care of it and the family while the man fight the outside world. The man, who "bring home the bacon" also expected to be cared tenderly by the “small woman”. That is where the “small woman” cooks the bacon, feed the man and show tender-loving care.

I used to focus my energy so much in being a big woman, until I totally feel out of the planet when doing housework, cooking and so on. I even have problem keeping my desk tidy. Jeffrey gave me a sound advice – if you want to be a great big woman, you need to be a damn good small woman first. I am true-blue about this. If I hold a prominent position in a company and managing a large team of people, what pride do I have if I cannot even take care of my children, my husband and our home? Yes, I can hire maid, but I cannot be fully dependant on her.

So, I aspire to be both - small and big woman.

I think I am getting near it. I am much better at cooking and keeping the house in order now. And I am still reading and learning new skills every day.

Being responsive is critical for better communication

2008-07-15T22:50:00.002+08:00

Imagine you speak passionately to a group of audiences on a topic, “How to double your income in a year”. You exuberate such an excitement that your eyes glow and you feel like your spirit is almost going to spring out from your body as you feverishly share what it takes you almost a lifetime to learn and months to prepare. At the end of your speech, to your amazement, no one have any questions to ask. This is the tenth speech you have delivered and in all the previous speeches, you received a lot of questions and even heated arguments. Now, the reaction of your audiences is not even a subtle acknowledgement of the effort you have put in the speech. It cannot be any worse than having this non-responsiveness to what you have just earnestly and sincerely shared. You begin to wonder whether you have delivered to the wrong audiences. Maybe they do not like or need money at all, you think. But all people need and like more money, the more the better. You feel the sudden impulse of hitting them on their head and see if they can respond. “Oh”, you thought, “what the hell!”. You grab a stick (don’t ask me why there is a stick there) and hit one of the audience nearest to you. (Let me digress here, if you are a non-responsive person, I advise you not to sit near the speaker next time). That it is - no response as well! At the end, you actually find out you have gone to the wrong room. Your audiences are autistic patients and you will record that speaking experience as your worst.

Yes, it is a definitely a heart-wrenching and stomach grueling feeling of speaking to people are non-responsive.

Imagine you as a leader, who has sincerely shared your negative feedback with one of your team member, who fall short of your expectation. You even write a one-thousand-words email to explain the behaviors you observed from the person and suggested few ways for him to change. Though there is some amount of criticism, but you honestly want to help the person to improve. How would you feel if you do not even receive a single email or phone call or message in response? Not even a thank-you note. No agreement or disagreement with you. You most probably will not feel so inclined to share more advices or feedbacks with the same person anymore.

I once heard from a CEO of a company who felt so impressed with an employee in the company who wrote him a thank-you email. The good CEO was making tremendous effort to get to know each of his employees by scheduling some small but prestigious dinners with them, each time with only three to four employees to allow better interaction. Out of the thirty to forty employees, only one wrote back to say thank you, not just for the gourmet and the CEO’s time but also for the insights shared by the CEO. And you are pretty sure that person, who is also, fortunately, able to deliver good job quality, has gone far in the company.

If you are not convinced until now that responsiveness is critical for better communication and also building better relationship, please try this. Try to smell whether unresponsiveness is there in the air around you. Probably, you have lived with it for so long you are driving most people away, especially those smart and experienced people who have not much time for everyone, much less the non-responsive one.

Get this right. Responsiveness is VERY IMPORTANT to good communication. It requires not only listening skills, empathy, and paying attentions but also involves actions. It requires one to understand and act on the understanding to the best of one’s abilities.

Take for example, a trainer or mentor who advise his students to undergo a makeover with specifics given to which parts to improve. Let’s say Johnny has his hair too long for a sales person to portray the right image to the customers and Johnny’s mentor and also superior, Edmund advised him to cut his hair. Weeks after weeks, Johnny went around with his long hair, making sales call. He failed to close any sales after weeks. He may not have the right skills but his look which is non-professional may aggravated the situation for him. But Johnny believes no one should judge him by his look. But the truth is, everyone judges others by their looks. So, in the end, Edmund has no choice but to give up on him.

Failure to take action based on sound advices has shown that Johnny is not responsive and not valuing himself and people who spend times to teach him. Yes, Johnny might respect and have listened attentively to Edmund, but responsiveness includes action(s). And actions speak much louder than words. This is always the case. You can be very smart, very loyal, and very creative but as long as you do not put that into actions, you will fail miserably.

Sometimes, it is our culture and background that cause us to be unresponsive in most of the situation. It also maybe due to our lack of confidence that we are afraid to respond for fear that people may think we are stupid if we ask silly questions or say something that reveals our lack of knowledge. Of course, do not just simply ask questions without understanding what is being communicated. Responsiveness requires understanding as well as actions.

I still remember in my secondary school, there was one girl in our class that we all found it hard to mix with her. She was the one who always asked teachers a lot of questions; however, the questions she asked had already been covered or taught by the teachers just a while ago. That was quite annoying as it prolonged the lectures and prevented the teachers from moving on to the next topics. While responsiveness is good, I certainly do not hope to call for responsiveness without a good cause.

A logical and favorable level of responsiveness can be cultivated. Through trainings and practices, you will soon find it to be part of your daily interaction. You will become responsive without any great efforts or even without you noticing it.

