Writing My Thoughts Out

Today is the second last day of April but this is only my seventh post of the month. I was happy today as I finally managed to find the newspaper article on 20 February 2003 in the National Library. But now I feel tired and not sure what to do first. In another word, I become more emotional perhaps simply because I feel tired.

I guess this is a good reminder to start writing again. Remember that the goal is only to write for 5 minutes. It is not supposed to be a long article or a well-thought argument. The purpose of writing is to stop for a while and reflect on what are my thoughts and take them out into a written form.

For example, in the past few days, it was quite packed in the office. Also, there were several items which could make more excited such as mentoring people or listening to the talk from the management. At the same time, there is also a good reminder from my colleague to focus on finishing what is already on my plate instead of trying to help others too much or too frequent.

This week is also where I learn to let go. I decided not to submit a paper into Winter Simulation Conference this year as I have not done much of experiments in healthcare related problems. At the same time, I need to remember that I have another conference submission which is on 1 June. My interns are also coming soon. So I need to learn to hold my excitement. Remember that time flies. April is also the end of second quarter in my company’s financial year. There are some goals that I wanted to achieve by the end of quarter 2 such as to complete the coursera on model thinking. It may not be possible and that is fine. But this is just a reminder to focus instead of being carried out in the excitement. It is ok if I fail again and there is no use for self-defeating myself by being angry. At the same time, do not give up and think that I cannot do it. Just like the story given by my wife that a student thought a problem is a homework and at the end solved that without knowing that it is a problem that has not been solved by many years by his or her teacher or other scholars.

So, have hope, keep trying, rest when needed, and know what are our parts and calling. As again, we are not called by God to do everything, but we want to do everything that we are really called to.

Recording My Feelings

Last Monday I had a counseling session. There I learned that I had two problems. First is that I have issues in controlling my emotion - swinging between depressed and depressing as in becoming too excited that I become dominant or taking too many things. The second problem is that I am angry that I have the first problem.

Interestingly, I cannot solve the first problem if I do not work on the second one. This is because the second contains self-defeating behavior when I struggle with the first problem. I tend to feel upset and judge myself with words like I should not do that, I should have controlled my emotion, I am not good enough if I still have first problem, etc. This is wasting energy. So I need to work on the second problem first, accepting that I have the first problem and it may take a long time to solve it.

My wife said to me before that my counselor's suggestions were in essence the same as hers. This time my best friend in office told similar thing. He was surprised on how I turn to be so positive after the counseling session. He was also amazed that my findings are in essence the same as his observations last week. In other word, how can I treat the same comments differently.

This shows two things. One is that I have higher expectations to people who are closed with me. Maybe because I have irrational belief of life must be fair and so my family and close friends must change if I change. Second is that the self-discovery. I did not pay attention fully to the content. But when I read myself in the book, I started to think more and try to find answers on the things I did not understand. This is different from listening to feedback from others.

My friend then suggested me to record my feelings. This is because when I am depressed, things become bleak. So at least if I know that, writing it will help me to remind myself, remind that things can change no matter how depressed the situation is. He reminded me not just to record the fact but also the feeling.

For example is on how would I treat myself when I make mistakes. To understand and believe that I can stand mistakes, life being unfare, and it is natural if I get angry sometimes.

That happens to me this afternoon. I feel very tired. But after I said it's ok, I got idea on how to accept the feeling and move on by drinking hot drink and eat snacks. So afterwards was better. I feel sleepy now and it is okay even if I fall asleep. In other word, do what we can and let others do what they can. It is like a paradox, accept ourselves fully, but because of that we can change ourselves for the better.

Learning from Yoga Class

Reflecting back, I wondered why I chose to be angry when receiving feedbacks. Perhaps it is because of my insecurity, my unwillingness to accept the consequences, and my impatience in the change process. I want to illustrate those points from my yoga experience. But before that, what I meant with yoga may be different than the official defintion or what most people understand. What I refer to yoga is the stretching exercise in HP clubhouse where there is no meditation and it is pure stretching.

In the last session of my yoga class, I mentioned to my instructor that my core muscle is still weak. He replied, not true, all of my body are considered weak. But somehow I was not angry. I can receive that negative feedbacks easily. So what made me to choose to be angry when I received feedbacks at home or in office.

I guess the first point is due to my insecurity. At home and in office, I need to acknowledge that I am still in the process of proving myself of worthy being. To prove that I am a good enough husband and son-in-law at home. To prove that I am worthy enough to have the phd title and with 3 years of working experience when I am in office. Whereas, in my yoga class, I was not there to prove that I am good at exercise. I was therey simply because I think exercise is important and it is totally okay even if I am the lousiest students. Simply put, I was secure in my yoga class but not at home or in office. This goes back again to the question whether I am secure with my true status as God has accepted me for who I am. Just like what REBT said, the same activating event can cause different responses because the beliefs are different.

