Kingsman 2

This afternoon my wife and I watched the sequel of Kingsman: the golden circle. Aside from the violence scene, there is an argument that is interesting. The villain poison the drugs like cocaine, heroine, so that they will die if they do not receive the anti-dote. There the president and one of the secret agent have a view that it is fine to let go millions of lives of those people as they are the one choosing to do something that is not good - taking drugs. The reason is two-fold. One is as punishment so that there will be less people wanting to try drugs. The particular secret agent called Whiskey has another reason. His wife was killed by someone who was under influence of drugs. So he thinks that the world would become more peaceful if all those who are involved with drugs are gone.

That reminds me with a Japanese drama where the main protagonist hold view that although criminal is wrong, it is important to try their best not to kill them, regardless of the criminal level that they did. It is a reminder that life is precious. Hate the sin but not the sinners. This is especially as we are also sinner. Each of us is most probably addicted to something. It may not be drugs, it can be money, power, popularity, or relationship. And because of those addiction, we may harm other people. So remember that it is not our place to pose judgment. It is only for God Himself. And remember how great our God’s love that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die for us, so that we can be freed from our addictions.

Adhering to Time Limit

Today I went back 30 mins later than usual timing even when today is Friday. My excuse is that I do not want to bring work laptop to home this weekend. But the question is that is it necessary? Or is it because I could not adhere to the time limit?

Yes, there are many things to do. But do I spend too much on certain tasks? Do I go too detail on it? Are they important tasks or something that can be let go?

Yes, I am upset about myself not being able to adhere the time limit. But remember there is no benefit of scolding myself. Also, remember the blessings and the positive points.

The positive points today are I managed to update my personal goal within a short time. I also managed to scrap several unwanted devices within 1 hour. Then before going to Pilates, I followed up on certain issue from yesterday as scheduled.

I was also back at cube at 2 pm from Pilates, the desired time. The updating of the order for my project was also done. It was also good that I could share to my friend that I also believe Jesus is the only way to God.

So do not give up in the up and down to learn to adhere the time. In the coming three weeks, my friend whom I usually leave office together is away. This is a good chance to practice to adhere on the time to go back home.

Talk and Do

Yesterday and today I talked a lot with my colleagues. At the same time, by the grace of God, I also manage to do some works.

Yesterday was packed from the morning when I had an unscheduled discussion in the morning. But because of that I could cancel a meeting in the afternoon. I also tried to follow up things one by one. And try to do something that is important. My best friend in office was surprised that when I said firmly I wanted to go back at a later timing instead of being indecisive whether I go back with him or not. I did manage to concentrate on finish something important. But because of that I missed the last bus and had to make my wife wait for a while.

Today I tried to do one by one. I learned to let go small things such as ordering food for my meeting this afternoon. I learned to play by ear such as it happened that I went for lunch where there is NTUC. And I also saw oBike at my office that I could reduce the time taken to go back at NTUC since one of the item I wanted to buy is ice cream.

In both days, I got reminded that it is very easy for us to get busy and forgot about God. Somehow important things at work may become more important than God or what He wants us to do. So in each day, I need to remember that achieving as much as possible is not the main thing. Even giving our best is not necessarily the main thing. The important one is to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit when He leads us to focus on Jesus.

Knowing What are Important

Thank God that by His grace, I become very positive in the last 1.5 week. But somehow yesterday and today I start to feel exhausted. One of the things I started to forget counting my blessings. Yes I begin not to count my mistakes. Now when I make mistakes, I can move on quickly. But apparently it is also dangerous when I start to count my achievements or how many things I managed to get done in a particular day.

First, isn’t giving my best the important thing? Remember that in the past few months, it is very difficult for me to get things done. Sometimes an e-mail or a single slide take one day. So overcoming my worries or fear is the important one. Now that I start to be able to manage my stress, I can enjoy it. What makes me feel exhausted is perhaps my standard unconsciously start to rise up again. It is like one thing get done without stress is not enough. I want to achieve as many as possible. This means I start to deviate on what is important.

Secondly, not all things are important. One of my seniors told me that he enjoyed reading my detailed notes. But he also mentioned that if I keep doing that for many aspects, I will have little time to work or do the follow up actions from the notes. So I need to practice in deciding which one need nice notes, which one is not. For example yesterday I was asked how to add shortcut to Microsoft Office’s document location. I could just search and forward the link instead of trying to explain in detail. Today my best friend in office also showed me how to use existing tool and let go my perfectionism tendency to correct every single thing even if an expert on that area says the impact is small.

