Hello hello,
I guess sometimes insomnia is a good friend of bloggers! I have been lamenting to myself and my friends about the lack of time to write this year, and since I find myself wide awake for no particular reason at 2am tonight, and happened to be online as I was shutting down my computer, I decided why not write about some things I believe God is teaching me these few weeks.
I guess many times, God speaks to me through repetition, or coincidence, or "divine resonance" of events, which is a cheem way of saying, how unrelated things over a period of time (maybe a month) seem to have the same theme or touch on the same topic. This is the case these past few weeks.
Let's see. It started with Sister Cynthia who visited my cell group as a guest speaker, to share about how she saw her role in the body of Christ. She was a soft-spoken, genteel lady but when she spoke on this topic, you could sense the fire in her soft, velvet-like voice. She spoke about how she felt, through verses that jumped out at her when she read the Bible, inner passions that never go away and through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, that she was to be a sort of "watchman" for this generation, to awaken more people of God to know their calling in God, or the role God wants them to play in His kingdom, and to fulfil it, and to raise up more workers for God in the harvest field. I wondered of course, what was my role in the kingdom of God, and was reminded once again of how I felt convicted to write my thoughts, reflections and learning points when I was penning down my reflections busily and happily in Starbucks in Dec 2013 (hmm...). I can certainly identify with the "inner passions that never go away" part. I have always wondered if God wants me to be a writer. He hasn't made that crystal clear to me yet, or given me a confirmation I cannot second-guess . But I recall what my ex-pastor and spiritual mentor said that even if I write it for me, to clarify my own thoughts on an issue, that would be valuable in itself. So I am heeding his advice, and starting small and humbly. Publishing a bestseller and achieving worldwide fame and glory can be something God decides to bestow on me later, or not! Haha!
So, the second thing that happened was when my husband shared about his conversation with a missionary friend. This guy told my husband about an intriguing concept - that there are three levels of giving we can achieve:
(i) Basic tithing - Where we give 10% to God, as mentioned in the Bible, or as another friend put it, we give 100% to God (since it all belongs to Him anyway) and He graciously gives us 90% to spend
(ii) We give beyond 10%, according to the faith He has given us, and we receive blessings manifold, sometimes even a hundredfold. He told us the parable of the soil, about when you sow on good soil, you can reap a harvest that is thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what you sowed
(iii) We reach a state whereby the giving and receiving are happening simultaneously and seamlessly and endlessly, where we are giving to God as fast as we can but He is giving back even faster - proving the point that you cannot outgive God. I smiled when I heard that - what a blessed state to be in!
I was challenged when I heard that about my personal life - the missionary said that this applies not just to money, but also our time, our energy, our talents. How little of everything do I give to God! And the missionary also said that there is a principle of the firstfruits - basically when you give the first and best portion of anything you have, you sanctify the rest of it. So for example, if you give God your first paycheck, you sanctify the rest of your paychecks, or God will protect and bless it. If you give God the first and best part of the day, you sanctify the rest of it. And so on. The example was how when Moses sacrificed Isaac, he sanctified the rest of the Jews. When God sacrificed His firstborn Son, He sanctified the rest of mankind who believe in Jesus. It is an interesting principle, and one which I cannot wait to test out! This is also in line with what I know of God's character - that He is looking at our heart - are we fully surrendered to Him, are we willing to give Him everything. And as a proxy of "everything", cos God isn't a sadist, He just knows what will give us maximum fulfillment in life, and that is not getting too attached to His gifts but He Himself, giving Him the first and best part of what we have is a good indication, or proof of our surrenderedness. We could go a step further and give Him more than the first part, and I guess that is where the second and third states of giving kick in - you just simply cannot outgive God. What a wonderful testimony such a life would be! I must say it seems unwise to make this a formula to get rich, the intent seems to go against the fundamental objective of God, which is to wean us away from "the deceitfulness of wealth", but I do believe God can use and honour whatever baby steps we can take, simply because He knows we are dust and so fallible.
The last one was when I simply ran out of fiction books to read (I hadn't had time to browse for new books for myself from the library, and my library card is maxed out with books for my children), and so I went to my bookshelf and picked out this book called "Been There Done That", which is an exciting book about a local guy who became an OM missionary and travelled the world. Several things stood out from the book:
At one point, he talked about how he was very shaken by two deaths he witnessed on the road as a missionary. Being a young Christian, he was troubled about where he would go if he died that night, and God showed him Galations 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me". The verse struck him like a tornado and he realised that his life was no longer his. It belonged and still belongs to Jesus. This resonated deep within me and struck me hard as well, I suppose because of its totality, its uncompromising nature. It talks about the ownership of our life. Who is the real owner of us? Who calls the shots? Who determines what we do with our time, our money, ourselves? The world will say, well, it's us of course! In fact, the whole self-help thing is about the self. Advertising is all about pampering the self. But here, God is saying, after believing in God, we no longer own ourselves. We are His. We are, in a way, dead to the world, as we are crucified with Christ. These are deep concepts, which I shall need to mull over to fully digest what it means. Clearly I am not dead. I still feel hunger, thirst, needs, wants. I still procrastinate and want to take the easy way out (e.g. entertain myself rather than write!). And I do not think God expects us not to take care of ourselves or enjoy ourselves. He is not a killjoy. In fact, God is probably the best party-goer in the world, and the one who most fully enjoys life. He knows how to have a good time. The Bible says He holds "eternal pleasures" in His right hand. But somehow, that is entwined with giving up. It is a paradox and a mystery. Perhaps it can only be experienced, not reasoned.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Busy and Wonderful Holiday
Dear all,
Wow, I've been away really long. In the meantime, I have done many things, of which I list a hodge-podge of things below:
- Travelled to Bali with hubby and his sister and her enthusiastic, youthful gang of 3 other friends (really enjoyed the whitewater rafting and wading in the clear blue, warm and shallow sea, with lapping waves that create waist high waves that make it quite fun and exciting! So unlike the really calm and gentle sea of Singapore. Besides that, many of the things I felt could be done in Singapore, e.g. spa massage, nice meals, even doing some sea sports like jet-skiing and flying fish - why don't we have it in Singapore? We have the sea space for it)
- Went with inlaws and family to Botanic Gardens again, and even though this time we didn't see the awesome band again, we did see large turtles swimming in a large pond, several black and white birds with really long thin legs and gigantic feet, and smelled some really awesome earl grey loose leaf tea in a tin, in the orchid garden shop; also I just really enjoyed the negative ions in that garden. I always feel so refreshed after walking through it
- Went to Starbucks twice on my own with my laptop to blog and journal and pray and read the Bible (what a luxury for a working mom with 2 young kids!), and in my alone time, I reflected on what I really wanted to do next year and resolved to write a book or at least, a series of articles addressing the most commonly asked but tricky questions and issues faced by Singaporeans today! They range from issues arising from relationships (or lack of them), to work to family to personal life. And I'm tentatively going to name it "80 Seconds", and aim for each chapter to finish reading within 80 seconds! So yes, the general gist of the book is to provide quick, snappy, and easy-to-read answers backed by quantitative statistics and sound reasoning wherever possible (I realised reading some websites debating some of these issues, the writers tend to make generalist or sweeping statements without any proof, and anyone who knows statistics knows that you can twist a statistic to support your argument, so even more so when you don't even quote statistics, it just makes the debate really hard to follow, or for people to know who's right). However, I do realise that in today's day and age, the number of people who read hardcopy books is rapidly dwindling (just take a look around the train), and since my primary aim in writing is to share my ideas, I may also publish these articles online too - watch this blog for posts of my articles!
- We went cycling with the kids (yes, my 15-month old Caleb and 2 year 9 month Jack) in Pulau Ubin, with my hubby's friends. It was surprisingly enjoyable, and a refreshing change from the usual mall-hopping and playground-visiting that we do. It costs $12 per bike if you want a child seat, and you get to use the bike the whole day! During the trip, we also had the chance to spot a really large spider and its intricate web, and as there were about ten kids there (my hubby's friends all brought their kids), we wanted them to see the spider. But the spider was just sitting in the middle of its web not doing anything, and Caleb had trouble seeing what the big fuss was about. So to catch his attention and show him where the spider was, I picked up a small stick and threw it at the impressive web. Sure enough, it caught and caused a stir in the web, which allowed Caleb to spot it, and also the spider immediately ran to check out the stick! But after feeling it around for quite a while, it realised it was not food, but then it started to twist the stick around and around, and slowly, slowly, eased the stick out of the web so it dropped to the floor! And then, it didn't stop there, it went on to repair the web so it was back to its pristine condition, ripe for catching mosquitoes and flies! Great spider! God really made the spider with amazing abilities.
