Category: Psychological (Page 1 of 5)

Freedom, Responsibility and Adventure. Where are you in this Arc of Life?

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The Arc of Life

In The Arc of Life, the journey entails the following: Freedom, Responsibility, Adventure.

The Arc of Life is not a prescriptive formula, but rather, it is meant to serve as a “form”, a structure to help you think through the stages of development as you cross between worlds, providing you perspective as you make key transitions and changes in your life.

Let’s go through each of the three phases.

Freedom

“Chemical elements do not choose which way to combine. Genes do not make decisions,” said the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. “But we are free; we do choose. We do make decisions…(Freedom is) God’s most fraught and fateful gift.”1

When we embark on this voyage of leaving our old world behind, we are exercising the gift of freedom. The freedom from the past that binds us, as well as the freedom to engage in the choices we make. What a liberating feeling to be free from limiting beliefs, old narratives, and fears that held us back. Fear is not longer a headwind but a tailwind.

Most of us would be familiar with the image of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France to America in 1886, commemorating the two nations’ friendship and shared love of freedom.

But have you ever noticed that she isn’t standing still? The statue’s right foot is actually lifted, as if in mid-stride, as if to say, “Liberty is on the move.” Yet, paradoxically, as noted by German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, the fear of freedom can sometimes grip a hold on us. Nevertheless, we are invited to exercise our freedom for play, freedom to explore and discover the world within and without. 

Responsibility

As we come of age and reckon with the freedom at our disposal, we enter into a new phase. At this arc of the journey, we begin to comprehend that liberty begets responsibility. With the choices that we make—willingly—we learn that the territory of responsibility comes sacrifices. You can’t have it all. You can pursue anything you want, but not everything. Freedom asks for the partnership of responsibility. This means to take on the obligations of self-control and regard for others. 

When we think about these two phases of Freedom and Responsibility, author Ryan Holiday incisively pointed out, “We don’t have a freedom problem: we have a responsibility problem.” What Holiday was referring to is that we have over-inflated the value of freedom at the expense of responsibility. “Responsibility is understanding yourself as belonging to something larger than yourself.” Our responsibility is to see beyond just individual good, but the common good of all, shifting the lens from “I” to “We.”2 

Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said, 

“When we look upon human life without the blinkers of preconception, we must conclude that both consciousness and responsibleness play the basic roles in the drama of existence…Being human means being conscious and being responsible.”3

Curiously, after 75 years after the statue of Liberty was inaugurated in New York Harbour on the East Coast , another statue was proposed to be erected on the West Coast.. It was to be called “The Statue of Responsibility,” symbolising the flipside of America’s prized virtue. This was the brainchild of Viktor Frankl. He said,

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness (emphasis mine). That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.4

Features of Responsibility include sacrifices, pain and suffering. Ask any parent, and they will tell you about the heartaches and the headaches. Because parenting is an amateur sport, the moment you think you turned “pro.” the rules change5. Any cross that you that bear upon yourself, necessitates sacrifices that you have to make. When you become a parent, you make the instinctive sacrifice of thinking of your own needs 24/7. Your attention turns to the cute and utterly helpless baby in your arms. 

The road of Responsibility is difficult. Yet, pain is a teacher. Known as hormesis in the world of science, this biological phenomenon in which right-sized doses of stressors produces a beneficial effect; not too little and not too much. This is why, self-imposed stressors of doing something challenging (e.g., lifting weights, running, confronting your fears, learning a new skill) helps us grow. As we like to say, “No pain, no gain.” 

Hormesis is Greek for ‘to set in motion.’ The feeling of being in motion, pushing forward in the right direction, not only re-moralises and re-energises you, but the “effort equals to reward” also dampens the pain. Pain specialist and Pediatric emergency physician Amy Baxter noted that as a “gate control,” motion is effective at “shutting the gate” on sharp pain. She added, “Choosing what to focus on increases control. Fear and control are the volume knobs for pain.” Although Baxter was speaking about physical pain, I suspect this is also related to psychic pain. 

If we take up the cross of responsibility, where does this lead us to this in the arc of life? 

Adventure

When we put out the sail and move forward willingly and embrace the responsibilities that come with it, an adventure of our lives await for us. 

When we look back at the journey that we have undertaken, meaning comes to us retroactively. Things start to make a bit more sense. In this third phase, an adventure is calling out for you. It is unclear what the path will look like exactly, but so does the holiday trip to Europe. You know roughly where you’d go and what you’d do—but not exactly. That’s precisely the point of an adventure: To go somewhere new. 

Spiritual and Emotional Bypass

There are those think they can get from Freedom to Adventure, by making a spiritual and emotional bypass from the country of Responsibility. By doing so, one forfeits the chance to really discover what they are made of. Prematurely hunting for an “adventure,” without a deep experience of what it means to be a responsible person, pre-disposes the individual to occupy the passenger-seat, with a lack of control of where life is going. Not only are their hands not on the steering wheel, they would be prone to see of themselves as victims of circumstances.

Conversely, an individual who hasn’t fully experienced Freedom to play and explore and go forth with their own ideas and interests, and too quickly jump into the world of Responsibility, might find themselves needing to renegotiate the direction that one’s heading. 

A Mid-Life Opportunity

Consider Asher, when in his mid-40’s, decided to leave a mining related company business he led for the last 15 years. This decision didn’t come easy. It was fraud with fear, especially due to a loss of financial security. A recent car accident shook him, leaving him in existential crisis. This gave him pause, which morphed into a sort of angst at himself. “How the heck has 15 years passed just like that? What have I been doing with my life?” His son was a year younger than the birth of his business, which made it stark, seeing how his son, once a little boy, is now maturing and growing into his own independent (and sometimes, rebellious) ways.  “I only went into this business because I was cashing in. My mate and I were offered this opportunity to take over the business from his father who was retiring, and we thought that it was a great way to have financial security in our lives.”

And it did. But Asher noted, “I learned so much in this period, but something in me feels neglected and unchecked. It is as if I forgotten about a part of me that has always been there… but I don’t know what that is.” Looking back, Asher realised he hadn’t gone through a full-fledged development at the stage of Freedom to explore, and was rushed into the world of Responsibility. 

He could have continued the venture with his business partner, and have a comfortable retirement. But something was gnawing at him. He said, “I don’t want my son to see me do the things because I have to do them, at the expense of doing the things that make me come alive.”

Naturally, I asked, “What makes you come alive?”

“I have no idea!”

Not having a clue of a better alternative does not mean you should not give it space and time to percolate. Asher, with the support of his wife, took 3 months off to give it some thought. Never had he taken a vacation of more than 2 weeks in row. This was foreign territory for him. During this period, instead of brushing it off as a typical “mid-life crisis,” Asher unearthed that what as missing was that he had always valued both the “human-caring” side of work, as he described it, as well as the world of art and aesthetics. The thing he valued was providing emotional support to his employees, and being a mentor to them. In one of our therapy sessions. he said to me, “In fact, I want to do more of what you are doing!” 

