Focus

I am at a point in my life, where the metaphor is…

Remember the time when you know you want to do well for your examinations… and you know that you need to study hard, but the problem is: You just cannot concentrate on the books that you are supposed to be reading. Your mind is consistently wandering into cartoons, transformers, the things you are going to do after the examinations. And then what you do is, instead of studying and using your precious brain cells to get all the information into your brain, you start reading story books and read like that is no tomorrow.

So, my situation is similar. It is a matter of “life & death” like the metaphor.

What are my options? I have options to confront it head-on, but I have been taking this approach by confronting the people involved and myself, and experience has it that things do NOT work out. So I am scrapping that plan right now.

New plan is to talk it out with a good buddy, and see if there are insights to what assumptions I am holding on to. And un-entangle this tricky cognitive & emotional schema that is pretty dominant in my life.

Have you been in a situation like this? How did you get out of it? Did you “solve” anything?

Differentiation

Differentiation is one of the most difficult tasks growing up.

I have been reading an interesting article with regards to a family therapist. His name is Murray Bowen. He has some interesting ideas about how families work and what helps in stabilizing the family.

In any case, his idea of differentiation of the individual is when the individual is able to know that he is different from the family, and not be drawn into the family’s struggles. Wait… that doesn’t sound so right.

“it’s about being part of a family system; we are influenced by the system but not to the point of having it control our behavior”

And many times, we allow ourselves to be controlled by it. Be it in social circles, friends, and more so in families.

I am currently experiencing it from the home front and work front. Working out a way to differentiate.  Do you have situations you can think of when you are controlled by your family, work mates, and even friends?

Ownership

Ownership is good.

I need to keep taking ownership of my actions, decisions, plans and everything else that I do. It is only by doing that, then I am able to really do an excellent job.

Taking ownership of the moments are also important for me to be efficient and effective in my work. There is a framework which I have to work out so that I can be start to take ownership of my work. I can start by planning what I want to achieve for the day, and list the activities and tasks that are urgent and important to be completed by the day. This will set me going. The flip side to having this plan is that I can go too much into being too task-oriented, thus missing the point of the process, and appreciating the work for what it is worth.

I think taking ownership allows me to slow things down, and say what I mean, and do things with intent.

I think that the problem of my society is that we speed things up rather than slow things down. Speeding things up, to me, means missing valuable points or understandings and meanings. Perhaps that is why it seems prevalent in my culture that we over-promise and almost quite always, under-deliver.

Am I making any sense at this point?

Female friendship

I’m not of the fairer sex. However, this article is really quite relevant. I do understand there are “biblical” inclinations, however, there is some really good relevant advice for people out there as well.

A day in life

The fast paced society doesn’t give people opportunities to be heard.

I think ‘being heard’ is one of the most difficult things to receive as a person. Almost no one I know wants to hear my story, or her story, or his story. In general, everyone wants to tell their story.

It makes me cry. Yes, makes me cry. Not bawl, just cry, when someone REALLY listens to me. I feel so loved when someone listens to me. Of course, my standards are high with regards to ‘being heard’. I do believe that I am an average listener, I don’t provide the listening service very well yet.

Blogs are probably so popular because people want to express and want to be heard. Probably anyway.

Do you have someone who really hears you?

A dream

I try to keep records of dreams that I have. It is not so much for psychoanalysis, but it always interesting for me to re-examine what a dream might reveal. Dreaming is like living, except that it is in the realm that defies certain logic. Dreams are the “what-if” scenarios.

In this dream: I was asleep, and I had to wake up early for my baton passing relay event for the company I worked at. I woke up as normal, going to the fridge to get my carrots and apples for breakfast juice. While cutting the fruits up, I noticed a silent home, and I would think that the house was a tad too silent. Suddenly I noticed that the toilet door was closed with it’s lights on. Someone was inside, and I did not even see or hear. I walked over, with knife, and pushed the door opened. Seated on the throne of bowel movement was a huge man with dull eyes. My first reaction was that of panic, I immediately went to my parents’ room to get them up, only to find that they could not be woken at all. Then I ran back to my room, but my grandfather was gone. The mysterious cadaver of a man was gone too. I continued to be in the state of panic and then woke up from my slumber.

When I woke up to check the time, I knew it was a nightmare. It was not a wake up dream. I had only slept an hour and a half before waking.

So I got out of bed to get a drink from the kitchen. Reflecting on such a panic state of mind and my heart was still beating hard. What would I do in a situation like this? Who could I call? Would I still panic? What is my belief system that allowed me to make rather odd choices in decisions during the dream?

Zipping around

Last 2 weeks have been hectic. Zipping through work and relationships, zipping through own personal time. Today, yes, today, the friday morning I am writing this, I will have some personal time for my own self-care: To re-connect with the decisions I have made for this life I have been given to live.

Past two weeks passed by so fast. I thought I had really slowed things down to track things with myself, moment-by-moment. But nay, work, relationships, administrative tasks have taken some toll, ‘forcing’ me to keep up. Or I should say, I allowed these entities to ‘force’ me.

So, it is time to slow down, and work with what is important. The focus in my life, which is the centrality of all life. This blog is a venting machine. Thank you for the space.

Grief and loss

I’ve often wondered if I have experienced grief and loss, and why is it that they seem rather foreign to me? Thinking about it and searching my own history, I could not find any significant loss or grief in my life. Interesting? Maybe.

Then I asked for it. I asked to be put in a position that I would experience loss and then grief.

I got what I asked for. Thank you.

And I understand that I handle grief and loss quite well, it seems that I have trained myself to hold on to mourn and release to go these emotions quite fast and easily. A cry and a bawl usually does the trick. I guess when you are in the business of change, you get going faster than many? I believe I am like that.

Thinking vertically

The problem with problem solving is that problem solving is vertical thinking. So what can we do about it? We can try to stop problem solving. Then the question asked is, “Then will the problem get solved?”

And this is precisely why problem solving goes on in a linear fashion. The concern for the solution and tackling one subject as it comes, may not necessarily be the most effective way of handling. So now what?

If I answer that question… I will be problem solving, and then it becomes linear, and makes this post not worth reading, isn’t it?

Change is a constant

It is a cliche to read the title. And it is true… or is it?

Watched a few videos of people being interviewed. I like some of the words some of them said:

“I’m in the change business.”

What assumptions do we have when we make a statement like that?