- Went to two Christmas parties, of which one (organised by my cell) had the interesting game of "Sadistic Santa". It really had us in stitches at points, as the sadistic and selfish side of people came out! Leave a comment if you want to know how the game is played! Other games we played included two truths and a lie, and guess the baby photo :)
- Reconnected with my childhood favourite author, Christopher Pike, as in, I was wandering in Popular bookshop when I saw a brand new series of books written by him, when I thought he had stopped writing for a really long time. I quickly researched, and realised he had written a fair number of new books, and repackaged many of his old ones (good for him!) and even has 2 of his books being made into movies! Unbelieveable! I really enjoy his fast-paced, action-packed novels that usually contain mind-blowing ideas, premises and plot twists, but I find his forays into vampires and eastern religion a little less appealing than his other books
- Brought Jack to his playgroup for the first time today! Thankfully he didn't cry, although he did ask to leave quite a few times. We shall see how he behaves over the next few days, if he can really assimilate into his class.
- Borrowed and read endless books to both boys. I am constantly surprised at Jack's amazing memory, and Caleb is now babbling and speaking new words at an amazing rate. Sometimes he just mutters strings of words he knows one after another in quick succession, even if they are not making a sentence. Like "Keke, jie jie, papa" and "dog dog, sheep baaa, mae, ow ow". Caleb's personality is now coming through - he passionately likes animals, food, drawing and going out or "gai gai". Hmm... sounds a little like mommy... Jack likes playing with the tablet, going outdoors to run around and kick a ball around, and music. He really really loves music, almost to the point of going into a trance-like state and chortling with glee to himself when he is listening to a really nice track. His favourites include the soundtrack of Superman, Star Wars, Jurassic Park (from my hubby's sci-fi movie soundtrack CD) and now, an instrumental medley of Christian carols sent to us by a friend
- Read a lot of nice books, including Hunger Games (I reread the whole trilogy), Game of Thrones (I read all the books over 2 years! Now waiting for the sixth!), and some of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels.
It's been a busy two weeks of holidays indeed. Am going back to work tomorrow! Can't wait!
-
Wow, I've been away really long. In the meantime, I have done many things, of which I list a hodge-podge of things below:
- Travelled to Bali with hubby and his sister and her enthusiastic, youthful gang of 3 other friends (really enjoyed the whitewater rafting and wading in the clear blue, warm and shallow sea, with lapping waves that create waist high waves that make it quite fun and exciting! So unlike the really calm and gentle sea of Singapore. Besides that, many of the things I felt could be done in Singapore, e.g. spa massage, nice meals, even doing some sea sports like jet-skiing and flying fish - why don't we have it in Singapore? We have the sea space for it)
- Went with inlaws and family to Botanic Gardens again, and even though this time we didn't see the awesome band again, we did see large turtles swimming in a large pond, several black and white birds with really long thin legs and gigantic feet, and smelled some really awesome earl grey loose leaf tea in a tin, in the orchid garden shop; also I just really enjoyed the negative ions in that garden. I always feel so refreshed after walking through it
- Went to Starbucks twice on my own with my laptop to blog and journal and pray and read the Bible (what a luxury for a working mom with 2 young kids!), and in my alone time, I reflected on what I really wanted to do next year and resolved to write a book or at least, a series of articles addressing the most commonly asked but tricky questions and issues faced by Singaporeans today! They range from issues arising from relationships (or lack of them), to work to family to personal life. And I'm tentatively going to name it "80 Seconds", and aim for each chapter to finish reading within 80 seconds! So yes, the general gist of the book is to provide quick, snappy, and easy-to-read answers backed by quantitative statistics and sound reasoning wherever possible (I realised reading some websites debating some of these issues, the writers tend to make generalist or sweeping statements without any proof, and anyone who knows statistics knows that you can twist a statistic to support your argument, so even more so when you don't even quote statistics, it just makes the debate really hard to follow, or for people to know who's right). However, I do realise that in today's day and age, the number of people who read hardcopy books is rapidly dwindling (just take a look around the train), and since my primary aim in writing is to share my ideas, I may also publish these articles online too - watch this blog for posts of my articles!
- We went cycling with the kids (yes, my 15-month old Caleb and 2 year 9 month Jack) in Pulau Ubin, with my hubby's friends. It was surprisingly enjoyable, and a refreshing change from the usual mall-hopping and playground-visiting that we do. It costs $12 per bike if you want a child seat, and you get to use the bike the whole day! During the trip, we also had the chance to spot a really large spider and its intricate web, and as there were about ten kids there (my hubby's friends all brought their kids), we wanted them to see the spider. But the spider was just sitting in the middle of its web not doing anything, and Caleb had trouble seeing what the big fuss was about. So to catch his attention and show him where the spider was, I picked up a small stick and threw it at the impressive web. Sure enough, it caught and caused a stir in the web, which allowed Caleb to spot it, and also the spider immediately ran to check out the stick! But after feeling it around for quite a while, it realised it was not food, but then it started to twist the stick around and around, and slowly, slowly, eased the stick out of the web so it dropped to the floor! And then, it didn't stop there, it went on to repair the web so it was back to its pristine condition, ripe for catching mosquitoes and flies! Great spider! God really made the spider with amazing abilities.
- Went to two Christmas parties, of which one (organised by my cell) had the interesting game of "Sadistic Santa". It really had us in stitches at points, as the sadistic and selfish side of people came out! Leave a comment if you want to know how the game is played! Other games we played included two truths and a lie, and guess the baby photo :)
- Reconnected with my childhood favourite author, Christopher Pike, as in, I was wandering in Popular bookshop when I saw a brand new series of books written by him, when I thought he had stopped writing for a really long time. I quickly researched, and realised he had written a fair number of new books, and repackaged many of his old ones (good for him!) and even has 2 of his books being made into movies! Unbelieveable! I really enjoy his fast-paced, action-packed novels that usually contain mind-blowing ideas, premises and plot twists, but I find his forays into vampires and eastern religion a little less appealing than his other books
- Brought Jack to his playgroup for the first time today! Thankfully he didn't cry, although he did ask to leave quite a few times. We shall see how he behaves over the next few days, if he can really assimilate into his class.
- Borrowed and read endless books to both boys. I am constantly surprised at Jack's amazing memory, and Caleb is now babbling and speaking new words at an amazing rate. Sometimes he just mutters strings of words he knows one after another in quick succession, even if they are not making a sentence. Like "Keke, jie jie, papa" and "dog dog, sheep baaa, mae, ow ow". Caleb's personality is now coming through - he passionately likes animals, food, drawing and going out or "gai gai". Hmm... sounds a little like mommy... Jack likes playing with the tablet, going outdoors to run around and kick a ball around, and music. He really really loves music, almost to the point of going into a trance-like state and chortling with glee to himself when he is listening to a really nice track. His favourites include the soundtrack of Superman, Star Wars, Jurassic Park (from my hubby's sci-fi movie soundtrack CD) and now, an instrumental medley of Christian carols sent to us by a friend
- Read a lot of nice books, including Hunger Games (I reread the whole trilogy), Game of Thrones (I read all the books over 2 years! Now waiting for the sixth!), and some of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels.
It's been a busy two weeks of holidays indeed. Am going back to work tomorrow! Can't wait!
-
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Sharpening the Saw
Hello!
I know I got my order of habits a bit mixed up. The order of habits is:
1. Be Proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. First Things First
4. Seek First to Understand, then Be Understood
5. Seek Win-Win
6. Synergise!
7. Sharpen the Saw
So I have blogged about habits 1 to 5, and I would like to blog about the last habit first, before getting to the 6th habit, cos some of my experiences recently were about that.