So, remember the followings:

1. Listen attentively. Do not interrupt unnecessarily. Nod your head or something to show that you are following the conversation.

2. Understand what is being communicated.

3. Most importantly, Act!!

a. Ask questions if you are not clear about something. It is also advisable to do some research on your own first, if you have the time.

b. Say thank you to show your appreciation. If it is an email, reply the email saying thank you. If you need to approach the good speaker in the crowd of hundreds of people, do it. Showing appreciation does require some effort. And greater the effort, the appreciation shown is much greater.

c. Give your feedback - how you feel and what you think. Be careful whether you are being defensive, which you should not.

d. Act on the person’s request or advices if they are good ones. If unsure, check again with the sender of the messages on what actions are required.

e. If you come across some blog entries or articles that you like, leave some comments, even just a short one. You should know how much it means to the writer to get some sort of responses, even disagreement is most welcomed.

The other side of Grandma

2008-06-22T02:35:00.011+08:00

My grandma passed away peacefully last Friday, 13 June 2008.

Few days earlier, she was already bedridden and doctor had warned us her "time" was approaching. Jeffrey (my darling) and I were on the way back to my hometown, hoping to be able to see her while she was still around. We did not anticipate that we would be attending a funeral. (Made me recall the two things that we should do without hesitation because there might not be second chance - 1) Visit those who are sick and 2) Attend funeral (or wake))

I was sad when I heard of the bad news. I started to think about Grandma, her presence and influences in my life. I hate myself for saying this, it was not a lot. The memory about her is frail. You see, I was not really close with Grandma since I was young. This included the rest of my family. Somehow, we just were not her favourites.

However, with her death, I let myself wonder why this could have happened instead of just accepting that it was Grandma's fault. My grandma and my mum had not been able to get along very well since they first met each other. My father, on the other hand, treated his second sister, who looked after him when he was young, more like his mother. I gathered my Grandma was busy helping her husband on their business then. It is also obvious to everyone that Grandma care for her youngest son the most.

According to my mother, when we were babies, my grandma did not help to look after us. It would be also my father's second sister who bathed us and looked after us when my mother was busy or sick. But Grandma had helped her daughters to take care of their children. All these always made us think her love was one-sided and it embittered us. That was why we were never really close to her. At times, I even thought Grandma was not a generally likable person.

I have not been offering Grandma any justice. Although Grandma may have been very forceful, deep inside, she is very likable and gentle. She often went out and spend times with her friends while most of the other grandma of her ages opt to stay at home at most of the times. Jeffrey met Grandma once, about few months ago. Surprisingly, they talked for a long time, even in different languages and dialects. They seemed to be able to understand each other very much, especially when they talked about God and karma. Jeffrey said to me he had taken a liking to her immediately then. When he said that again after Grandma passed away, I cried because I knew I was so wrong about her.

I also realize Grandma had lived her life very successfully. She was an orphan and adopted into a doctor family. She married and have 2 daughters and 2 sons. But her husband died shortly when the youngest son was just 3 years old. That youngest son was my father. She remarried again and had four more children, youngest being a son. She helped her new husband to start a business selling hardware/steel. Because of her excellent English, she was able to communicate well with the British back then. Their business thrived, and most people said she had contributed to sixty percent of the business success. She was also a very resilient and assertive woman. In fact, while she was sick, I never heard her complain about her predicaments at all. She had so many success attributes. She always told us that she wished to be cremated after her death, and her ashes to be thrown into the sea. She said she wanted to be free. She also did not want to create hassle for the people to visit and pray on her grave. She was really one unique lady!

At first when I heard about her death, I prayed for her and told her I would forgive whatever she had not done for me and I was just glad to be her granddaughter.
But afterwards, I prayed for her forgiveness for what I had not done for her. For I had not made the efforts to really get to know her. I was the one who failed to do things for her.

In my previous post, I wrote about how our parents shaped our characters. I feel in a lot of ways my mum had a lot of influences in me and my brothers being not close to Grandma. I could not blame my mum though because I know she just wanted to share her frustrations with her children since my Grandma did not like her. Unfortunately, I was too young to be able to see from multiple sides of the stories. I guess I also held some frustrations towards Grandma.

But, once I let go of my frustrations, the revelation came to me. I felt I just twisted 180 degree and suddenly, I was on the other side of the story.

I heard of this past incident from my mum last Friday. It just came out as a normal discussion between us about some topics that I could not recall. My mum said because she was protective of her children, at one time, she did not allow my elder brother to go on a cruise vacation with Grandma. Grandma wanted to bring my brother and my other cousin brother. But my mum could not trust Grandma of being able to look after two boys at the same time and worried that my brother may fall off the ship. So, it ended with just Grandma and my cousin brother going on the vacation. Although I could not settle on whether my mum had done the right thing, I surely felt it was a misfortune for my brother to be denied a chance to enjoy himself on a vacation as well as a chance to spend time and build a closer relationship with Grandma. To a greater extent, I gather the same misfortunes might have happened to me and my younger brother until eventually Grandma just could not bother with us anymore.

So, I have to admit that I had my head in the clouds for so long. It is actually not just on Grandma, but with everything else around me. But I am starting to feel the clouds are clearing, because I am surely seeing a lot more things than I used to see.

And finally, for the first time in my life, I see the other side of the story of Grandma.

Grandma, my siblings and me (in the younger years) -
**Only can find this photo with Grandma in my photo album**