With regards to his love of art, this world has been entirely relegated to the backseat in most of his adult-life. As a child, he remembered having a deep interest in painting and poetry, both of which were shelved due the responsibilities and mental energy he gave to the upkeep of his business. It was palpable that he had missed this side of him, the side that yearns for aesthetics, beauty, and creativity. Not longer after, for the first time in a long time, he picked up his paintbrush once again. 

Do What You Love In Front of Others

Fred Rogers once told the story of a sculptor consigned to do his craft in a school.

There was a man who would come every week to sculpt in front of the kids. The director said, “I don’t want you to teach sculpting, I want you to do what you do and love it in front of the children.” During that year, clay was never used more imaginatively, before or after…. A great gift of any adult to a child, it seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child. I mean, if you love to bicycle, if you love to repair things, do that in front of the children. Let them catch the attitude that that’s fun. Because you know, attitudes are caught, not taught.

The greatest gift we can give is to do what makes us come alive, and allow others to witness them.

Meanwhile, Asher found a natural fit in his work life. He contacted other firms, and putting his fillers out there, companies wanted to hire him to coach and mentor other executives. This resonated for him, as he had recognised a deep desire in him to help others on an individual level. Had he not pulled the reins and took a pause in his life, he would have simply continued in the previous world that he was in, one that was undoubtedly comfortable, familiar and secure. Crossing to this new territory gave rise to anxiety, but at the same time, opened new doors of possibility that awaits in front of him now. As if to cycle back to the realm of liberty, the exercise of freedom to do what life calls him to do, meant that there would be new-found responsibilities and sacrifices that he has to make (see graph). All of this will also impact his wife and kids. However, for the first time in his life, he is now opening up to an Adventure of his life. Not only does he gain meaning, he gets to do what makes him come truly alive, and allowing his family to witness it. 

From “Yes—>No—>Yes”

Similar to the Arc of Life, Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr described a related process of spiritual development. He called it the journey from 

“Yes—>No—>Yes”

“You can’t have all Yes-es and no No-es,”6 Rohr said. Elsewhere, he described the paths for transformation as the unfolding of 

“Order, Disorder, Reorder.”

Rohr noted that most traditions try to keep you in the first box of “Order,” even when it doesn’t fit the facts or reality7. This stunts any kind of real transformation and development. We have to go through states of “disorder” in order to come out the other end of “re-order.”

As you are crossing between worlds, making significant decisions and changes in your life, take heed of the signs of our times, no matter how “self-improved” you may be. If you pay attention to what life asks out of you, you can then move and allow yourself “to be moved” towards a life that awaits for you.

May you come alive.

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Reflection:

1. Where are you in this arc of life?

One way to be miserable, another to improve. Seven Ideas on how to compare and prevent envy and jealousy.

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Comparison is like porn. You can’t help but look. And If you look long enough, you might mistake it for reality.

There is a pithy saying, “Compare and despair.” Based on the teachings on the causes of suffering (dukkha) found in the Four Noble Truths in Buddhist teachings, comparison is a source of suffering.

Jesuit James Martin points out that comparison

Leads us away from the True Self, and encourages us to be someone else, someone whom God did not create.”

Easier said than done.

And I doubt this is a fresh insight. Given the content our eyes are constantly exposed to these days, it’s take a certain finesse to not compare.

I hope to provide some distinctions to help us along this path, and maybe get us unstuck from the mire of suffering that we can so easily slip into from comparing with others.

Let’s compare each of these seven distinctions.

1. Compare the Results vs. Compare the Process

It’s easy to envy the performance of someone else. We get “wowed” by their achievements, and end up envying the fruits of their labour, while failing to see the process that led that.

Instead of comparing the results, compare the process of what and how they worked on things.

Consider what James Clear, author of Atomic Habits said,

To improve, compare little things.

• marketing strategies
• exercise technique
• writing tactics

To be miserable, compare big things.

• career path
• marriage
• net worth

To be miserable, compare the outcomes, the results of a person’s effort with your inferior performance.

To improve, compare the micro-processes, the tiny little things that one does to become good at what they do.

2. Compare Locally vs. Compare Globally

A few years ago, I played a little thought experiment with my two teenage nieces. I asked them the following question:

“Imagine a very long street, where everyone in the world lives in. Those on the left are the poorest, and those on the right are the richest. Where do you think you are on this Dollar Street?”

The teens in my family placed themselves at the middle. The truth was closer to, at the very least, the 85th percentile or above.

This was based on Anna Rosling Rönnlund’s, daughter of Hans Rosling, project called, Dollar Street. For 15 years, she documented stories, pictures and videos of people from all over the world, attempting to create a global profile of everyday life on different income levels understandable.

So what does a bedroom of someone living right in the middle of Dollar Street look like?

This does not look anywhere like my two nieces’ bedrooms. At the middle of Dollar Street, this was a family of six, living at $654/month.

It turned out that my nieces responded similarly to Swedish students who were studied in the Dollar Street project. Swedish students thought they are in the middle when they are in the top 1 %.

Comparing with those locally, from a “zoomed-in” perspective, causes us to experience a cognitive bias, a kind of spotlight effect.

But, when we compare with those globally, from a “zoomed-out” perspective, we are likely to be confronted with one of the following:

1. Our lack of knowledge from a global perspective, or
2. Humbling ourselves.

“Humility,” as Iris Murdoch said, “Is a respect for reality.”

For more on this, watch Anna Rosling Rönnlund TED talk.

To be miserable, “zoom-in” and compare with your nearest neighbour.

To improve, “zoom-out” as far as you can to gain perspective.

3. Compare Within vs. Compare Between

Most people intuitively know this point, but it’s useful to be reminded.

Don’t compare yourself to others; compare yourself to your past performance. Compare to your previous benchmark and aim for incremental improvements.

When we compare to others, we become prone to #1. Comparing the Results.

When we compare to our past selfs, we now have a clear reference what improvement looks like.

To be miserable, engage in “comparitition”1 (i.e., compare and compete).

To improve, compare to your past self and take steps.

4. Compare Based on Someone’s External Life with Your Internal Life vs. Based on Someone’s Inner-Life with your Inner-Life.

Once, an elderly woman told me that she could not fathom the possibility that I would actually have any distressed clients who lived in Peppermint Grove, Perth’s most expensive suburb.

This is an important point, especially for children, teens, and adults who are constantly exposed to social media feeds.2 When we are constantly fed with images of people’s external “best lives,” even though we know so, we have a tendency to conflate the difference between our inner and outer lives.

To be miserable, assume that someone’s external life is a direct correlation to their inner-life.