Sharpening the Saw talks about the balance between doing the task and sharpening our tool. We all know that when we saw a log with a blunt saw, or write with a blunt pencil, we are not as effective in our task. So although taking time to sharpen our saw or pencil seems to be a waste of time as we are not producing any output, we are actually saving time for ourselves later on. Easy to understand, but difficult to put into practice when we extend the same analogy to ourselves. While we are not tools, we also need to take time to hone and prime ourselves - to rest, to recharge, to meditate and consolidate, to learn new things, so that we are sharp and fresh and effective, when we go about our daily living.
As a Christian, the thing most of us struggle with is regular quiet time with God. Every pastor, church, cell leader and Christian book will talk about the need to regularly read the Bible, pray and commune with God. But because God is invisible, because God doesn't appear in our face and yell and clamour for our attention, but many other things do (e.g. kids, our spouse, our parents, our boss, urgent emails, even our stomachs), we find it somehow more needful to attend to those, and when we have spent the day doing so, we are usually exhausted, brain-dead, and want to spend any remaining time pampering ourselves with our favourite entertainment, be it a book, a movie, a TV show, websurfing, music or treating ourselves to some comfort food (sometimes a combination of the above) cos to do anything else seems to need too much effort. To then quieten ourselves, close our eyes and pray to an invisible person, or open the Bible to read, or to spend time listening to God, seems to take so much more energy and focus than we have left at the end of the day. Ok, so you say, since we have limited mental and physical energy in a day, don't do your quiet time at the end of the day when you're spent, do it at the beginning, when you're still fresh.
Aha, but then, the morning has its own troubles - waking up late, the morning rush, the lack of time, the need to leave the house in 5 minutes, no, actually, 5 minutes ago - makes any quiet time rushed, hurried, and quite difficult to have any quality or deep conversations. I say conversation because actually, a relationship is built by conversations and observations. But somehow we are ok with having monologues with God most of the time, us talking to Him. Yes, we hear from Him too when we read the Word, but that's like sitting in a lecture, a monologue going the other way, we are a passive recipient. I like to think that God, being an interactive, communicative God, would actually like best to have a conversation with us, but most of us are probably too busy and distracted to notice it.
Recently, I had an intriguing thought - whenever my husband is texting or reading stuff on his iPhone when he should be having a conversation with me (increasingly often), instead of stewing and getting angry, I reflect upon how this must be how God feels most of the time! We are so busy with the people around us, with imbibing media, with doing things, we never notice God is right there waiting to have a conversation with us. Sigh... guilty as charged.
Anyway, so the one thing that would sharpen my saw, is doing my quiet time. Regularly.
So, how did I apply this habit? Actually just doing a very simple exercise. And it was triggered by my cell group (again). Recently I learnt during my cell discussion that God talks to us in a lot of ways. It could be from His Bible, from a sermon, a book, a Christian friend, or any experience we are having. He could be talking to us.
Intrigued, I went home and over the weekend, I decided instead of my usual laundry list of prayers, I would spend time just listening to God. So I got down on my knees and my prayer went something like this "Dear God, today I'd just like to hear from You. I'm sorry I haven't been spending time with You. I'm sorry.... [and it went on in this vein for a while]... But now, I'm here. I'm listening. So, if there's anything You want to say to me, please say it now."
And I stopped talking and listened, just thinking how I'd really like to hear God's voice. And in my heart I expected God would say "Ah! It's about time! As a cell group leader, you should be spending time with me daily, instead of reading fiction books on the train. And why were you so rude to your mother? And you haven't been witnessing at your workplace" Etc etc.
Silence.
"Ok God, whatever You want to say to me, I'm listening."
And then, out of the blue, I had an impression, a thought, which came into my mind, which was so unlike anything I expected to hear from God, I was amazed. The last thing on earth I would expect God to say, actually.
What was it?
Haha, I'm tempted to put it only on my next blog post, but since I am short of time, I'll reveal it here.
It was "I love you, very very much."
And that was it.
Now, as an Asian, if I ever told my parents if there was anything they wanted to tell me, I can imagine it would be a laundry list of all the things they have been telling me, which was all the things I haven't done, or have done badly. The last thing on earth I would expect them to say, would be that they love me. And not just that. But very very much.
And because it was so unexpected, so unlike anything I thought I would hear, I believe it must be from God. And when I think about it, I feel strangely comforted, and inspired to do even more things for God.
And, this also gels with something I recently heard. A Singaporean Professor said in China, they were finding out that social networking websites that called the web user "Qin1 Ai4 De" or "dear" or "beloved", had a lot more hit rates than other websites. People love being called beloved, or being dear to someone, loved by someone.
And when I asked my hubby to try the same prayer experiment, surprisingly, God also spoke to Him. Ok God said a lot more things to him, but He started with "Beloved,". And that is just simply amazing.
I know I got my order of habits a bit mixed up. The order of habits is:
1. Be Proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. First Things First
4. Seek First to Understand, then Be Understood
5. Seek Win-Win
6. Synergise!
7. Sharpen the Saw
So I have blogged about habits 1 to 5, and I would like to blog about the last habit first, before getting to the 6th habit, cos some of my experiences recently were about that.
Sharpening the Saw talks about the balance between doing the task and sharpening our tool. We all know that when we saw a log with a blunt saw, or write with a blunt pencil, we are not as effective in our task. So although taking time to sharpen our saw or pencil seems to be a waste of time as we are not producing any output, we are actually saving time for ourselves later on. Easy to understand, but difficult to put into practice when we extend the same analogy to ourselves. While we are not tools, we also need to take time to hone and prime ourselves - to rest, to recharge, to meditate and consolidate, to learn new things, so that we are sharp and fresh and effective, when we go about our daily living.
As a Christian, the thing most of us struggle with is regular quiet time with God. Every pastor, church, cell leader and Christian book will talk about the need to regularly read the Bible, pray and commune with God. But because God is invisible, because God doesn't appear in our face and yell and clamour for our attention, but many other things do (e.g. kids, our spouse, our parents, our boss, urgent emails, even our stomachs), we find it somehow more needful to attend to those, and when we have spent the day doing so, we are usually exhausted, brain-dead, and want to spend any remaining time pampering ourselves with our favourite entertainment, be it a book, a movie, a TV show, websurfing, music or treating ourselves to some comfort food (sometimes a combination of the above) cos to do anything else seems to need too much effort. To then quieten ourselves, close our eyes and pray to an invisible person, or open the Bible to read, or to spend time listening to God, seems to take so much more energy and focus than we have left at the end of the day. Ok, so you say, since we have limited mental and physical energy in a day, don't do your quiet time at the end of the day when you're spent, do it at the beginning, when you're still fresh.
Aha, but then, the morning has its own troubles - waking up late, the morning rush, the lack of time, the need to leave the house in 5 minutes, no, actually, 5 minutes ago - makes any quiet time rushed, hurried, and quite difficult to have any quality or deep conversations. I say conversation because actually, a relationship is built by conversations and observations. But somehow we are ok with having monologues with God most of the time, us talking to Him. Yes, we hear from Him too when we read the Word, but that's like sitting in a lecture, a monologue going the other way, we are a passive recipient. I like to think that God, being an interactive, communicative God, would actually like best to have a conversation with us, but most of us are probably too busy and distracted to notice it.
Recently, I had an intriguing thought - whenever my husband is texting or reading stuff on his iPhone when he should be having a conversation with me (increasingly often), instead of stewing and getting angry, I reflect upon how this must be how God feels most of the time! We are so busy with the people around us, with imbibing media, with doing things, we never notice God is right there waiting to have a conversation with us. Sigh... guilty as charged.
Anyway, so the one thing that would sharpen my saw, is doing my quiet time. Regularly.
So, how did I apply this habit? Actually just doing a very simple exercise. And it was triggered by my cell group (again). Recently I learnt during my cell discussion that God talks to us in a lot of ways. It could be from His Bible, from a sermon, a book, a Christian friend, or any experience we are having. He could be talking to us.
Intrigued, I went home and over the weekend, I decided instead of my usual laundry list of prayers, I would spend time just listening to God. So I got down on my knees and my prayer went something like this "Dear God, today I'd just like to hear from You. I'm sorry I haven't been spending time with You. I'm sorry.... [and it went on in this vein for a while]... But now, I'm here. I'm listening. So, if there's anything You want to say to me, please say it now."
And I stopped talking and listened, just thinking how I'd really like to hear God's voice. And in my heart I expected God would say "Ah! It's about time! As a cell group leader, you should be spending time with me daily, instead of reading fiction books on the train. And why were you so rude to your mother? And you haven't been witnessing at your workplace" Etc etc.
