Why must it be me who need to change?

My wife’s birthday wish is to have a less cranky husband. So the question is how do I become less cranky version of myself?

One important question that I need to answer is: why must it be me who need to change?

As I become the better version of myself, I tend to fall into the pride of claiming that I have changed more than others. That may not be true. But even it is, do I have the right to demand people stop asking me to change or worse, to ask people to change as much as I change?

The answer is that anyone in the world will most probably acknowledge that we can only change ourselves. We cannot change other people. Yes, we can manipulate people. But even then, they are the one who decide whether they want to be manipulated. We have no control on others. 

So why it must be me? Because I cannot change other people. I am the only one whom I can change in this world. I cannot change my wife, my family, my colleagues, my company, my country, and this world. I can only change myself. 

The more appropriate question is do I really want to change myself? Sometimes I assume I have to because I say so or other people demand me to change. But in reality, I do have an option. It is okay not to change myself as long as I am willing to bear the consequences. Just like people can choose to continue smoking and drinking alcholol excessively as long as they are willing to bear the consequences, I too do not have to stop my bad habits. So don’t be angry of other people asking me to change. If I am willing to accept the consequences, by all means I do not need to change. I need to remember this.

Next, why do I want to change? That will be related to what is my goal of life. If I really want to make trusting Jesus fully and loving people to be my goal, wouldn’t it be natural to ask what would Jesus do? What would Jesus like me to do? How to love people better? How to love myself better, how to know my wife and love her better, how to love others better including saying no at the right time?

So as often I will need to face the question of why am I the only one who need to change, let’s answer as many times as possible that I am the only one whom I can change and I have the option not to change myself if I am willing to bear the consequences.

Happy birthday my beloved wife!

Congratz for surviving another year! 2017 was a very tough year for you and you deserve much more than what I can do and give.

You need to handle new job with all its newness, handle the extreme rollercoaster of your husband’s emotion, and the physical pain in expecting our baby.

1 year ago was your first month dealing with secondary school students instead of primary, going the long distance from Bukit Batok to Bishan everyday, teaching classes in the evening, and teaching Bahasa Indonesia instead of English, Maths, and Science. New colleagues, new way of doing things, losing the chance of meeting close colleagues everyday, were all tough. But you adapted incredibly and made significant contributions in setting up the system and resources. And I think your students are very fortunate to have you teach them :).

The past 1 year was tough for you as I changed personalities several times.

It began with relatively better moods after the long holiday in Dec 2016 which helped me recover. But then I went too extreme. I changed to the other side of me which you have not seen, namely shamelessly sharing info. Everywhere I go I share something from Duolingo to job vacacny in your office even when I have not talked long to them. Then afterwards, the angry side of me appeared. I become angry easily especially when receiving feedbacks no matter how true and useful they are. You asked me to submit to 1 conference but in my excitement, I wanted to submit to 4 which was clearly beyond my ability and time resources. I ended up with 1 rejected and 1 which I wanted to withdraw if not because of my friend.

Worst, the June holiday which was supposed to be fun became a negative turning point. I became anxious of many things and hurt you. I became angry of myself too on too many things that I ended up down again for several months. You needed to grit your teeth and brought me for treatment even when the future looked bleak with days after days of no improvement. You had to endure my harsh words and emotion even when there is such beautiful news of our baby. You needed to hold your sadness and stepped up to take care of our family and looked for house.

In September I started to be better thanks to your painful tears due to me being anxious and uninvolved in renovation. It was God’s grace that it went on and even the Dec holiday which was on the brink of cancellation became one of the most memorable as it was the most relax holiday so far.

Now I am not down but the anger comes more frequently and I need to be careful. It was a tough year last year and I hope to alleviate your struggle by continuing to seek treatment and improving my emotional muscles’s strength and flexibility realistically.

The physicial pain due to the pregnancy was not easy as well. Again, salute to your grit, you could overcome the morning sickness with ginger tea, found the right meals and milk, worked hard for exercise every morning. Sleeping becomes harder, legs start swelling, and the list can go on. Thanks for coping very well for our baby and for ourselves.

Let’s remember that our God continues to be with us, shaping your stubborn husband to be better, and granting enough strength, and fills you with joy in each step of the journey forward. Like what our wedding ceremony text said, God makes everything beautiful in His time. Happy birthday my beloved wife!

Where do I fall off on my race?

This morning my devotion asked me to check where do I fall off on my race in trusting Jesus fully and loving people?

Truly, there are some patterns. It goes like this. First I have some unrealistic expectations on either myself or others. Then I become angry to myself or others because the expectation is not met. Afterwards, I realized that it is wrong to be angry. But instead of admitting it, I became disappointed of myself being angry. In other word, I become angry because I was angry!