Second is in my willingness to accept the consequences. In yoga, if I cannot do certain exercise, there is no consequences to me. There were nobody there who would mock me as we are all adults. There was no grade or pass or fail as well. Whereas at home and in office, there are consequences, even if it is just to listen to people with humility if it is a fact that I am still short of certain standards. One friend said to me before that other people can demand us something, but we also have the right to disobey. So if I don’t agree, there is no need for me to follow as long as I can bear the consequences. But since I am willing to bear the consequences of my own choice, I expected other people to change by not giving feedbacks - something that is unrealistic as I have no control over other people.

Third is my impatience. Since I only joined yoga in January, I know that for sure it takes many years before I can do the activities properly. So what I need to focus is to be patient and build the strength for simpler activities first. In other word, even if the teacher said I’m weak, there is no need to rush. And in fact it is unrealistic for me to be able to do it right away. Similarly, if people asked me to change, it is not necessary to follow their timeline if we are willing to accept the consequences. We just need to be patient and enjoy looking the progress slowly one by one.

So do not judge myself too that I will for sure fail. At the same time, use this learning experience to remind myself that it is unrealistic to think that I will for sure pass. So what about the things that have been done? As we cannot turn back the time, may God grant me the humility to bear the consequences and to be patient in the change process based on the fact that it is fully secure in faith to Jesus who have died and risen for us.

Take Up My Own Cross

I lost my temper yesterday and today. I hate receiving other people’s feedbacks. Not so much because of the feedback itself, but because of them, I will judge myself evern harsher. Of course theoretically, I can break it because it is me who impose those feedback as ultimate standards to follow exactly and right now. Then I will hate myself more when people said that knowing the problem is half way of solving the problem. I agree to that statement in general. But in my life, I have seen that I am aware of my own problems but it is very hard to change myself.

Maybe because there are two sides of me. One side who are trying to please people and look good. Another side is the rebellious side of me who tend to say, if other people don’t change, why do I need to change. If other people can do something that is not always good, why can’t I not just indulge myself on things that I like. So at one time, I will be very nice, at other times I will lose my temper.

In another word, I have now managed my depression better, but swing to the other sides of being aggressive and dominant. At one time I feel bad to offend people, on another instance I feel like it is my right to offend people just as some people offend others without feeling guilty.

Interestingly, in my church, the topics for the whole of pre-Easter is about the cross of different people. Some chose to take up their cross and follow Jesus while some abandoned Him when there is time to take up the cross. The sermon during Easter day is also about changing our mindset and behavior.

It is clear that I am saved by grace in Jesus. But my mindset and behavior transformation need time. And I need to be patient. I need to do my best as if all depend on me while I need to surrender to God as if all depend on God. So now as I feel very bad after I blasted at my wife and my best friend in office, I need to admit that and to rise up again even if I know I will most likely fail again. The calling may not necessarily to win over this, but to be faithful in the process of the true winning. Just like the current governor today who gave example on how to lose gracefully, may I do my best even if I fail again including doing my best to have mercy on myself and focus on what I can still do instead of what I should have done.

Airline Overbooking

Recently the topic of overbooking becomes a highlight as there was an incident in one of airlines which dragged its own customer who was selected randomly to go out of the plane when the overbooking prediction was not correct.

There are several angles from which we can look at the issue.

First, how do we define the goals. If the objective is profit, all companies need to make profit. So what is the reason other companies have lower probability of the same issue happening. Perhaps we need to ask how do we define profit. Is it short term or long term? Or how many period of profits are we talking about. Also, how do we define customer satisfaction and how to incorporate it in the profit calculation as bad customer experience can translate into additional costs and may reduce future income.

Second, if the goals are clear, how do we reach the goals? On what basis do we make decision to maximize the probability of reaching the goals? Is it based on gut feelings or models or both? If model, is it based on a single model or multiple models? What are our considerations to select the model? Given the same model, how many literature reviews or references do we have to support the idea that the selected model works.

Third, in selecting the models to use, we need to refer to some sets of data. How long is the validity of the data? Or when do we need to consider collecting new sets of data which may result in different conclusions?

Fourth, how do we handle variations? We know that there may be different kinds of trends on certain category, such as day of the week, hour, season, geographical location, etc. How do we segmentize the market or the trend? What are the simplifications we make? Also, do we assume that the involved parties are not able to react? Or what kind of agents flexiblity inside the model?

Fifth, how do we determine bad and good decision process? We need to remember that good decision may not result in good outcome. In the same way, good outcome does not necessarily mean good decision was made. What we need to preserve is the good decision as good decision has the probability of having better outcome in the long run.

The importance of creativity, due diligence, and neutrality of data.

Today I learned that it is important to be able to create something ourselves and to exercise the due diligence of literature review. I also learn that the same data can be used differently depending on the perspectives of the people communicating the data.