Silence.
"Ok God, whatever You want to say to me, I'm listening."
And then, out of the blue, I had an impression, a thought, which came into my mind, which was so unlike anything I expected to hear from God, I was amazed. The last thing on earth I would expect God to say, actually.
What was it?
Haha, I'm tempted to put it only on my next blog post, but since I am short of time, I'll reveal it here.
It was "I love you, very very much."
And that was it.
Now, as an Asian, if I ever told my parents if there was anything they wanted to tell me, I can imagine it would be a laundry list of all the things they have been telling me, which was all the things I haven't done, or have done badly. The last thing on earth I would expect them to say, would be that they love me. And not just that. But very very much.
And because it was so unexpected, so unlike anything I thought I would hear, I believe it must be from God. And when I think about it, I feel strangely comforted, and inspired to do even more things for God.
And, this also gels with something I recently heard. A Singaporean Professor said in China, they were finding out that social networking websites that called the web user "Qin1 Ai4 De" or "dear" or "beloved", had a lot more hit rates than other websites. People love being called beloved, or being dear to someone, loved by someone.
And when I asked my hubby to try the same prayer experiment, surprisingly, God also spoke to Him. Ok God said a lot more things to him, but He started with "Beloved,". And that is just simply amazing.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Is Win-Win Always Possible?
Hello!
This habit (I believe it's the fifth) has its roots in an abundance mentality (as opposed to the scarcity mentality), which means believing that there is enough to go round for everybody to get what they want, and it isn't always that if you get what you want, I will lose, or vice versa.
Now I must say having been schooled in the Singapore education system, which tends to focus on getting good grades, the win-lose mentality is pretty ingrained in me. I.e. there can only be one top scorer in the class, and if I help you do well, you will do better than me and I will no longer be number one. Hence, for the extremely kiasu among us (guilty as charged for my earlier school years - thankfully I changed quite a bit after I became a Christian), the idea of helping others succeed, get what they want, is pretty alien, as it is usually all about me, me, me. And the idea that somehow, there are limited "goodies" in this world (e.g. wealth, coveted positions, power, even eligible partners), and we are all in a competition against one another to get those goodies, also seems like an accurate reflection of reality. I suppose this could thus be pretty much the mindset of many people.
However, to practice this habit well, requires actually understanding many perspectives (that's where the habit of seeking to first understand comes in), cos actually, we may find that what we perceived as a "lose" for us, may actually not be so, or can be avoided through an ingenious new solution, if we really understood what the other person wanted to achieve. I give an example of a class I took in my university where the Professor split us into 2 teams and gave us a different brief for each team. The briefs stated that we were from a pharmaceutical company (A or B depending on which team), flying to another country to try to get the last remaining 5 eggs from a precious bird for a product we were making. The other rival company also wants the same eggs for another product they are making. On our flight, we sit next to the representative from our rival company, and we are supposed to negotiate with them such that we can get what we want. On the surface, this looks like a straightforward win-lose proposition. Some teams ended up with a compromise - you get 3, I get 2 or something like that. Some argued long and hard and arrived at no conclusion. However, when it ended, the Professor got us to read our briefs aloud, and he pointed out (I actually missed it) that if we paid attention, both companies were after different parts of the egg! One wanted the yolk, another wanted the shell. Hence we could have both gotten what we wanted, had we spent time clarifying what each other wanted and expressing what exactly we wanted.
The exercise left a lasting impression on me.
Recently, I also encountered a similar situation at work. There have been 4 policy groups set up in my organisation - 3 to assist operational departments in their policy work (I'm in one of them), and 1 central policy group to coordinate among the policy groups. I know. Sounds like a mess and a lot of additional layers for the poor operational departments.
Recently, the central policy group got CEO to approve a policy workflow which involved them sending up all policy submissions and items to CEO, on behalf of the departments. What made it even more fishy was that they did not consult any operational department before presenting to CEO. After it was approved, it was simply sent to us "for dissemination to departments". My boss for the policy group had a fit. He felt that this was clearly them trying to usurp power and take ownership of a lot of policy issues that were rightfully under the departments. I sympathised with him and thought the head of the central policy group and her boss villains, and felt like fighting them tooth and nail to prevent this from happening. I even came up with ideas in my sleep on how to jam this process and make life difficult for them :P
However, two things happened which helped me see the win-win in that. First, I had cell group. That night, we had a discussion on conflict resolution, and I asked how we could be "as shrewd as snakes, and as innocent as doves", especially in light of politics in the workplace, and I gave mine as an example. My cell members gave their opinions on the matter and the person facilitating the session that night shared some verses on conflict resolution (e.g. strife results from having wrong motives, going the extra mile, being kind to our enemy), which were very relevant for me. After meditating on those verses over the weekend, I realised a lot of my emotion stemmed from selfish ambition and the desire to get ahead, or rather the fear of not getting ahead. I decided to let go of those motives and desires, and ask myself, "in light of all that Christ has done for me, and what lasts for eternity, what should I do?" and the answer was - these little things don't matter, and we should actually just work together for the common good. That allowed me to go to work without all these negative emotions roiling in me.
Then the second thing happened - the head of the central policy group asked me out to lunch one day, and in a cool-headed frame of mind, we had a good talk where I shared (in a rationale, objective way) all my concerns about what this meant for operational departments, and she shared a lot more about the rationale for this, and how this would actually benefit the departments (by alleviating a lot of writing burden from them, so they can focus on actual operations). She assured me they would still be involved in the policy crafting process (so it wasn't that they didn't need to think anymore), and the proper credits would be given. In fact, if they were more familiar with the issue, they could even present to CEO. After talking it out, I realised this actually wasn't a bad proposition for us. So I took it back and we convinced my boss it was ok. We will brief the departments next.
In my life, I am always looking for win-win. There have been times when it has not been possible, so we go for compromise (e.g. choice of movies), or we intentionally give in one time, with the understanding the other person will give in next time (e.g. my husband and I taking turns to have our "alone time" every once in a while, while the other watches the kids). Perhaps for these, we just haven't thought hard enough, but I guess we should reserve our energies and mental power to find win-win solutions for the big things first, cos as I said, it requires a lot of honest, open communication and some creativity :)
This habit (I believe it's the fifth) has its roots in an abundance mentality (as opposed to the scarcity mentality), which means believing that there is enough to go round for everybody to get what they want, and it isn't always that if you get what you want, I will lose, or vice versa.
Now I must say having been schooled in the Singapore education system, which tends to focus on getting good grades, the win-lose mentality is pretty ingrained in me. I.e. there can only be one top scorer in the class, and if I help you do well, you will do better than me and I will no longer be number one. Hence, for the extremely kiasu among us (guilty as charged for my earlier school years - thankfully I changed quite a bit after I became a Christian), the idea of helping others succeed, get what they want, is pretty alien, as it is usually all about me, me, me. And the idea that somehow, there are limited "goodies" in this world (e.g. wealth, coveted positions, power, even eligible partners), and we are all in a competition against one another to get those goodies, also seems like an accurate reflection of reality. I suppose this could thus be pretty much the mindset of many people.
However, to practice this habit well, requires actually understanding many perspectives (that's where the habit of seeking to first understand comes in), cos actually, we may find that what we perceived as a "lose" for us, may actually not be so, or can be avoided through an ingenious new solution, if we really understood what the other person wanted to achieve. I give an example of a class I took in my university where the Professor split us into 2 teams and gave us a different brief for each team. The briefs stated that we were from a pharmaceutical company (A or B depending on which team), flying to another country to try to get the last remaining 5 eggs from a precious bird for a product we were making. The other rival company also wants the same eggs for another product they are making. On our flight, we sit next to the representative from our rival company, and we are supposed to negotiate with them such that we can get what we want. On the surface, this looks like a straightforward win-lose proposition. Some teams ended up with a compromise - you get 3, I get 2 or something like that. Some argued long and hard and arrived at no conclusion. However, when it ended, the Professor got us to read our briefs aloud, and he pointed out (I actually missed it) that if we paid attention, both companies were after different parts of the egg! One wanted the yolk, another wanted the shell. Hence we could have both gotten what we wanted, had we spent time clarifying what each other wanted and expressing what exactly we wanted.