Both the primary and secondary anger will then make me feel miserable. I wanted to shout out but there is a part of me saying that I should not do it. So I will become depressed as the strong emotions are pressed instead of being managed. At certain point of time, I blow up.

This will then create third level of anger when I realized I have blown up. This cycle can go on and on that I become depressed and hard to get back up as my self-defeating behavior and disappointment increase.

That’s one pattern. Another pattern happens when by God’s grace I recover from depression.

Initially I considered any progress as God’s grace. But as I receive grace upon grace, instead of depending on God’s future grace, I start to think that those successes may not be God’s grace but my own work.

So I start to feel good about myself and becoming addicted of it. I worship achievements instead of God and I want more achievements. So I set myself into more things or more difficult items for the journey to get greater satisfaction. I then don’t really care whether what I want to do are what God designs me to do. All these lead to unrealistic expectations and the cycle repeat.

From the above cycle, we can see that it is hopeless unless we break the cycle by God’s grace and continue to depend on His grace instead of ourselves.

By God’s grace, for God’s glory

At this hour, I dread of the thoughts of the many things I need to do. They are just too many. And I keep falling short of the schedules. I just cannot do as fast as I wish. Then today I come across the term Godless morality. It sounds to be inconsistent with the meaning. But apparently it is possible to do good without God. That is when we want to do good things by our own strengths and for our own benefits.
That sounds like me. I wanted to do all those things in my to-do-list with my own strengths and my own way. And why do I want to do all of them? It is not for God but for my own pride and satisfaction of doing all those things.
So what shall I do now? Remember that my purpose of life is to trust Jesus and love people so that God is glorified. And remember that God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.
Therefore, let me do the things in God’s grace, and not my own strength. If it is the time to sleep, then sleep. If we need to fall of short of the standard, then bear the consequences. Say no, say sorry, admit our mistakes.
Let’s also do things for God. Ask how God can be glorified by this. Remember why we want to do good in our work, in our home. Isn’t it for God’s glory? If it is really is and God says it is okay for us to glorify in other ways, shouldn’t we be joyful even when our works are not as good as we wished?
Remember, whatever we do, do it for the glory of God. And remember, it is all by God’s grace alone. 

How much do I love writing?

It has been the sixth day of the year and this is my second post. And I even need to drag myself to write this. As I am feeling uncomfortable now after being emotional, I remembered that the best way to overcome pain is to embrace it. Writing is one of the ways to do it. To acknowledge and admit that we feel uncomfortable, that we were angry, that we did something. No matter how irrational it was, it did happen. There was a saying that something can not be changed until it is first admitted. 

I also need to admit that I am lazy to write. Just as I have observed last month, I only want to do things which are exciting. The excitement can come either from the joy of helping people, the adrenalin rush of being last minute, the comfort of doing something easy. So in other word, I will not do something if it does not meet those criteria. For example is writing. It is not last minute. It is not really for others as this is for myself. It is also not easy to decide what to write. As it is not exciting, I do not do it. This is in contrast with duolingo. No matter how tough it is, there is always a key answer, so it can be considered as providing comfort on doing something that it is more straightforward. 

I asked myself do I love writing? Well, may not be. So the better question is do I need writing? Yes or no. Theoretically I do need as I need to get the emotions out of my head. At the same time, practically it is often no especially as I feel high nowadays. So I feel that I do not really need to do this writing. I have also stopped doing filling up the template of rational emotive behavior therapy. My exercise is also not as tight as previous when I felt stressed. 

So I guess I need to remind myself, no matter how it seems that I do not need it, the truth is that I need this writing. Perhaps it is not just for myself, but also for following God’s calling to create. I do not cook, I do not do art. So perhaps, a creation that I can do is this write-up. 

Importance of Warming Up

Yesterday I ran with a friend for almost 3 km. Unlike previous jogging sessions, I struggled the most yesterday. Partly because I did not do enough warm up.

I did not do the usual stretching yesterday both in the morning and after I took an afternoon nap. I underestimated because of my pride having completed a 10 km run during Standard Chartered run on 3 Dec 2017. It is wrong as it has been almost one month since the run.

So what happened was that my right back of knee started to feel pain that it became the bottleneck. The breathing was okay but the leg could not take it. The distance with my friend became very long. 

Moral of the story, it is the part that we did not warm up that causes us not to be able to perform as planned. 

Likewise, today is the first day of work of the year. It was not easy to manage the pace so that it is neither too slow or too fast. It cannot be that slow as things are piling up. At the same time I could not be that fast as my energy is limited. For example, I already felt sleepy now. 

So, for tomorrow, remember to spend time to warm up. This includes doing something gradually instead of wanting to do all things at the same time. Also remember that things are in the long run and so I need to adjust the pace accordingly.