It reflects bad on me

Written on 7 Dec 2017

Today both my manager and my best friend in office told me that my presentation reflected bad on me. It showed that I came unprepared to the meeting.

Well, I agree with that. Coz I only started looking at the data yesterday late afternoon for a while. And then today I only started to focus 30 mins before the meeting.

In the first place, I knew that I would keep delaying. That is the reason I asked the principal engineer last week to include me sharing the data in this week’s meeting. Because I knew that if there is no physical deadline such as having to present, then I will not prepare at all.

At the same time, it is true that I was not ready to present for larger audience. It reflected bad on me as I did not prepare enough. Somehow I did not care. I even dared to tell the audiences that I only prepared the presentation 1 hour before the meeting and will add the material later on.

That was a sign that I swing to the other extreme where I did not care at all about image from the other extreme of caring about image too much. I also tried to defend myself that at least that was better already as compared to not doing at all.

I need to remember, that was not the only solution. There is a spectrum of alternatives. For example I could set a deadline to present with my co-system integrator. So I still have a deadline to present but not to the larger audience. At least the larger audience can receive 2nd draft or even 3rd or 4th later on.

So let’s aim this coming new year to present at least a 2nd draft to the larger audience if not more.

Jumping to Conclusion

My recent Japan trip reminds me that I tend to jump to conclusion. Last month my best friend in office already gave a feedback that I often jumped into conclusion with a limited data. His recommendation was to suspend judgment and to collect enough data before making a conclusion.

My Kyoto trip showed how wrong I could be in jumping to conclusion. I went to Kyoto for the first time in June 2014. As it was a packed trip, I only allocated a day trip to Kyoto from Osaka. I reached there in the morning. I bought a bus pass and then took bus. I made a mistake by alighting at the wrong place. It caused me and my wife to walk so many steps to the nearest tourist spot under the hot sun. I concluded that Kyoto is an old city with nothing to see except nice sceneries or beautiful temples. I went back at around 3 pm to Osaka on that day.

This holiday we decided to give a second chance by staying in Kyoto for three nights. That is where I realized that I was completely wrong. Kyoto has two of its own subway lines and there are other inter-cities lines that reaches other places inside Kyoto. In short the train network is quite solid. Also, apparently there are many malls and modern buildings. We also went to Kyoto tower where albeit its lower height, the experience was one of the nicest as it provides free and many binoculars around the circular platform that we could even see the face of people walking in the road.

It also has many nice food - something that is against my conclusion in 2014 where I said nice food can only be found in Osaka. In fact, Kyoto has Pontocho, an area of narrow alleys of fine dining. We did not try due to its expensive prices - again against my previous conclusion of Kyoto as only a traditional place.

In other trips, I also tend to be more aware of jumping into conclusion when observing something. So hopefully I can keep practicing to hold my judgment and collect more data first before making a conclusion. At least, just update my hypothesis first and then collect more data to assess the hypothesis.

The Pacer

Tomorrow would be my first Standar Chartered run. I participated in 10 km and so there are no pacers to follow on the day. But thank God for He granted me a friend who becomes the pacer in my training. Yesterday was my third session with him.

Now I understand better on how important the role of the pacer is. Without him, I may tend to run faster in the beginning. He reminded me that the run is still far and therefore to keep the pace reasonable. As the minutes go by, my distance with him keeps increasing. This means that I started to lose out the excitement, in other word, things get tougher. Having a pacer is helpful for me to focus to just follow Him, in fact no need to look far, just try that we keep the same distance as the Pacer. And during our last lap, he usually speeds up to give all he has, and so I also learn to create second wind. Last time I thought second wind is automatic. Apparently it is not, it is when we feel weak but we have the faith that we can do more than that. And so the second wind is created. There is usually no third win. So the moment we slow down during second wind - I experienced it due to the temptation to slow down as there are few people in front; we kind of lose it and it is hard to maintain the pace.

How about my usual life? Do I make Jesus to be my pacer? Do I fix my eyes upon Him so that the things of earth will grow strangely dim? As I reflected my journey of up and down, one thing becomes clear, I need a pacer of my emotion too which means I need to follow the pacer and not my emotion And that pacer is Jesus.