The exercise left a lasting impression on me.
Recently, I also encountered a similar situation at work. There have been 4 policy groups set up in my organisation - 3 to assist operational departments in their policy work (I'm in one of them), and 1 central policy group to coordinate among the policy groups. I know. Sounds like a mess and a lot of additional layers for the poor operational departments.
Recently, the central policy group got CEO to approve a policy workflow which involved them sending up all policy submissions and items to CEO, on behalf of the departments. What made it even more fishy was that they did not consult any operational department before presenting to CEO. After it was approved, it was simply sent to us "for dissemination to departments". My boss for the policy group had a fit. He felt that this was clearly them trying to usurp power and take ownership of a lot of policy issues that were rightfully under the departments. I sympathised with him and thought the head of the central policy group and her boss villains, and felt like fighting them tooth and nail to prevent this from happening. I even came up with ideas in my sleep on how to jam this process and make life difficult for them :P
However, two things happened which helped me see the win-win in that. First, I had cell group. That night, we had a discussion on conflict resolution, and I asked how we could be "as shrewd as snakes, and as innocent as doves", especially in light of politics in the workplace, and I gave mine as an example. My cell members gave their opinions on the matter and the person facilitating the session that night shared some verses on conflict resolution (e.g. strife results from having wrong motives, going the extra mile, being kind to our enemy), which were very relevant for me. After meditating on those verses over the weekend, I realised a lot of my emotion stemmed from selfish ambition and the desire to get ahead, or rather the fear of not getting ahead. I decided to let go of those motives and desires, and ask myself, "in light of all that Christ has done for me, and what lasts for eternity, what should I do?" and the answer was - these little things don't matter, and we should actually just work together for the common good. That allowed me to go to work without all these negative emotions roiling in me.
Then the second thing happened - the head of the central policy group asked me out to lunch one day, and in a cool-headed frame of mind, we had a good talk where I shared (in a rationale, objective way) all my concerns about what this meant for operational departments, and she shared a lot more about the rationale for this, and how this would actually benefit the departments (by alleviating a lot of writing burden from them, so they can focus on actual operations). She assured me they would still be involved in the policy crafting process (so it wasn't that they didn't need to think anymore), and the proper credits would be given. In fact, if they were more familiar with the issue, they could even present to CEO. After talking it out, I realised this actually wasn't a bad proposition for us. So I took it back and we convinced my boss it was ok. We will brief the departments next.
In my life, I am always looking for win-win. There have been times when it has not been possible, so we go for compromise (e.g. choice of movies), or we intentionally give in one time, with the understanding the other person will give in next time (e.g. my husband and I taking turns to have our "alone time" every once in a while, while the other watches the kids). Perhaps for these, we just haven't thought hard enough, but I guess we should reserve our energies and mental power to find win-win solutions for the big things first, cos as I said, it requires a lot of honest, open communication and some creativity :)
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Haze!
Hello!
Sorry I've been missing in action for a while - blame it on the haze. I was minding my own business at work, when I suddenly got called into a haze meeting and was suddenly involved in haze issues for a whirlwind one and a half weeks, where I attended three or four meetings a day, prepared slides or papers in between, skipped meals, ate at strange times, and otherwise just lived, breathed and ate haze-related information and updates. That was when I realised that I am not a person really suited to wartimes. Because I felt I was falling sick after about 4 or 5 days of not having regular, proper meals, working over a weekend flat out (we came back both days and had meetings almost all day!) and being slightly stressed out all the time. Perhaps it's because my blood group is A+ . Apparently I am the blood type that does not take stress well. On the contrary, this other girl who is my counterpart from another department, who was roped in one day earlier, worked longer hours and is even busier than me with haze issues, was perfectly fine, health-wise.
I must say when the 3-hour PSI (Pollutant Standard Index) hit a high of 400, I got really worried about Singapore, in particular, Singaporeans. And I despaired of ever seeing clear skies again for months, as information from the authorities on how long the haze was going to last was not forthcoming (I believe they can only project one day in advance, and the dry season is supposed to last until the monsoon rains come in Nov-Dec!). Thankfully, the rains came, the wind blew (in our favour), and the haze lifted, after a horrible, choking few days. And I realised how much worse haze is than the SARS outbreak in Singapore years ago. For SARS, it affects some people, and you feel like you can take precautions against catching it (practice good personal hygiene, avoid people with coughs or colds), but haze - it affects everyone, and you can't really get away from it when you're at home, unless you are fully air-conditioned. Even then, some air seeps in. My office floor had a slightly hazy look on the week when the haze was particularly bad. And the complete lack of air purifiers in the market just added to everyone's (and in particular my) sense of despair. I just hope someone comes up with a cheap and good technological solution that can help us clean up our indoor air during haze periods (and perhaps even during non-haze periods) sometime in the near future!
Sorry I've been missing in action for a while - blame it on the haze. I was minding my own business at work, when I suddenly got called into a haze meeting and was suddenly involved in haze issues for a whirlwind one and a half weeks, where I attended three or four meetings a day, prepared slides or papers in between, skipped meals, ate at strange times, and otherwise just lived, breathed and ate haze-related information and updates. That was when I realised that I am not a person really suited to wartimes. Because I felt I was falling sick after about 4 or 5 days of not having regular, proper meals, working over a weekend flat out (we came back both days and had meetings almost all day!) and being slightly stressed out all the time. Perhaps it's because my blood group is A+ . Apparently I am the blood type that does not take stress well. On the contrary, this other girl who is my counterpart from another department, who was roped in one day earlier, worked longer hours and is even busier than me with haze issues, was perfectly fine, health-wise.
I must say when the 3-hour PSI (Pollutant Standard Index) hit a high of 400, I got really worried about Singapore, in particular, Singaporeans. And I despaired of ever seeing clear skies again for months, as information from the authorities on how long the haze was going to last was not forthcoming (I believe they can only project one day in advance, and the dry season is supposed to last until the monsoon rains come in Nov-Dec!). Thankfully, the rains came, the wind blew (in our favour), and the haze lifted, after a horrible, choking few days. And I realised how much worse haze is than the SARS outbreak in Singapore years ago. For SARS, it affects some people, and you feel like you can take precautions against catching it (practice good personal hygiene, avoid people with coughs or colds), but haze - it affects everyone, and you can't really get away from it when you're at home, unless you are fully air-conditioned. Even then, some air seeps in. My office floor had a slightly hazy look on the week when the haze was particularly bad. And the complete lack of air purifiers in the market just added to everyone's (and in particular my) sense of despair. I just hope someone comes up with a cheap and good technological solution that can help us clean up our indoor air during haze periods (and perhaps even during non-haze periods) sometime in the near future!
Monday, June 17, 2013
Seek First to Understand....
The 5th habit is called Seek First to Understand, then be Understood. It's strange how my events in my life seems to develop around the latest habit I'm reading. Either that or I'm darned good at drawing inferences. Anyway, I'll let you be the judge of that.
This habit talks about how we tend to project our own biographies (our experiences, motivations, preferences, ethics) onto other people, thinking they are like us, when actually many come from very different backgrounds and perspectives, and what they are saying could be something very different. When we fail to fully understand the other, our response will be somewhat limited or off-the-mark.
It encourages us to really listen to the other person to understand where they are coming from, their emotional state, instead of thinking of your own reply, or interpreting what they are saying in light of your own biography. This is really hard, cos, well I guess that's what I've been doing all along.
But it goes on to say that when we succeed in doing that, we give the other person the gift of understanding, which is a great emotional deposit. And when they are assured that we understand them, they actually become a lot more receptive to what we have to say. Hmm... not bad for a persuasion technique. Ok, I'm not supposed to think that, or I would go right back into being a manipulative listener... It kind of requires us to suspend our agendas for a time to really listen and understand. Wa, I think it will be quite a mental workout since that is just not what we are used to!
Anyway, these past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to visit two friends with young children - one was my hubby's friend, who recently added a third child (a boy) to his two girls, and we decided to visit them just for the fun of it (the boy was already about 5 months old). The second one was my friend who recently gave birth to her first boy, and we went to the boy's 1-month party. Both experiences opened my eyes to the wide range of parenting styles there are on this planet (ok, that's an exaggeration, but it's wide enough that I marvel that such parents exist).