Third, be honest and trust people. There was a call from Kiddy Palace Toa Payoh saying that there is a stock on the coconut balsam I was looking for. I already bought in Westgate but I didn’t directly tell them. Only when they asked when I am going to Toa Payoh, then I mentioned I no longer need the item. Similarly, a colleague asked on how to do things. In my team, there is one role who is supposed to do it. But because I am not sure whether he can do it, I went to ask a senior who did that role previously. I wondered why didn’t I just ask the current person regardless whether he can do it or not. Anyway if he can’t, he is the one responsible to ask the person doing it - regardless whether he actually does it or not. Like what my counselor previously said, let go of the desire for being able to control uncertainty.

So now what? Realize that things are actually doing very good. Count the blessings instead of focusing on the things not yet done. Admit my limitation that I can’t do all things. I need to choose what is important and focus on those things first.

Using Stories to Memorize

The second part of my course last week was on how to memorize better. The key takeaway is that our long-term memory is based on the right brain. However, right brain does not recognize things such as numbers. So we need to create ways so that we can use our right brain more in memorizing stuffs. First is to give meaning. For example, a series of numbers can be remembered by breaking down into some meaningful combinations such as number of days in a week, number of weeks in a month, number of seconds in a minute and so on. A series of alphabets can be memorized by breaking down into meaningful sentence.

Likewise, words can be remembered by building bisociation - an illogical connection which makes us easier to remember. For example, to remember the words book, trousers, house, door, pen, coffee, pay, the, coffee, television, we can say I put the book into trousers and the trousers are inside a house. When we open the door, it is locked, so we used pen to open it. The moment we opened the door, we smelled coffee, and we pay the coffee with television.

The other technique is to use number pegging system. So each number is coded into some imagery. Then we can use that to recall the connection with certain sentences. For example, if we connect one with sun, two with shoes, three with tree, four with door, five with fingers, six with stick, seven with heaven; we can create stories using that one. For example, we can say the second principle of seven habits as I look upon my shoes and walk backward so that we can begin with end in mind.

The challenge now is on how to practice on my own for the things I really need to remember and with my own ways of creating the stories.

Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus

Yesterday and today I attended a course titled Read Faster! Memorise Better! Think Clearer. For the first part which is read faster, we learn how to do speed reading. The essence of speed reading is how we train our eye movement. Apparently we can train our eye. At the same time, our eyes can be easily tricked. For example, yesterday we were shown several images where when we fixated on certain dots for a long time, we will still see the images even when they are no longer shown. A grey surrounding around black dot can also disappear when we fixate on the black dot. A negative film can also be changed to color one when we fixated on three dots of red green and blue.

All those remind me the importance of fixing our eyes to the correct object. Like my eyes, I am also easily tricked by my mind and fear. I often think myself as worthless. I hate myself. I could not do many things. I cannot stand doing things when I am anxious. I guess those mean that I focus on the wrong place. So I need to turn my eyes upon Jesus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will go strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace; said a song.

It reminds me also on one story and one personal experience. The story is on how Peter started to be drown when he focused on the water instead of Jesus. A personal experience was learning how to stay on the plank for more than 6 seconds during motorcycle lesson - the key was to focus looking far instead of looking down on the plank.

So, let’s focus our eyes upon Jesus so that we can enjoy Him and glorify Him forever.

Applying what I learned

In the past four days I began to be more confident. Perhaps that’s after recap of the last two weeks with many ups and downs that I began to see that it is perfectly fine to be imperfect. For example, days with struggles at some part of the time, some failures, and at the same time some successes in overcoming the fear and just asking other people or doing what is needed.

Last Friday I managed to focus on one thing out of the three. Similarly, yesterday I could only did two out of the 3 top things. Today I only managed to do one of the main priority while others are not met. But I just felt happy.

At the same time, it is also a reminder that streak is not necessary. Having two consecutive working days with positive overall feeling does not need to continue everyday. It is normal if we have some days with overall negative feelings. Of course it does not mean that we reduce the effort for counting blessings instead of counting mistakes. But even in that, we may fail to count blessings in some days.

Another reminder is that when I feel happy, it does not mean things are okay and then I start to take new commitments that are more interesting or for the sake of sustaining the happy feelings. For example, I thought today is pretty good. But if I look objectively, there are still many important things that are not yet touched. So yes, thank God that I can be happy. But it does not mean that things are going well. I need to continue to focus on working the important and non-urgent stuffs. So continue the effort to calm down when there are new optional things coming up.

It is not easy. But again, our part is to give the five loaves and two bread, our best, and let God do the rest. Also, remember that only God can fix us.