The problem mentioned in the media this week is that one of the candidate pair of the Jakarta governor election is accused of copying a Jewish’ contemporary spiritual song.

After I did a literature review in the youtube, I found that there are at least six different dates signifying different songs with the same melody. This illustrates the importance of creativity. If we want to avoid trouble, the best is to create something ourselves and not to copy from other people’s works.

The second learning point is the due diligence. It is true that the candidate’s song (the sixth on the list) is copied based on the fourth song, the song theme of a party in the Indonesian general election in 2014. But both of that party and the current governor candidate’s team seemed to not having enough literature review on the song. They may only look at the first original song which does not contain the Jewish spiritual content without looking again on the other songs with the same melody. The one accused them may also choose to ignore or not do the due diligence to check that the candidate may not necessarily copy the Israeli song. For us, the lesson learned is check first both the original work and the other works who have referenced and copied them in some ways.

The third lesson is the neutrality of data. Data is a fact and is objective. But the key takeaways based on the data can be different depending on our interpretation. So be careful on reading something even if it is supported by data. Check what are the differences between the key takeways and the data together with other possible interpretations based on the same data.

For example, I can cut the data to show only the 4th to 6th song. In that case, it looks as if the candidate never copies the Israeli song, just because there is a second official release of that song as the 5th in the list (later than the 4th song used by an Indonesian party). On the other hand, I can also release only the 2nd data to make people believe that the candidate or the party copied from the 2nd song as if there is no 1st song. At the same time, opinion is also important. In this case, the musician created the 2nd and 5th song complained about the 6th song while the 1st song’s musician does not say anything.

So the one reading this article may also have different interpretations. Also, it is possible to revise the conclusion if someone found there is a data earlier than the one published as the 1st song. Here is the list for your references indicating the danger of using the same melody:

Youtube Date: 12 Sep 2012

Title: C’Est La Vie (English translation: It’s Life/Such is Life/That’s Life)

By: Khaled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dWeeUIZFgA

Youtube Date: 27 Jan 2013

Title: Hashem Meleh (English translation: The Lord is King)

By: Gad Elbaz & Beni Elbaz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9mxV2KXclE

English Translation of the Lyrics (14 May 2015): http://lyricstranslate.com/en/hashem-melech-%D7%94-%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%9A-lord-king.html

Youtube Date: 2 Jun 2013, 11 Oct 2013

Title: Vivir mi la vida (English translation: Live My Life)

By: Marc Anthony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5hkFH2DtzI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYZBULGd7CU (lyrics in English & Spanish)

Youtube Date: 5 Mar 2014

Title: Kobarkan Semangat Indonesia (Lagu Tema PKS di Pemilu 2014)

By: Shoutul Harokah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWjfQTT-osk

Youtube Date: 23 Jan 2016

Title: Hashem Melech 2.0

By: Gad Elbaz and Nissim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Y_5brDUSM

Youtube Date: 24 Nov 2016

Title: Kobarkan Semangat (Warga Jakarta)

Published By: PKS TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKM95xRT-lA

Work Hard in Silence, Let Your Success Make the Noise

Last week I bought the t-shirt with a quote as in the title. It is a nice t-shirt and I wore it yesterday for the first time. It reminds me not to talk or hypothesize too much and more of putting energy in work smart and to be relentless in pursuing our calling from God.

I enjoy more and more working at my current role as there are interesting problems to identify the significant factors and come up with the corresponding solutions. Just like what the German professor said in Rudy Habibie movie, if we have one phrase to describe engineering, that would be problem solving. Engineers, unlike scientists, work when there are problems. We also innovate not because of pure passion like artists, but because we see a problem and therefore try to use the existing tools and even create new tools to address the problem. We also focus on the solution or workaround. This means if we can have a temporary or long-term workaround, we consider it as part of the achievements even if we have not fully identified the root cause. In my intern’s world, engineers are about making things work.

I often act being very vocal in a meeting. But when asked whether I have done some experiments with real data to back the hypothesis, I often can’t say further as I have not spent enough time to do them. In other worlds, applying the concept is very important in my role as engineers. It is true that I like to talk. But let’s spend more energy in doing actions including planning actions instead of pure imagination and thoughts exercise.

Silence is not just no-talking as nowadays we can use e-mail or whatsapp to type long explanations and theories. Silence perhaps is referring to the action of holding ourselves from communicating our theories before we do literature reviews or experiments to support our theories. Silence also means to do something to support us in working hard such as doing exercise and writing this blog daily or learning languages daily. Writing in this blog is also perhaps a theory. But at least it is created not to respond to what other people’s thoughts but more of a reflection and an act to create something out of the many different thoughts in my head. And of course, as what I planned last year, this blog is a commitment to do something short but routine.