First, we went to visit my hubby's friend at about 7pm on Sat night, they had just arrived back home from being out the whole day and the mom was in the kitchen with the maid while the father was standing in the living room loosening his tie. When I entered their home, I immediately noticed their son lying prone on a Winnie-the-Pooh mat doing swimming motions to himself. His two sisters were playing with toys by the side, but as he was not yet mobile, he couldn't quite join in. So I went to speak to him and play with him. When he saw me, he got real excited and smiled, his movements becoming more energetic. He was such an adorable child. As the night progressed, we made a disturbing observation - neither parent paid any attention to the 3 kids while we were there. The mom was busy cooking in the kitchen with her maid, she hardly appeared except to ask the two older girls to have dinner, and the father was talking to my hubby the whole time. When the youngest son flipped over on his back and started yelping cos his legs were stuck under a low table, I was the only one who noticed and turned him upright. When he started putting a red crayon into his mouth, it was my hubby (who is normally quite inattentive to kids) who shouted "Stop him!" repeatedly until someone took it out of his mouth. And the funniest thing of the night was, when the maid and mom carried the youngest son into their bedroom for his night feed, we suddenly heard a loud crying that went on for quite a while, and suddenly it went very quiet. And before we knew it, my maid was entered the living room carrying the little boy! This was quickly intercepted by the other mom, who quickly whisked him away back into the room, and said her maid was just preparing the milk, she would take care of the baby. My hubby and I laughed, as it was so ingrained in our maid to always respond promptly to distressed crying (in fact, the adults get more worked up than the baby sometimes), that she instinctively did what she felt was best - to carry and comfort the poor boy. Later, I snuck into the bedroom with my maid, to sneak a peek at the boy drinking milk, and he was so cute! He was lying on his back, holding a big bottle with both his hands, sucking insistently while staring at a spot on the ceiling. And the maid said this was his happiest moment of the day. And he would sleep soon after. I couldn't help pitying the boy, as no one was holding him as he drank, and we also learnt during dinner, that both parents had gone through a period of sleep training (cry-it-out method - thanks Gina Ford), where they had trained him to go to sleep on his own without adult carrying or rocking. Now tis just flies against my own knowledge of what constitutes good parenting (especially in the first year when what they need is predictable responsive parenting to assure them the world is a safe place and they are too old to manipulate with cries yet). Ok ok I admit I am a product of attachment parenting (I belong to the Dr William Sears club), but the science and research that shows it is good for the child is so abundant! I wondered if the boy would turn out ok, and if he would always hold a part of him back, cos he was trained as a kid not to expect affection and to "suck it up" and move on. Perhaps that is the genesis of many emotionally restrained, unexpressive men. Or perhaps not. I am just drawing my own conclusions here, and I have not factored in other influencing factors like his genetic make-up, his teachers, his friends, his school and ultimately, God.
My second visit was to my friend, who married late and just had her first. At the 1-month party, she looked slim and radiant, as a new mother, and though she was busy entertaining many guests, I could not help feeling excited and happy for her, thinking back to the time when I had my first kid (projecting my own experiences!). But when I asked her (during a moment's respite when she was sitting near me) if she was feeling very maternal now, she shook her head and said no. I was shocked. She said her hubby seems to take to fatherhood a lot more than her, often going straight to the kid when he got home, to carry and talk to him for an hour straight (even when he was sleeping)! Whereas for her, when she gets home she might head over to take a look at the baby, and if he was awake she would say "Kuai dian shui jiao! Yao bu ran ba ni diu diao!" (sleep quick, or I'll throw you away!). And she shrugged indifferently when I asked her how breastfeeding was - it was ok, but she pumps out all her milk cos her boy likes to suck a little too much, sometimes sucking for 45 min.
All these experiences made me realise there are many kinds of mothers (a non-maternal mother just makes me shudder, a little), and different kinds of fathers, that despite it all, kids still grow up, and they live and walk and work around us. So, no wonder that we all come from different backgrounds, upbringing, have different "scripts" written in our minds!
Just that little difference in the kind of parents we had (whether they are Gina Ford or William Sears followers) could spell the big difference deep down inside their emotional make-up (which I understand from research, shapes the parts of the brain that develop later, which are reasoning, cognition and creativity).
I thought I should try to apply this listening technique (of seeking to really understand the person) to someone these few days, but I still haven't found the opportunity. Perhaps the one person I did try it on was my elder son, Jack, who is now very adept at throwing spectacular tantrums. After punishing him harshly through the naughty corner (which I think he remembers with pain till today), I thought a better way could be to understand what he wants (to do whatever seems fun to him) and to try to go along with it. Yes, the word "no" triggers a meltdown like a match to fire, so now I try to avoid saying it. It's an exercise in creativity! "Later" is a favourite, or just "ok" (and not do it), or explain why he cannot have it (I realised if I say long sentences, he tends to get lost trying to follow and forget to throw a tantrum). I still set limits, and he still flouts them (like throwing lego pieces in all directions when he is frustrated) but I am learning that a sharp look and disapproving words plus removing people from harm's way is as good a teaching tip as beating him at this stage. I think he gets it that he shouldn't do it, he just can't control himself yet. I just learnt from a website the best way to deal with a tantrum is just to hold him and be with him until it subsides (in a private place where he cannot disturb others), and then when he has calmed down, to explain to him why he could not have it/do it/should not have done it. Sigh, so much to learn!
I also remember what a Pastor's wife once told me. "The most important thing I did right with both my kids was - I always prayed for them".
The next person I would want to try this tip on, would probably be my husband, who is as different from me as chalk and cheese in certain matters. But more on that in another post.
This habit talks about how we tend to project our own biographies (our experiences, motivations, preferences, ethics) onto other people, thinking they are like us, when actually many come from very different backgrounds and perspectives, and what they are saying could be something very different. When we fail to fully understand the other, our response will be somewhat limited or off-the-mark.
It encourages us to really listen to the other person to understand where they are coming from, their emotional state, instead of thinking of your own reply, or interpreting what they are saying in light of your own biography. This is really hard, cos, well I guess that's what I've been doing all along.
But it goes on to say that when we succeed in doing that, we give the other person the gift of understanding, which is a great emotional deposit. And when they are assured that we understand them, they actually become a lot more receptive to what we have to say. Hmm... not bad for a persuasion technique. Ok, I'm not supposed to think that, or I would go right back into being a manipulative listener... It kind of requires us to suspend our agendas for a time to really listen and understand. Wa, I think it will be quite a mental workout since that is just not what we are used to!
Anyway, these past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to visit two friends with young children - one was my hubby's friend, who recently added a third child (a boy) to his two girls, and we decided to visit them just for the fun of it (the boy was already about 5 months old). The second one was my friend who recently gave birth to her first boy, and we went to the boy's 1-month party. Both experiences opened my eyes to the wide range of parenting styles there are on this planet (ok, that's an exaggeration, but it's wide enough that I marvel that such parents exist).