To improve, learn to introspect. And learn from others who radiate wisdom and deep joy that comes from within (see #7. Look Sideways vs. Look Up).

5. Think Like a Silver Medalist vs. Think Like a Bronze Medalist.

Writer Derek Silver said,

Imagine the Olympics, where you have the three winners of a race standing on the podium: the gold, the silver, and the bronze.

Imagine what it’s like to be the silver medalist. If you’d been just one second faster, you could have won the gold! Damn! So close! Damn damn damn! Full of envy, you’d keep comparing yourself to the gold winner.

Now imagine what it’s like to be the bronze medalist. If you’d been just one second slower, you wouldn’t have won anything! Awesome! You’d be thrilled that you’re officially an Olympic medalist and get to stand on the winner’s podium.

Comparing up versus comparing down: Your happiness depends on where you’re focusing.

I’ve met a lot of famous musicians. The miserable ones were upset that they weren’t more famous, because they’d bitterly compare themselves to the superstars. The happiest ones were thrilled to be able to make a living making music.

Though there might be some caveats to how silver and bronze medalists actually think after a competition3, I think the metaphor is still useful.

To be miserable, compare yourself to the gold medalist based solely on outcome.

To improve, own the fruits of your labour AND work on the specific things to improve in that particular context (See #1 Compare the Results vs Compare the Process).

6. Amplify Weaknesses vs. Amplify Strengths

Our strengths will fail to serve us when we do not acknowledge and amplify them. Your strength is something that strengthens you.

Working on our weaknesses are needed especially when there are deficits. Consider the following: What is the value of a restaurant’s food vs. the cleanliness of the floor?

Imagine if you run a 3-Star Michelin restaurant with spectacular food, but the floor was littered with last week’s leftover from 5-year-old Tommy’s spaghetti bolognaise, plus occasional sightings of roaches and rats. Clearly, it doesn’t make sense to improve the food in such a situation.

Mop the floor.

To be miserable, focus exclusively on your weaknesses and ignore what’s in your nature, your inherent strengths that make you, you.

To improve, leverage and amplify your personal strengths that resonate with who you are as a person. Don’t under-estimate them. There is no one like you.

7. Look Sideways vs. Look Up.

Finally, similar to #2. Compare Locally vs Compare Globally and #3. Compare Between vs. Compare Within, we need to guide our eyes. Where our attention is, that’s where life is.

To look sideways, is like running a marathon with our heads tilted to the left and to the right all the time (watch that kerb!).

To “look up,” is to find mentors, role models, instrumental luminary figures, who become our guiding light. We are sorely lacking elders, people who have walked before us, to be our co-journeyers.

When we lack a guiding light, we fall to our lower desires. We start to turn our gaze sideways.

Many of us are professional orphans. We are trying to grow and develop, for the most part, on our own. In Caring for Those Who Care, a post for psychotherapists, I wrote,

Maybe I was slow to fully realise this, but as I worked with others in the helping profession, I see how orphaned many of us feel. Orphaned in a sense that we receive little to no guidance after becoming licensed, accredited or graduated. Most PD activities doesn’t seem to address this.

Some might call the experience of wounds and betrayals that they carry from the workplace as moral injuries; others feel like their development is of no concern to those who hire them; many are teetering on the brink of burnout.

One person commented on that post saying,

I feel strongly about. Seeking help, being vulnerable and showing our fallibilities is something we as helping professionals do not do well, nor are we very good at self-reflection…

I think this is key as health professionals. Looking after each other, TRUSTING each other.

Many are also emotional orphans. Many people don’t know you on the inside in a deep level. In turn, we become stranger to a strange interior land. Consequently, our gaze and attention gets turned outward, on what’s available out there, on social media platforms, influencers who are touting the best way to lead a best life, and providing you a tantalising hope for a better you, and even potentially misleading you to self-diagnose your mental health problems (Read

Todd Kashdan excellent post on this: The Troubling Trend of Self-Diagnosing Mental Health.

To be miserable, keep comparing with your peers in the absence of guiding figures in your life.

To improve, seek out guiding lights.

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Threats of Envy and Jealousy

We colloquially use “envy” and “jealousy” interchangeably, but they are not the same.

To envy, is to focus on the “have-nots,” in comparison with the success of others. Often times, the envier and the envied are social equals. (e.g., “My colleague just upgraded to a Tesla”).

To be jealous, is to experience a threat on our “haves”, our valued relationship (e.g., “Who is my girlfriend really hanging out with at the library?”)

Psychologically, we must also look into our own insecurities and fears that fuel this, and make the distinctions between ways that lead us to become miserable, and ways that can actually help us improve. If left unchecked, comparison can become the gateway drug to envy and jealousy.

Realistically, with the current technological platforms we have created in our culture, the comparison issue is not going to be solved overnight. It’s going to be everyone’s on-going project. My hope is we keep a contemplative and discerning disposition on this, based on the seven distinctions that we’ve listed in the table above, so that we can pick ourselves up—or maybe help each other out—when we fall into the quicksand of comparisons.

When you focus on what you lack, you lost what you have.

When you focus on what you have, you get what you lack.

~ Greg McKeown, Effortless, pp. 58-59, 2021.

P/S: THANKS FOR GETTING TO THE END. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHICH OF THE SEVEN POINTS RESONATE WITH YOU.

An alternative to New Year’s Resolution

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Developing a Motif

Most of the people I’ve met in my clinical practice this week do not have a new year’s resolution. This is intriguing to me, given that in the past years, I often hear reports from my clients about their goals and plans for a “new me” during this season.

“There’s no point,” one teenager said to me. “I’ve read that the success rate of setting a new year’s resolution is like, very low.”

Turns out, she’s right.

One of the contributing authors to our book, The Field Guide to Better Results, psychologist John Norcross studied the outcomes of people who made New Year’s resolutions. Norcross and colleagues found that while more than fifty per cent of participants made some sort of resolution, after six months, only 40% had stuck with it. Two years later, the number had dropped to 19%.

Writer Maria Konnikova noted,

Gym attendance peaked in January, they found, and decreased in the following months. Smaller spikes occurred at the beginning of each week, each month, and each term.

Why does the promise of “Fresh-Starts” at the new year fall flat? If we tend to fail dismally in making new year’s resolution, what is the alternative?

The Alternative

Instead of making new year’s resolutions, make a theme for yourself.

We tend to overestimate our ability of carrying out our goals for the year, and underestimate what life throws at us in our daily life.

The same young adult who reported about the low success rate our January’s resolution was debating about whether to continue her tertiary education. It was her final year. She finally came to a resolve that he would bite the bullet and go to the finish line with his formal education, albeit feeling like he wasn’t really learning anything useful. Then she added, “I still wanna learn more about videography and photography… editing and stuff…”

I thought it was marvellous she was motivated and hungry, wanting more for himself. If there was one thing you can do for yourself, is to prove to yourself that you can do hard things.