Recap of last week

It is more than a week since my last post. Many things have happened. Last Tuesday I heard stories from my wife’s first check up at NUH. Thank God that things are going well. On Wednesday, I read an article and a video from my wife that were really exposing my way of thinking, and they are useful to understand myself better. On Thursday I learned to manage my anxiety and still led a meeting despite my worries and doubts. On Friday I learned to leave early together with my wife and the appointment was fast that I can reach office on time. I also managed to make decision to go back early. My colleague reminded me that it is not possible to please everyone. Also, that work is not the most important, we need to focus on the comments from those we love. A comment is also not taken seriously before it is repeated by others or perhaps in my own reflection when it is repeated several times. He also reminded me to be aware of my breathing. In the church, I also learned from the conversation with Elder Chan whose article appeared on last Thursday’s Straits Times. He shared on how to be fearless with the mindset not to offend people but to be true to our principle and be curious when things are said to be impossible. Things are not 1 or 0 and so use the wisdom given by God to find alternatives such as the example of car ownership. He also commented on how I can respond better about the issue my intern faced.

On Saturday I failed to manage my anxiety as I underestimated the load that day. End up I hurt my beloved and left a scar. It shows that there is a consequence on what I did. And how anxiety can create problems.

This week it has been 4 days. There are many instances where I hate myself. And where I went back up again. I received many useful inputs and sometimes I became stressed wanting to capture all. At the same time there is a need to wrap up as it seems I kept starting something and not wrapping them up. End up the list of things in my mind become longer and longer. Nevertheless, again, there is no use of scolding myself. What I need is to accept myself, remember that only God who can fix me, and give my best.

On Trusting Myself

It is still very hard to trust myself. I already know that this is one of the root causes for my indecisiveness. I also watched a Korean medical drama where it said how can a patient trust the doctor if the doctor does not trust himself or herself. But it is still hard for me. Perhaps because I often hate myself when I am not satisfied with the reality of how I behave or perform. So how to trust someone whom we hate?

Instead of forcing myself to trust myself directly, I need to trust those whom I love. My wife said that I can do it and I am good enough despite my failures, so that is the one that I need to trust. It is also time to remember that God loves me and I can trust on Him. It is a lesson of humility to say that He is correct and I am wrong, such as my own perception of myself.

Like today, morning was very tough. In the afternoon it is also hard to see my messiness and how difficult it is to organize both my mind and my table. I was quite satisfied with me for keep asking people. But that is not the point. Because if I am satisfied because of my performance, it will just a matter of time before I am disappointed again. So learn to trust myself because God trust me. And my wife also trusts me. So the next time I hate myself, no need to focus on stop hating myself, focus on instead of the perception of those whom I trust.

Eating and Sightseeing in Medan

Another post on Medan trip. We continued eating at different places. On Friday evening we ate at Dimsum Ayong at Babura street. It was raining hard and the place was located at a dead end road. But there were still many people. What I learned was do not judge the taste of the food from its appearance. The first food was white kway teow. It did not look tasty at all. But once we tried, it was really nice. The other foods were nice too. On Saturday, we ate at Restoran Ana which is also at Orion street like Hawwi seafood. The place was simple but the food taste was great too. On the evening, we went to eat at Marco seafood at Cemara Asri complex. The crab was really tender. I also learned that there is something called ikan ayam-ayam or ikan kambing-kambing of which English name is Starry Tigerfish.

Aside from the eating, we managed to go to two malls, Sun Plaza and Centre Point. As for the cultural attraction, we went to Tjong A Fie mansion in the city centre and Graha Maria Annai Velangkanni which is located 40 minutes from the city. The latter is a church built for Tamil community but then open for all. It was my first time to see a church where we need to take off our shoes before entering the building. The architecture was also unique. At the same time, it makes me wonder about the boundary of contextualization and pluralism.

First Trip to Medan

Yesterday my wife and I reached Medan, our first time to be there. The focus of this trip is to relax and eat. We have been eating many kinds of food. Once we reached Medan yesterday, we ate at Simpang Tiga restaurant serving Padang food with their delicious rendang. I also tried terong belanda juice. We ate at Nelayan Shanghai Kitchen, a Halal Chinese food for dinner. Today, we ate at Hawwi seafood, trying the crab with Padang sauce. After a second trip to Sun Plaza mall, we dropped by at La Maison pattisserie to buy their macarons. They have so many flavors, some of which are weird - we didn’t try: such as rendang and mie goreng flavor. Since they did not serve any drink and no seating available, we went to Ismud park, a cafe nearby. We ate the cakes there together with pisang goreng coklat keju and Martabak Buddy’s mini consisting of four different slices with different flavors: ovomaltine, nutella, toblerone and cheese.

Aside the food, I learned three things: one is to accept my feeling. In the morning I was still moody and I learned to accept that often I will feel moody in the morning, something that is not realistic to be changed in a short period of time. Second is that somehow there will be a time to learn, no need to force. For example I learned from talking to my wife’s uncle and cousin about color mapping, customer preference, and digital printing. Third, there is a quote I saw in Ismud park: happiness is when we stop comparing ourselves with other people.