First, we went to visit my hubby's friend at about 7pm on Sat night, they had just arrived back home from being out the whole day and the mom was in the kitchen with the maid while the father was standing in the living room loosening his tie. When I entered their home, I immediately noticed their son lying prone on a Winnie-the-Pooh mat doing swimming motions to himself. His two sisters were playing with toys by the side, but as he was not yet mobile, he couldn't quite join in. So I went to speak to him and play with him. When he saw me, he got real excited and smiled, his movements becoming more energetic. He was such an adorable child. As the night progressed, we made a disturbing observation - neither parent paid any attention to the 3 kids while we were there. The mom was busy cooking in the kitchen with her maid, she hardly appeared except to ask the two older girls to have dinner, and the father was talking to my hubby the whole time. When the youngest son flipped over on his back and started yelping cos his legs were stuck under a low table, I was the only one who noticed and turned him upright. When he started putting a red crayon into his mouth, it was my hubby (who is normally quite inattentive to kids) who shouted "Stop him!" repeatedly until someone took it out of his mouth. And the funniest thing of the night was, when the maid and mom carried the youngest son into their bedroom for his night feed, we suddenly heard a loud crying that went on for quite a while, and suddenly it went very quiet. And before we knew it, my maid was entered the living room carrying the little boy! This was quickly intercepted by the other mom, who quickly whisked him away back into the room, and said her maid was just preparing the milk, she would take care of the baby. My hubby and I laughed, as it was so ingrained in our maid to always respond promptly to distressed crying (in fact, the adults get more worked up than the baby sometimes), that she instinctively did what she felt was best - to carry and comfort the poor boy. Later, I snuck into the bedroom with my maid, to sneak a peek at the boy drinking milk, and he was so cute! He was lying on his back, holding a big bottle with both his hands, sucking insistently while staring at a spot on the ceiling. And the maid said this was his happiest moment of the day. And he would sleep soon after. I couldn't help pitying the boy, as no one was holding him as he drank, and we also learnt during dinner, that both parents had gone through a period of sleep training (cry-it-out method - thanks Gina Ford), where they had trained him to go to sleep on his own without adult carrying or rocking. Now tis just flies against my own knowledge of what constitutes good parenting (especially in the first year when what they need is predictable responsive parenting to assure them the world is a safe place and they are too old to manipulate with cries yet). Ok ok I admit I am a product of attachment parenting (I belong to the Dr William Sears club), but the science and research that shows it is good for the child is so abundant! I wondered if the boy would turn out ok, and if he would always hold a part of him back, cos he was trained as a kid not to expect affection and to "suck it up" and move on. Perhaps that is the genesis of many emotionally restrained, unexpressive men. Or perhaps not. I am just drawing my own conclusions here, and I have not factored in other influencing factors like his genetic make-up, his teachers, his friends, his school and ultimately, God.
My second visit was to my friend, who married late and just had her first. At the 1-month party, she looked slim and radiant, as a new mother, and though she was busy entertaining many guests, I could not help feeling excited and happy for her, thinking back to the time when I had my first kid (projecting my own experiences!). But when I asked her (during a moment's respite when she was sitting near me) if she was feeling very maternal now, she shook her head and said no. I was shocked. She said her hubby seems to take to fatherhood a lot more than her, often going straight to the kid when he got home, to carry and talk to him for an hour straight (even when he was sleeping)! Whereas for her, when she gets home she might head over to take a look at the baby, and if he was awake she would say "Kuai dian shui jiao! Yao bu ran ba ni diu diao!" (sleep quick, or I'll throw you away!). And she shrugged indifferently when I asked her how breastfeeding was - it was ok, but she pumps out all her milk cos her boy likes to suck a little too much, sometimes sucking for 45 min.
All these experiences made me realise there are many kinds of mothers (a non-maternal mother just makes me shudder, a little), and different kinds of fathers, that despite it all, kids still grow up, and they live and walk and work around us. So, no wonder that we all come from different backgrounds, upbringing, have different "scripts" written in our minds!
Just that little difference in the kind of parents we had (whether they are Gina Ford or William Sears followers) could spell the big difference deep down inside their emotional make-up (which I understand from research, shapes the parts of the brain that develop later, which are reasoning, cognition and creativity).
I thought I should try to apply this listening technique (of seeking to really understand the person) to someone these few days, but I still haven't found the opportunity. Perhaps the one person I did try it on was my elder son, Jack, who is now very adept at throwing spectacular tantrums. After punishing him harshly through the naughty corner (which I think he remembers with pain till today), I thought a better way could be to understand what he wants (to do whatever seems fun to him) and to try to go along with it. Yes, the word "no" triggers a meltdown like a match to fire, so now I try to avoid saying it. It's an exercise in creativity! "Later" is a favourite, or just "ok" (and not do it), or explain why he cannot have it (I realised if I say long sentences, he tends to get lost trying to follow and forget to throw a tantrum). I still set limits, and he still flouts them (like throwing lego pieces in all directions when he is frustrated) but I am learning that a sharp look and disapproving words plus removing people from harm's way is as good a teaching tip as beating him at this stage. I think he gets it that he shouldn't do it, he just can't control himself yet. I just learnt from a website the best way to deal with a tantrum is just to hold him and be with him until it subsides (in a private place where he cannot disturb others), and then when he has calmed down, to explain to him why he could not have it/do it/should not have done it. Sigh, so much to learn!
I also remember what a Pastor's wife once told me. "The most important thing I did right with both my kids was - I always prayed for them".
The next person I would want to try this tip on, would probably be my husband, who is as different from me as chalk and cheese in certain matters. But more on that in another post.
Monday, June 10, 2013
The Importance of Emotional Banks
I recently moved to assume a new role in my Division, a policy role. It was initially one I was very reluctant to take up, as policy roles traditionally have been unpopular in my organisation because of a few reasons:
(a) You do not own any domain area in terms of expertise or knowledge, but are expected to contribute your views to "improve" the policy of a line Department, whose people have been in that field for ages,
(b) People in that domain area tend to see you as a source of either (1) someone who talks nonsense, not knowing the ground or having enough technical expertise/experience in that field or (2) a work generator, someone who will give them extra (often unimportant) work and send them on wild goose chases, because you don't know the field well enough, and/or because you are not the implementor and so have no aligned incentive to minimise work for them. In fact adding to their work load scores you points!
(3) Competing with them for limelight, because you often report to a different boss, and so both sides are trying to profile themselves. You can't "value add" without the line department (who has been in this field for so long) looking bad.
So, with the odds stacked against me, I somehow found myself assuming this role as of 1 Jul 2013. But a saving grace (or not, in terms of workload), was that I was still holding on to my previous position in my Department, which I was growing very comfortable with and which I liked very much. It was good in that I consoled myself - if I hate my new policy role, I can always have my Department work to fall back on, and at least I'm not stuck doing policy full-time. Some people felt I was getting the raw end of the deal in terms of workload (and I also acted like the poor overworked officer when people asked me about my new role), but I was actually not too unhappy about it.
What was surprising to me, was how enjoyable and challenging my new role was to me, both in terms of defining the job scope of this new policy unit, what me and my new team (albeit a small one) are each supposed to do, how we would work together, establishing relations with new Departments, and just getting up to speed on the myriad of issues in my work. Some parts are more enjoyable than others, and not every one is as challenging, but I shall talk more on the enjoyable ones (being someone who likes to dwell on the positive, remember the good and forget the bad, haha).
They are the last 2 areas of my work, and the first one on establishing contacts has been a lesson in emotional banks. I realised that in getting in touch for the first time with Departmental staff, that some treated me with surprise (why are you approaching me to ask me all sorts of questions about my work?), puzzlement (so you want me to send you my draft paper? Then what are you going to do with it? How does it affect workflow?) and skeptics (ha! This new policy unit is just a waste of time. It overlaps with what we and other departments are doing and will just add to the bottleneck, further slowing down an already long and cumbersome clearance process. You are just going to add to our workload, like all the other initiatives that have gone before. And how can you possibly value add to our work?). Many of the Directors, in fact, probably all Directors, fell into the last category to some extent. I could see their distrust and wariness in their eyes and from their comments about the policy unit. I was also hearing some of these sentiments from the grapevine.
However, what I have found is that it is very important to gain their trust and establish your credibility by giving good, constructive comments, from the get-go. Let's see, even my own Director, was quite surprised to see me sitting in a meeting where they were discussing another section's work. Having argued with the staff quite a bit before this meeting, where most of my comments were shot down by them (sigh, it's actually a matter of timing, many of my comments were on areas have already been approved, which is a big pity in my opinion), I kept quiet in this meeting until the very end, where I raised one concern with their recommendation. It pertained to how the policy would look to the customers, which would be nothing short of confusing. To my Director's credit, he took it in his stride, and immediately suggested a way to manage this risk. It got incorporated into the slides as a sub-bullet on the last slide, and eventually it all got approved. At the management meeting, they even talked about that sub-bullet, and how that would be an issue on the ground, and my Director spoke up at the meeting to commit the Department (actually my colleagues) to even more mitigation measures, to minimise the confusion. I must say even though I got none of the credit for that, and my policy boss doesn't know this, I felt a private victory inside myself, at having influenced public policy in Singapore in a small way.