So I suggested the following:

• In school, you are told what to learn.
• In life, you need to figure our what you wanna learn.
• So, why not design your own learning curriculum?

She liked the idea. She now needs to map this out, the kind of stuff she’s interested to learn more about, and how she’s going to organise her “school of life” outside of school.

But that’s not the end. I asked her what’s gonna keep her on track, she instinctively said, “I need to have a theme… to keep me motivated…and paste a sticky note in my bedroom to constantly remind me for the year ahead.”

That was her homework. Come up with a theme.

That’s your homework too. What’s your theme for the year?

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Thinking in Seasons

Every season has its own needs.

If we are to pay close attention to the signs of our times, we will notice different developments and particular types of unfolding happening around you and to you.

One way to gain perspective of this is to think about

1. “Where you have been,” so that you can see
2. “Where you are now,” so that you can figure out,
3. “Where you are going.”

This reflection process needs to be as concrete as possible. In other words, if you don’t have a clear picture of “where you have been,” we would be prone to recency bias (i.e., favouring recent events at the expense of older events).

Here is how you can begin the process: Capture your highlights in weeks.

Capture Your Highlights

Here’s what you can do, sequenced into 3 steps:

1. “Where You Have Been.”

• Review your calendar in the previous year.
• Jot down your highlights for each week.1
• For each month, based on the highlights, capture any personal learnings.
• Now zoom out to the year, review each of the 12 months, and consolidate key learnings.
• Finally, looking back at the previous year, if this was a movie or a book, what would you name this as? What is the theme? What is the running chorus? What is the motif of the previous year?

To help you with the process, feel free to use a this template I’ve been using called, Highlights in Weeks.

2. “Where Are You Now.”

• Now that you’ve done a stock-take of your previous year, take a moment to review your learnings from the previous year.
• Make a commitment to capture ONE HIGHLIGHT per week.
• A highlight consists of either, a high-point, a low-point, or a turning-point. An external event or an inner-discovery can be noted down.

3. ”Where You Are Going.”

• At the end of each month, review and note down any personal learnings from what has transpired.
• Finally, now that you’ve reviewed the previous year, your mind is more primed to get a sense of where you are at, and potentially where you need to go, give a name to the theme for the coming year.
• A theme/motif/chorus (or whatever synonyms you can think of) for the year could come in a name or a sentence. Something that encapsulates your intention for the year.

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A Sample of My Highlights in Weeks

To give you a sense of how I use the Highlights in Weeks template, ​here’s a sample of mine taken over the last few years, taken from my other site, Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD)2:

2018​
​Private Thoughts (Part I)​
​Personal Learnings (Part II)​

2019​
​Personal Mistakes (Part I)​
​Personal Learnings (Part II)​​

2020:
​Looking Back at 2020​

2021:
Looking Back at 2021​

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Why Themes?

Around 2020, I was taken by the idea of naming each year by theme. This was stolen from basketball coach Phil Jackson when he was working with the Chicago Bulls (see the documentary, The Last Dance, which was the theme he gave the team in their final season of playing together).

Thinking in themes is like a navigational device. Like a map paired with a compass, articulating your own theme orients you to where you are and where you are going. Instead of specific goals, it provides you an overall sense of directionality.

For instance, in 2020, my theme was “Raising the Stakes.” This was my attempt to deliberately step out of my usual sphere (i.e., comfort zone), and edging more towards my learning zone. I was really trying to be informed by intent, and less by fear.

This meant that I would intentionally put myself to do things I am likely to over-analyse and ruminate on, and instead to just go ahead and do them (e.g., release Frontiers podcast and videos, aimed for psychotherapists).

And then in 2021, my theme was “Upstream.” Here’s what I wrote about this motif:

“Upstream” served as a counterpoint to fire-fighting, downstream type of work that I can get easily sucked into. Upstream meant that I invest time in making things that are going to serve my intentions well into the future. By design, this also meant that it would be harder at the early phase, but the pay-off will be higher in the long-term.

I’m influenced by the authors Dan Heath’s book Upstream, poet and author Mary Oliver with a prose of the same title, and Roman Krznaric for The Good Ancestors that really made me look beyond the “now” and into the “long now.”

One practical principle I derived from this “Upstream” theme: Make big decisions to avoid small decisions.

This statement is now in my daily planner notes to remind my monkey-mind when I’m busy fire-fighting stuff.

Here’s some concrete translation on this theme of Upstream thinking:

For instance, for the longest time, I’ve felt the inclination to write and produce more books. Writing is certainly a gruelling process – but also highly gratifying. It has become a way of sharpening my thinking, as I not only write what I think I know, but I write in order to know.

On a clinical practice level, instead of making a decision on a week-by-week basis, I’ve since made the “big” decision in 2020 to have a 15min gap between clients. This means that I probably see 1 less client per day, and I end the day slightly later around 6pm. That said, this feels more sustainable for me. The 15min gap also allows me to finish case notes, to recompose myself and gather my thoughts for the next client. And if my time management is off, I have that grace period to play with.

I’ve also made a decision around my daily/weekly habits. Instead of reacting to things, I’ve roughly designed my days that stays close to my intent (e.g., solitary work, clinical practice, teaching, family time, creative time). I’ve also continued to block access to my inbox between 11pm to 12pm the next day. I’ve used the app Freedom.io to prevent me from knee-jerk checking of my emails during those stipulated times (Irrationally, I’ve found workarounds to send and receive emails during my blocked periods!)

I have yet to publish my Highlights in Weeks for 2022 and 2023, but for now, 2022 was “Shortcuts.” The reason for this theme was because I felt at that season of my life, I was taking way too long to get things done, and still deliberating far too long on projects (an issue I faced in 2021). I felt I was overcomplicating things.

In addition, I was also fascinated by people like nurse and statistician Florence Nightingale, who used vivid graphs to back her public health campaigns.

They was so much to learn about how I could use sketch notes and visual to communicate more effectively. I turned to people like Doug Neil to convey ideas through simple sketchnoting. I learned as much as I could from Doug’s videos so as to get me started.

Here are some of my examples that I’ve used:

In 2022, the theme was “Risk-Write.” The reason for this theme was because I really want to included in my writings more from my own perspective, tell stories that have impacted me. In other words, I was trying to undo how I was taught in academic writing, which boiled down to not using “I” in my writings. Instead, I want to flip that upside down and open up the gateway, allowing for more of me to come forth.

I definitely didn’t want to be self-indulgent, but at the same breathe, when I think about some of my favourite authors, they put themselves on the line.

Here’s own of my attempts in Fullcircles, Stumbling into Self-Forgetting.