Another similar incident happened at another meeting with another Director. Once he realised my comments were on-the-ball, he started asking his staff to amend the slides to reflect my comments, and was decidedly warmer in his interactions with me afterwards. With a third Department, a Deputy Director who was initially quite snarky with his comments on the policy unit, started sharing some problems he had with his work. It was a philosophical one - where they had to promote something which people all agreed was a good thing to do, but simply was not cost-effective. Why should government do it then? He mused. I overcame all my hesitation and uncertainty about what I was about to say (a lot of it when it comes to Singaporeans!) and asked him what was in his cost-benefit analysis. Apparently, he did not take some future long-term cost into account, which the government would have to fork out if they did not promote what they were promoting. So if they took that future cost into account, would the cost-benefit analysis actually become positive? He looked like a light bulb had gone on in his head, and immediately turned to his staff and started giving instructions on how to tweak their numbers. After the meeting, the gruff Deputy Director was still telling me about some other issue he was facing and how he may need policy's help in the future. I felt like I scored another private victory and won another person's trust.
All these are emotional bank accounts, and as they are all new, I am wary of putting too many negative deposits into it at the beginning. According to Stephen Covey's book, when a relationship has been built up over the years, with many positive deposits, you can make a few withdrawals in a row, and the trust level is still very high. But not so for fledgling relationships. You have to kind of make sure the deposits outweight the withdrawals, or you run up negative feelings all the time when you encounter the person. I had also made up my mind, shortly after I assumed this new role, that I wanted to be known for a few things, namely simplicity, clarity, insight and innovation. As a unit, I wanted us to be known for humility, going back to basics and fundamentals, and an ability to get the policies approved by presenting the facts in a convincing, persuasive, easy-to-understand manner. I suppose I arrived at these because of my dislike of their opposites. I dislike unnecessarily complicated, messy writings, which display no insight, no clarity of thought, no creativity. I am aware that things like insight and creativity in new fields of knowledge take time, but they are goals I aspire towards.
Another thing I am enjoying in my new role is learning the work. As my new boss promised me, the work in my policy role certainly is interesting. What he didn't tell me was how technical and scientific it was. I found that out when I organised a workplan seminar recently for my Division. From the workplan presentations of the 5 departments, I found out that I was going to have to brush up on my science again, if I was to comment on the work of certain Departments. For another Department, it was heavily engineering-based. Disliking fluff and having a preference for going back to fundamentals, I think I better brush up on my engineering too. Thankfully I liked science in school!
Every day is bringing with it new challenges, new issues to understand and new people to meet. I am having a fun time. I thank God, as my hubby once said, the ability to enjoy your work is a blessing from God.
(a) You do not own any domain area in terms of expertise or knowledge, but are expected to contribute your views to "improve" the policy of a line Department, whose people have been in that field for ages,
(b) People in that domain area tend to see you as a source of either (1) someone who talks nonsense, not knowing the ground or having enough technical expertise/experience in that field or (2) a work generator, someone who will give them extra (often unimportant) work and send them on wild goose chases, because you don't know the field well enough, and/or because you are not the implementor and so have no aligned incentive to minimise work for them. In fact adding to their work load scores you points!
(3) Competing with them for limelight, because you often report to a different boss, and so both sides are trying to profile themselves. You can't "value add" without the line department (who has been in this field for so long) looking bad.
So, with the odds stacked against me, I somehow found myself assuming this role as of 1 Jul 2013. But a saving grace (or not, in terms of workload), was that I was still holding on to my previous position in my Department, which I was growing very comfortable with and which I liked very much. It was good in that I consoled myself - if I hate my new policy role, I can always have my Department work to fall back on, and at least I'm not stuck doing policy full-time. Some people felt I was getting the raw end of the deal in terms of workload (and I also acted like the poor overworked officer when people asked me about my new role), but I was actually not too unhappy about it.
What was surprising to me, was how enjoyable and challenging my new role was to me, both in terms of defining the job scope of this new policy unit, what me and my new team (albeit a small one) are each supposed to do, how we would work together, establishing relations with new Departments, and just getting up to speed on the myriad of issues in my work. Some parts are more enjoyable than others, and not every one is as challenging, but I shall talk more on the enjoyable ones (being someone who likes to dwell on the positive, remember the good and forget the bad, haha).
They are the last 2 areas of my work, and the first one on establishing contacts has been a lesson in emotional banks. I realised that in getting in touch for the first time with Departmental staff, that some treated me with surprise (why are you approaching me to ask me all sorts of questions about my work?), puzzlement (so you want me to send you my draft paper? Then what are you going to do with it? How does it affect workflow?) and skeptics (ha! This new policy unit is just a waste of time. It overlaps with what we and other departments are doing and will just add to the bottleneck, further slowing down an already long and cumbersome clearance process. You are just going to add to our workload, like all the other initiatives that have gone before. And how can you possibly value add to our work?). Many of the Directors, in fact, probably all Directors, fell into the last category to some extent. I could see their distrust and wariness in their eyes and from their comments about the policy unit. I was also hearing some of these sentiments from the grapevine.
However, what I have found is that it is very important to gain their trust and establish your credibility by giving good, constructive comments, from the get-go. Let's see, even my own Director, was quite surprised to see me sitting in a meeting where they were discussing another section's work. Having argued with the staff quite a bit before this meeting, where most of my comments were shot down by them (sigh, it's actually a matter of timing, many of my comments were on areas have already been approved, which is a big pity in my opinion), I kept quiet in this meeting until the very end, where I raised one concern with their recommendation. It pertained to how the policy would look to the customers, which would be nothing short of confusing. To my Director's credit, he took it in his stride, and immediately suggested a way to manage this risk. It got incorporated into the slides as a sub-bullet on the last slide, and eventually it all got approved. At the management meeting, they even talked about that sub-bullet, and how that would be an issue on the ground, and my Director spoke up at the meeting to commit the Department (actually my colleagues) to even more mitigation measures, to minimise the confusion. I must say even though I got none of the credit for that, and my policy boss doesn't know this, I felt a private victory inside myself, at having influenced public policy in Singapore in a small way.
Another similar incident happened at another meeting with another Director. Once he realised my comments were on-the-ball, he started asking his staff to amend the slides to reflect my comments, and was decidedly warmer in his interactions with me afterwards. With a third Department, a Deputy Director who was initially quite snarky with his comments on the policy unit, started sharing some problems he had with his work. It was a philosophical one - where they had to promote something which people all agreed was a good thing to do, but simply was not cost-effective. Why should government do it then? He mused. I overcame all my hesitation and uncertainty about what I was about to say (a lot of it when it comes to Singaporeans!) and asked him what was in his cost-benefit analysis. Apparently, he did not take some future long-term cost into account, which the government would have to fork out if they did not promote what they were promoting. So if they took that future cost into account, would the cost-benefit analysis actually become positive? He looked like a light bulb had gone on in his head, and immediately turned to his staff and started giving instructions on how to tweak their numbers. After the meeting, the gruff Deputy Director was still telling me about some other issue he was facing and how he may need policy's help in the future. I felt like I scored another private victory and won another person's trust.
All these are emotional bank accounts, and as they are all new, I am wary of putting too many negative deposits into it at the beginning. According to Stephen Covey's book, when a relationship has been built up over the years, with many positive deposits, you can make a few withdrawals in a row, and the trust level is still very high. But not so for fledgling relationships. You have to kind of make sure the deposits outweight the withdrawals, or you run up negative feelings all the time when you encounter the person. I had also made up my mind, shortly after I assumed this new role, that I wanted to be known for a few things, namely simplicity, clarity, insight and innovation. As a unit, I wanted us to be known for humility, going back to basics and fundamentals, and an ability to get the policies approved by presenting the facts in a convincing, persuasive, easy-to-understand manner. I suppose I arrived at these because of my dislike of their opposites. I dislike unnecessarily complicated, messy writings, which display no insight, no clarity of thought, no creativity. I am aware that things like insight and creativity in new fields of knowledge take time, but they are goals I aspire towards.
Another thing I am enjoying in my new role is learning the work. As my new boss promised me, the work in my policy role certainly is interesting. What he didn't tell me was how technical and scientific it was. I found that out when I organised a workplan seminar recently for my Division. From the workplan presentations of the 5 departments, I found out that I was going to have to brush up on my science again, if I was to comment on the work of certain Departments. For another Department, it was heavily engineering-based. Disliking fluff and having a preference for going back to fundamentals, I think I better brush up on my engineering too. Thankfully I liked science in school!
Every day is bringing with it new challenges, new issues to understand and new people to meet. I am having a fun time. I thank God, as my hubby once said, the ability to enjoy your work is a blessing from God.
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