Moving and Being Moved

Now that you get a sense of how to use the Highlights in Weeks chart, and how to formulate a theme for yourself, please note things don’t go as planned. Designing our direction in life is not a force of will, but instead, it is the juxtaposition of moving and being moved.

‘Moving’ implies acting upon our intentions. ‘Being moved,’ on the other hand, is to allow ourselves to be touched and inspired by what unfolds in front of us, even when—or rather, especially when—it is not our choosing.

To move is to resist becoming the victims of our circumstances. To move is an act of will and responsibility. To be moved is to allow ourselves to touched by what’s in front of us, and utilise that as a mobilising force.

Researchers in human emotions offers a fascinating insight. A review article by Janis Zickfeld and colleagues3^⁠ suggested that being ‘moved’ should be treated as a “distinct emotion.”

Sensations of being moved include tears, chills, lump in the throat, goosebumps, warmth in the chest. When seen in this light, it’s easy to understand why the experience of being moved is often considered as passive experience, i.e., not something we can actively control. Let me do my Chinese teacher proud and point out that in Mandarin, “being moved”  Gǎn Dòng [感动], literally translates “to feel movement.”

Another interesting pattern emerged from the body of studies. The lexeme being moved not only fosters approach and prosocial tendencies, but also lead to “insight, meaning and personal growth.”

Unlike a massive corporate tour bus, there is no fixed path to this. We must honor our nature, which comes with our gifts and constrains. And we must pay attention to the signs of our times.

2023 Motif

With that, at this chapter of my life, I resonate with making the theme for myself to be “Make it Easier.” According to my wife, the Asian work ethic in me has not declined even after moving out of Singapore.

I see some early signs of this playing out. I don’t want to burn out, and neither do I want my family to be left with crumbs of me at the end of each day.

In a future post, I will take about a particular learning that struck a chord in me to think about not pushing a “100%.”

With that, I wish you, dear reader, a wonderful journey ahead, to move and be moved by all that you love, and all that is calling out for you.

Bon Voyage.

How come I end up where I started
How come I end up where I belong
Won’t take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out then you cut the string.

~ 15 Steps, by Radiohead.

p/s: Once again, here’s the link to download the template for Highlights in Weeks Template.

The addictive trappings of growth.

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Not everything needs to be a self-improvement project.

Not everything is about development, improvement, or growth. It’s also no coincidence that when we say someone has a tumour, we call that a “growth.”

When we overemphasise on the insatiable need to keep getting better, to improve, or to grow, we fall prey into the achievement trap. The achievement trap is a trap because it indicates that something is lacking. This trap makes us think we’re not good enough as we are now. We feel like we always need to do more and *be* more. As if we are not enough, in deficit, or worse, that there’s something wrong about us.

This achievement trap has its roots like an addiction. This “growth”1 for it’s own sake, or as Stephen Jenkinson puts it, “…untethered to the consequences of growth … grows itself to death (like a cancer).”

There’s nothing wrong with trying to improve—some might even suggest that if people take on a self-improvement project, our lives might be a better place. Often times, the person that they are referring to is not themselves, but others.

The bigger project of our lives is not one about self-improvement. Rather, it is more about going back to our original self, figuring out our gifts, what’s natural to each of us, and to allow that to come forth more fully so that you are more fully alive.

Come Alive

Fred Rogers, the beloved host/author/producer of American kids TV series, Mr Roger’s Neighborhood told a story about a sculptor in a nursery school he was working in when he was getting his master’s degree in child development:

“There was a man who would come every week to sculpt in front of the kids. The director said, “I don’t want you to teach sculpting, I want you to do what you do and love it in front of the children.”

During that year, clay was never used more imaginatively, before or after…. A great gift of any adult to a child, it seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child. I mean, if you love to bicycle, if you love to repair things, do that in front of the children. Let them catch the attitude that that’s fun. Because you know, attitudes are caught, not taught.”

Nurture Your Nature

Our Nature is designed to be nurtured, informed by our needs.

Our task is to mother our nature. Without this nurturance, motivated individuals end up on the hamster-wheel of constant addictive self-improvement.

Even if our nature is our most annoying trait, we can cultivate something out of it. (See Josh Shipp’s video below).

Sr Joan Chittister points out,

Life is not meant to be a burden. Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a blessing to be celebrated.

Discover and celebrate your gifts. It’s contagious.

We haven’t taught until they have learned… and knowing that we are never gonna get it right.

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The Amateur Sport of Parenting

It is neither useful nor surprising to state the following (but I’d say it anyway): Parenting is hard!

Parenting is hard because

• We have explicit and implicit expectations,
• We have the ability to influence, and yet, paradoxically, we ultimately have no control, and
• It is an amateur sport. The moment you think you’ve turned pro, the rules changed.

Put it another way. Parenting would be ‘easy’ if

• We have ZERO expectations,
• We disavow our ability to influence and nurture.
• You focus on being the “great parent,” as opposed to tending to their nature and their needs.

Two years ago, while I was putting kids to bed combined with a semi-conscious and loose associative state of mind, I ended up pondering about what were the great subjects of my life. What have I gravitated towards trying to comprehend, understand, and make sense?

I looked through my notes1 over the last decade. Then I listed down all of the main themes of my pursuit. The ‘Great Subjects of My Life’ encompassed a seemingly non-coherent thread, spanning from science and spirituality to relationships, healing, expertise development, learning, morality, therapy, emotions, and cognitive sciences.

This got me thinking.

If I was to be a good ancestor to my kids, what do I want to pass on to them, or at least attempt to kindle a consideration of? I started to brainstorm. I was 43 back then, so I thought I would keep to no more than 43 items.

I started listing them down, but never quite saw the value of doing so at that point in time. Now, as I re-look at the incomplete list, I thought to myself that this might be a worthy exercise to engage in.

I’m 45 now, so I’ve taken the liberty to add two more.

My suspicion is that the list might slightly increase in the coming years, and then likely decrease later on as I’d recalibrate my expectations (or get more jaded).

45 things is a lot of things. But the idea is to map out what matters most.

In no particular order of virtues, values or skills, here it goes.

45 Things I Want My Kids To Learn

1. How Things Grow
2. Fierce Kindness
3. Learning to Listen to Your Own Voice
4. Dignity of The Person
5. Equality
6. Friendship
7. Forgiveness
8. Courage
9. Morality
10. Means vs. Ends
11. The Creative Process
12. Mistakes and the Dangers of Perfection
13. Embracing constraints
14. Play
15. Improvisation
16. Love of Music
17. Know the Beatles Catalogue
18. Love of Reading
19. Love of Learning (not Performing) via the Hard Way on Purpose
20. Conversations
21. Becoming a Good Ancestor
22. Tending to Your Gifts
23. Tending to the Gifts of Others
24. Community
25. The Power of Words
26. The Power of Your Voice
27. Poetry
28. Writing
29. Servant leadership
30. Empathy
31. Prayer and Contemplation
32. Paradox
33. Don’t jump to conclusions
34. Draw
35. See the math behind the world, and mystery behind the math.
36. Wonderment via Deep Noticing, leading to involuntary gratitude
37. Know Your Roots
38. Struggle is not a Failure
39. Taking Care of Their Inner Life
40. Graceful Self-Forgetting
41. The Difference between competence and confidence
42. Self-Efficacy
43. Allowing Beauty to Move You
44. Love

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The Rationale

Here’s my attempt to provide a reason for why each of these exists. The list is long, but I’d keep the explanations short.

1. How Things Grow

• To be sensitive to the natural world, and notice how nature works.
• In turn, how we can model and ‘biomimic’ nature in all that we create.
• See #14. Play, and #15. Improvisation.

2. Fierce Kindness

• Kindness requires a kind of tenacity, an act of resistance from our reactivity.
• This requires us to take pause, stand firm, and approach with gentleness.
• For more, see Tenderness is Not Weakness What I’ve Learned from Jean Vanier

3. Learning to Listen to Your Own Voice

• The world is a noisy place.
• Learning to listen to the smaller, quieter voice within will take practice.
• When we attune ourselves to listen within, that’s where God is found.

4. Dignity of The Person

• Dignity is given, not earned. human value of a person.
• Treat people not as a means to an end, by an end of itself (see #9. Means vs. Ends)
• A person in power can rob a person’s dignity. Our task is not so much as to empower, but to encourage.

5. Equality

• From the words of Joshua Wooden, father of legendary coach John Wooden,No one is better than you and you are not better than anyone else.

6. Friendship

• At every age, friendship is a diagnosis of our lives.

7. Forgiveness

• It’s much easier for anger and resentment to fester, than for the disarming act of forgiveness.
• Holocaust survival and author of The Choice, Edith Eger says,To forgive is to grieve—for what happened, for what didn’t happen—and to give up the need for a different past.

8. Courage

• Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, courage is a prerequisite for all other virtues to be cultivated.
• When in doubt, ask yourself, “What is the courageous decision to make?”

9. Morality

• Borrowing from the later Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, at its essence, morality is shifting the lens from “I” to “We,”
• It is not just what’s good for an individual, but what is a common good for all.

10. Means vs. Ends

• We must be careful not to treat everything as a means to an end. Some of the most important things in life are an end of itself, like friends, family, play.
• Emmanuel Kant wrote in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals: In the kingdom of ends everything has either value or dignity. Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.

11. The Creative Process

• The highest expression of our humanity is creativity. (see also #14.Play and #15.The Art of Improvisation).
• This is not just relating to “creative” endeavours, like art or music.
• Our role and soul requires us to partake in the co-creative process.

12. Mistakes and the Dangers of Perfection

• Make new mistakes.
• The Pursuit of Excellence is Not the Pursuit of Perfection

13. Embracing constraints

• Constraints are the high antidote to procrastination.
• When no constraints are given, make them up for yourself.

14. Play

• The highest form or research is me-search.
• Stuart Brown argued that the lack of play should be treated as serious as malnutrition.

15. Improvisation

• The word improvisation originates from the Latin ‘improvisus’, meaning ‘not seen ahead of time.’
• They are many things we do not see ahead of time in an uncertain world.
• The posture to take then, is to notice, appreciate, embrace, utilise, and willingness to take the step forward… and believing that you have something to give.

16. Love of Music

• Music is the closest thing I know that represents the beyond.

17. Know the Beatles Catalogue

• I mean, come-on… it’s a must.

18. Love of Reading

• I have many great mentors in my life. Many of them I have not met before.
• Thinking is like have a monologue. Reading, on the other hand, is like having a deep dialogue with someone who has thought about a single topic for a long time.

19. Love of Learning (not Performing)

• An over-emphasis on performing impedes learning.
• For more, listen to this podcast.
• see also #14. Play

20. Conversations

• Conversations is one of the highest art form that we engage in daily.
• Doesn’t matter if you are an introvert or an extrovert.
• A litmus test for a good conversation is when we can hear ourselves clearly.

21. Becoming a Good Ancestor

• I hope to be a good ancestor, and I want my kids to be a good ancestor to their futurecestors.

22. Tending to Your Gifts

• This is the great journey and adventure of our lives, especially at the first half of our lives: To find and cultivate our gifts.
• Gifts are meant to be given away.

23. Tending to the Gifts of Others

• Especially the second half of our lives, we look beyond ourselves and tease out the gifts in others.

24. Community

• We are a human being and a human belonging.
• A community calls us out of our doors.

25. The Power of Words

• Words have more potency than we give credit.
• So engage in the praxis of your words.

26. The Power of Your Voice

• Our voice is the one native instrument we have at our disposal.
• Learn to use it well.
• Allow yourself to sing. You don’t have to be perfect.

27. Poetry

• Poetry is truth told slant
• Get closer to the truth.

28. Writing

• Not write what you know, but write in order to know.
• Writing is a way of clarifying your thinking.

29. Servant leadership

• The world is yearning for good leaders.
• The Indo-European root of the word “leadership,” you find leith, meaning “to go forth,” “to cross the threshold,”

30. Empathy

• Empathy is not perspective-taking, it’s perspective-getting.
• Learn to get perspectives beyond your own.

31. Prayer and Contemplation

• Pause from the madness of this world.
• Prayer emerges from the seed of discontent.
• Turn everything into a prayer.

32. Attempts at Doing God’s Will

• You have a religion that you are born into. That’s meant for your to push back from, and maybe go back to. Either way, it’s a springboard.
• You are called to bring life to this life (see #22. Tending to You Gifts), and in order to do so, you’d need to learn to listen (see #3. Learning to Listen to Your Own Voice).
• Thomas Merton says about doing God’s will,

…I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

33. Paradox

• Learn to sit with contradictory ideas.
• “The words of truth are always paradoxical,” says Lao Tzu
• For example,The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.~ Carl Rogers

34. Don’t Jump to Conclusions too Early

• We are not frogs. Don’t be too quick to leap for a premature answer.
• And, you are allowed to change your mind.

35. Draw

• Why not? It’s fun (see #14. Play).
• Plus, it helps you communicate.

36. See the math behind the world, and mystery behind the math.

• Get under the hood.
• Go further.
• Why? You no only have a deeper appreciation, but you’d start to become moved by mystery.

37. Deep Noticing

• Deep noticing of the world around you leads to wonderment, which leads to involuntary gratitude.
• See Rob Walker’s book and his Substack, The Art of Noticing.

38. Know Your Roots

• I’m trying to do so too.
• Without those before us, there would be no us.

39. Struggle is not a Failure

• Struggle is a sign of crossing a threshold.
• Just like when you were learning to ride your bike, just hang in there for that little bit more.

40. Taking Care of Their Inner Life

• This is hidden to mostly everyone around you, but your inner-life is a life-force for your outer-life.
• Tend to your inner-life.
• “L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux,” or “What is essential is invisible to the eyes.”~ Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince.

41. Graceful Self-Forgetting

• An over-emphasis of the self is a source of suffering.
• See It’s Not About You, Do Not Focus on The Self, Point Your Camera to the World, and Stumbling Into Self-Forgetting

42. The Difference between Competence and Confidence

• In the words of the comedian Steve Martin, get so good that they can’t ignore you.
• Doubt is a good servant, and a bad master. Let doubt serve you.

43. Self-Efficacy

• Self-efficacy is not self-esteem, it is not self-confidence.
• Self-efficacy grows via vicarious experiences (i.e., witnessing others do things) and personal mastery (i.e., you doing things).
• For more, see Scott Young’s essay on this topic.

44. Allowing Beauty to Move You.

• Our journey consists of moving and being moved.
• Let me do my Chinese teacher proud and point out that in Mandarin, “being moved”  Gǎn Dòng [感动], literally translates “to feel movement.”
• Pay attend to the beauty that surrounds you (see #37. Deep Noticing), and allow yourself to be moved.

45. Love

• … The greatest of these is love.
• The Great lesson of our lifetime is learn how to love. Many things that we try to achieve requires us to be muscular about it, but to love, requires us to soften.
• The Sufi poet, Rumi says, task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. And from Fred Rogers, Love and success, always in that order. It’s that simple AND that difficult.

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Who is this really for?

I want to nurture the nature of my kids, and not go against it. I worry about pushing my agenda on them (with the exception of needing to know the Beatles catalogue).

As I complete this list, two things strikes me:

First, it’s less about values and more about virtues—a word that is somewhat deflated in our modern life.

Valuing outcomes like success only really make sense when paired with Virtues like integrity. Otherwise we get Enron.

I’d rather we be virtues-driven than values-driven.

Second, I feel like this is more for me than for my kids. It’s for me to hold these lightly as wishes and not expectations. Perhaps, let this be my prayer. It’s also a reminder for me to co-create conversations with them as they grow, as we grow.

Many of these lessons are eternal teachings and learnings. But let’s not forget,

“You haven’t taught if until they have learned.”

~ John Wooden.

Allowing ourselves to move and be moved during significant changes, transitions and turnings.

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It’s 1990, an era where no one has peanut allergies, a soda plus a 20 cent pack Nutella was a considered lunch, and free-range 10-year-old kids roaming around town was not a crime. 

I’m 12-years-old. I’m lying in bed, mulling about the big move from primary to secondary school, my terrible grades from my Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE) that has caused an extra year ahead in an all-boys school, and all the girls that I’m never going to meet. 

There is something else on my mind. My head is swirling. Even though I know it’s still a long way,  I know it will be an eventuality. Though it seems both like a lifetime away and something approximating tomorrow, in about 6 years time, I will have to go to a place that I do not want to go. 

When I turn 18, I will have to be enlisted. Two and a half years of my life will be lost to the military.  I will have to shave my head, dawn on a green uniform, march like an automaton and do manly things like pick up arms, shoot at targets, crawl on mud and climb man-made obstacles. Somehow I also got it in my head that we would have to do jump off a plane and paratroop to the jungles.

The Army

If you are a male living in Singapore, you must be thinking I am a sissy for worrying about nothing. Other boys my age are not even concerned about it; some are even looking forward to it. But the truth is, I’m totally freaked out about this impending doom. Besides the disruption that it will make to the “prime-time” as I come of age, and my philosophical disagreements with the idea of taking up arms, all I could picture is me being ordered to jump off a C-17 Globemaster plane with a parachute pack that won’t open. 

And I am afraid of heights.

My dread about heights were confirmed when I turned 13.  I am standing on top of a tree, at the start of a makeshift zipline. I’m a reluctant boyscout, and  Jason the instructor is cursing at me to get my butt off the tree and make the leap down the rope. I was terrified, and despite the jeering from my peers in the queue, my height phobia is not about to relent. The cursing from Jason ramps up by three notches, and he begins to threaten. He says that I will lose my hands, and he meant it. Not because he will cut them off, but because the rope around my wrist is cutting the bloodflow. Yeah right, so I thought. I check—Oh shit, he’s right. My hands were turning pale-blue; I can barely feel my fingers. 

I didn’t realise it at that time that more than 60 mins have passed. I don’t know what happened next, but out of sheer annoyance at my lack of bravery,  Jason must have given me a nudge down that zipline. I made it down that tree in one piece. Strangely, my height phobia is still in tact. My fear had not gone away. 

In fact, I am now more afraid about the impending helicopter jump that I will have to make in 5 years time and the parachute that malfunctions.

I wasn’t going to go in unprepared. I started to train before I entered the first 3 months of Basic Military Training (BMT). I had to, because I am a borderline underweight, scrawny kid that could have easlier been blown by the westerly winds. 

I had another method of preparation in mind: To  “downgrade.” When someone is not medically fit, you’d get a downgrade status. With that, comes “privileges.” I’ve heard stories of friends who get downgraded due to things medical conditions like asthma, or as bizarre as allegies to grass, skin reactions to the unifrom, which exempted them from going outfield. This kept them in the frosty air-conditions headquarters throughout their 2.5 years of mandatory service. 

So what do I do? Two days before the medical exam, I began my prisoner of war, commando-style home-training: I refrained from sleeping. I drank copious amounts of coffee and energy drinks, hoping to whack my blood pressure temporarily and as well as to reduce the standard deviation to minus 1 in my psychological evaluation. It didn’t work. Oddly, I am still fit as a fiddle, and I have no idea how I faired in those batteries of questionnaires. 

Then I thought of my friend Robin. He’s twice my weight. Maybe I could get him to sit on me and slide down my leg to dislocate my knee. Robin laughed at the idea. Well, he could laugh because _he’s_ downgraded. 

I know, this all sounds silly. This is a very difficult time in my life. Nearing the time of enlistment, I was on the verge of getting kicked out of school from my tertiary education in Business Administration (I hated the course. There was something not quite right about how economics and marketing were taught.), I was in a tumultous relationship that went nowhere, and the only saving grace was playing music in a band. That is now going to be disrupted, plus all of my bandmates are already enlisted. One of them is an Army Guard, another was a police, and “downgraded” Robin—lucky guy—is a storeman. 

To make matters worse, since the business diploma wasn’t my thing,  I had no idea where I was going with my life.

Shaven Heads

My head is now shaven; I look like an egg. I’m lined up with the rest of the other eggs, fashioned with green uniform in an island off Singapore for BMT. My folks are with me. I keep a brave front. Some boys are crying, not because of leaving their moms and dads, but mostly because someone who looks like a butcher is stripping their locks of hair like a helpless sheep. Any preferred hairstyle request is met with nonchalance by the butcher/barber; some were mocked by the military instructor nearby. Everyone got the same haircut: Egghead.

As we said goodbye to our parents and marched as a company for the first time to our bunks, I am filled with dread. I’d be cut off from everything else in my world. Cellphones were not a common thing. All I have in my possessions is a pager (a device that someone can “page” you, and you’d have to call them back from a landline or a payphone), my Discman, and a Bible that my friend bought for me a few years back. 

Some of these boys carried a gangster bravado. Some knew each other and spoke a dialect that I am vaguely familar with (Hokkien). Some are solemn like me. I will now have to spend at least my 3 months in BMT with boys that I have no affliation with. 

As we filed in lines of three as a company and marched to the beat of swearing instructors, I must have dissociated. I was physically there, but my mind went elsewhere into the clouds. My feet is moving, but it’s as if I’ve somehow managed to detach out of my own body. 

I look around. Every egghead is in now in the same boat. Something overcame me. For the first time in my life,  I decided to “Forget about myself.” 

I didn’t realise it then, but this became a pivotal season of my life. It wasn’t just about my mandatory enlistment to National Service. This was what it looked like on the outside. But on the _inside_, it was an invisible story that was unfolding. I didn’t choose this, but I was “moved” and compelled to make this leap inside. Years later, I came to understand this chapter of my life  as a period of **“Leaving myself and focusing on others.”**

Leaving Myself

Going in with this frame of mind saved my life, or at least my sanity. I spent the first couple of weeks focusing on the specific 12 section-mates in the Platoon. We were housed in one bunk. I learned that the guy on my left, Bob, was not only born on the same day as I am, but had the National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) that was one last digit smaller than mine. In other words, his mother must have been the person in front of my mother at the birth registrary. The guy on my right––my assigned buddy––was a recluse. He’s more timid than I was. Two weeks into BMT, there was a stench that lurked in our bunk that was coming from my buddy’s cupboard. We had to confront him about it. Turns out he had been too afraid to go to bath with the other lads. He hasn’t taken a proper shower for several days. 

To be clear, I am no saint. I had no other coping mechanism.  It’s all I could do to not let my anxiety tear me apart. When we did our endurance run, I did what I could to cheer on my section-mates, even though I’m only as fast as a turtle. When we did the obstacle courses, I did what I could to push the slower guys up the brick wall climb.

Back in the bunk at night, we talked sh*t. I listened to Bob talk about his girlfriend woes. In exchange, he would lend me his prized possession, his cellphone (a rarity at that era) to call my girlfriend. A saving grace. 

Then there was Eddie. God only knows why he’s there. We suspect he’s gay, but he never said so. But Eddie was the comic relief that we needed. He’s the live-wire. We became good friends. Levity is most welcomed in an insane environment of screaming instructors.

Moving and Being Moved

I didn’t know it then, but more than 2 decades later, I now realise that if we learn to see the movements of our lives, we are moving—and being moved—between different seasons of our lives. Circumstances on the outside may not be our choice, therefore it can feel like we are cajoled into things. But on the inside, we can figure a way. Like a sailboat, we depend on the winds to be moved, but we must also figure out a way to steer it.

During pivotal moments of transitions, we are crossing between worlds. This period could be when you lose a job, struck by illness, bereaved from a death of a close family member or friend, or embark on a new direction. This transition is one that bridges between the old world and the new world. Often times, we don’t know completely what this new terrain is really like until we get there.

The period of bridgecrossing is one that I invite you to take heed. When crossing bridges, our senses are heightened. When we are at the edge of everything, we see things more acutely. Do not aneasathise yourself in this process. If you keep your eyes open, you might realise what this new season asks of you.

Every seasons has its needs. Needs are the prickly needles that keeps poking at you, until you pay attention.

So pay attention.

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Note: This is an outtake for an upcoming book, Crossing Between Worlds: Moving and Being Moved Through the Transitions of Life.

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Do not major in minor things.

It’s entirely possible to major in minor things.

Inaction is much better than sweating over minor things that doesn’t make a den.

Majoring in vital things requires reflection and thought.

You’d need to “waste” time to figure out what to major in, so that you don’t waste your future in trivialities.

Trivialities might seem important and appeal to our FOMO. On the other hand, the fear is heightened when we approach things of higher stakes.

To major in minor things happens by default.

To major in major things happens by design.

Why does “major in minor things” happens by default? Because there is a constant stream of shiny things vying for us to be consumers.

Meanwhile, to major in things that are truly important to you, you need to be intentional. You need to to engage in active contemplation before contemplative active can happen.

You are called not just to be a consumer, but a creator.

It’s silly to put it this way, but it’s worth stating the facts. When we major in minor things, the cost is that we end up minoring in major things.

Major in things that matter, not just for now, but for the “long” now. Design your life around those things that matters most.

Don’t start your day with the news. Don’t major in timely things; major in timeless matters.

Here’s how you can begin to major in things that matter to you:

1. What is a measure of success in your life?

Take the time to reflect deeply on this. Don’t outsource this to society’s standard. Define what is a life well spent for yourself.

Think of this question in 3 sub-categories:

I. Personal

II. Relationships

III. Work

2. Measure the Major things.

It’s tempting to reach for things that are easily measurable. Do not end up valuing what is “good” to measure, but measure what is of value to you.

From 0 to 10, put a number to where you are at now. Figure out where you are at in order to figure out where you need to go.

3. Don’t Measure the Minor Things.

Finally, it’s tempting to keep track of everything. A huge cost is involved when we keep score of things that actually don’t matter.

The cost is a wasted life.

Let that go. It’s minor.

More than a single story…there is a symphony of selves, and the softer voices inside are asking for your attention.

You are a multitude.

You are not your trauma, though it may be part of your experience.

You are not your grief, though it might have made you brought you to your knees.

You are not your happiness, though you once felt the giddiness of gladness.

You are not your pain; be careful, as it carries power.

You are not the depressive, you are not the anxious. You are not the angry, you are not the crazy.

You are not just a man, you are not just a woman, you are not just a transgender individual. You are not just a minority, you are not just a rebel. You are not just a father, you are not just a mother. You are not just a husband, you are not just a wife. You are not just a son, you are not just a daughter. You are not just rich, you are not just poor. You are not just in the middle, you are not neither here nor there.

You are not either/or.

You are “both/and.”

You are a multitude. Don’t reduce yourself to a story. You carry many, many stories.

There is a symphony of selves.

Pick the ones that bring you to life. Take care of the ones that are neglected and is calling out to your attention in a small voice.

Don’t let the louder voices crowd you out.