Further ending thoughts

I also realise how deeply deeply and how widely ingrained I am... It is easy to spot the programming and notice it when they trigger really strong reactions in you and make you want to criticise another person or something that happened... That's your programming...

That being said, others are also led by their programming... They are imposing things because the change maybe makes them merely feel better? Or is it really out of a thinking mind that thinks it will really help everything be better.

Whatever it is, I agree that the more conscious we are and the less we allow our fears, anxieties, programming to control our actions... The more freedom we have in handling each tasks before us the way it deserves to be handled instead of encumbered by the baggage we carry from our past.

So here is the little worm reflecting and trying to make sense of life.

Deep thoughts about how I have been living my life

Excuse me, I need a place to store or ponder some thoughts...

Yesterday morning at work, I was really stressed out. Let me put some context in first. I have been reading the books and thinkings of Anthony De Mello and he says that our suffering comes from our "programming". Like the stress we have, they do not come from the actual situation, but from the person who is experiencing the stress.

So my Singapore upbringing (whether from school, work, church) and own work experience told me that when you organize an event, you have to make it as perfect as possible, so you need to be as prepared and think of everything possible that could go through and make sure it does not go wrong to the degree that you even impress others. And you need to make sure all arrangements are well.

And when you work with people from other cultures and other backgrounds... They do not have the same programming as me. Other people work more on the fly, they do not plan to the detail everything and get everything prepared way in advance. Instead they just get the main things ready and everything else, they improvise... 

So what happens when we work together or our paths cross is that I notice I get really stressed not knowing the full picture and understanding the style of my colleagues from other origins... They seem not to have the stress that I have... And guess what, they doing things their way, everything works out in the end... It is almost as if my stress was entirely unnecessary... In fact, I do think it was entirely unnecessary... In fact, I agree with Anthony that it was stemming from my programming.

There is no angry fierce boss shouting at me telling me how I should do things... But somehow, I behave and act as if there was such a person dictating how I should do things and criticising every moment I make a mis-step.

They say the unexamined life is not worth living. And Anthony says that awareness and observation and understanding are the keys to getting out of our patterns and suffering... He advised that you experience each moment afresh for what it is, unstained, uncluttered, unblemished by your past experience and your conditioning and programing from the past.

And I thought about it, look at how those people presented and hosted. They all came with what they had, some were reading off the script and not doing it so well, some were rambling on, some I was impressed by, others were people confidently but not perfectly... They did not look nervous. They look like they just knew they had a job and got it done, no stress, just did what they could.

Like a bird or a flower, they just did what they were meant to do.

And here I am, handling a tonne of pressure, feeling so stressed, and experiencing the burdened from situations long past, people who left marks on me who have long passed on... And here I am still suffering from it, 10, 20, 30 years later...

Isn't that really silly? I told myself, my salary does not change whether I do something with stress or without. Also, the quality of my work does not suffer, instead is much worse, when I do it with stress... So why I am stressing so much?

Could... mental illness and breakdown and emotional unwellness really not stem from the actual stress of the situation but from your programming and thinking about it? And could that explain why people doing some really complex task, like flying an aeroplane, where the effects of not doing it well is catastrophic, actually not feel the pressure at all. Because they are just doing the job they are trained for.

When someone keeps saying as normal in Singapore that "I'm busy", "I'm stressed"... could it be that it is that person putting themselves in that own situation through his programming and thinking and inability to step out of it? Like inability to accept that perhaps it's okay not to do such good a job, or to take things easier...

We have colleagues who don't respond to all their emails timely and miss out many important things and no one is there criticising that person, the person gets paid timely. If there's someone criticising him or her, it's this stupid me here, but what good does it do? Why not instead put the energy to thinking how to get things done despite and still having good feelings.

Like Anthony said, who am I to impose my own conditioning and programming on others and say that my programming is the standard and everyone should follow mine. It is the best! It is the right one!

So lately, I am trying to think deeper into Anthony's thinking... Because I am suffering so much from my programming. At first, I pointed my fingers to the trigger. I said and thought that I am suffering because of my external circumstances. I want to change other and change things so they don't trigger my uncomfortable feelings... But increasingly, I am seeing the sense that I am the cause of my own suffering... In terms of me reacting in a way that is unhelpful to the situation and others... Because I so easily react and respond, not out of wisdom and thinking what this situation entails, but from a long ago imprinted set of behaviours and patterns that were imposed on me, without me agreeing to them being imposed on me.

 "Is it possible that chemical carcinogens, in general, do not cause cancer unless the nutritional conditions are "right"? Is it possible that, for much of our lives, we are being exposed to small amounts of cancer-causing chemicals, but cancer does not occur unless we consume foods that promote and nurture tumor development? Can we control cancer through nutrition?"

-p. 59

Inspiring New Book

I have not been writing much recently... I think perhaps not thinking much as well... The previous thing that really got my attention was when I was freediving and working on equalization. I became so excited as I discovered knowledge that did not exist before... And I wanted to contribute to it. I felt so wonderful everything I discovered something that goes against existing knowledge. People said it cannot be done, and I found out, it can be done. People said it must be done this way, but I found so many other ways to do it.

But things quieten down after awhile... I stopped reading, thinking, writing, doing... Life became a bit overwhelming as I exceeded my limits in terms of my own capacity to cope with life, with relationship...

I have some small gains recently... You know one of the most painful things in life is dealing with your own trauma or those trauma of others... This morning I had this thought while cycling to work... How much of our trauma becomes our own personality? And how much can we decide to overcome our trauma and craft out a higher personality that is not triggered or restricted by what is needed to avoid being traumatized.

I believe, at least for me, that my life path is much directed by avoiding my trauma; I took paths where I could feel more at peace with myself and the world, and meant choosing what made me feel good and avoiding what made me feel bad... But lately, I am starting to think... What if I faced what made me feel bad and challenged it such that I stopped avoiding what makes me feel bad. Would it develop my personality in a new way? 

Those thoughts aside... I am going to write a paragraph from the acknowledgement of a book. For those who really really know me, I get most excited at things like this... Here it goes by T. Colin Campbell from The China Study:

"I must also credit my colleagues who have worked to discredit my ideas and, not infrequently, me personally. They inspire in a different way. They compel me to ask why there is so much unnecessary hostility to ideas that should be part of the scientific debate. In searching for answers, I have gained a wiser, more unique perspective that I could not have considered otherwise." pg. xii, 2005

That is so admirable that he is not defensive or angry at his critics or the challenges he faces in his life and career, but instead he used that to refine his perspective, to be a better thinker.

I think I need to revive this blog to read, write, and think again. I think one of the things I hold on to and value is the ability to think for myself. It's not a natural ability as I was rarely given this opportunity or the right conditions to do so. Instead, I was also punished for thinking differently with strong voices pushing me towards having the same mind as them.

But now, I want to value my choice and ability to think things out my own way and not be afraid to do so. And not fear when there are strong voices telling me I am naive, stupid, wrong... But instead to use their voices to refine my own thinking and to become a better thinker.

New Job in Hong Kong

Oh, guess what?

I found a job at The Education University of Hong Kong. In my role, I have to facilitate and bring to pass online teaching collaborations between the faculty in my department and those from a university in another country for the benefit of students to give them an opportunity to benefit from "learning abroad while at home".

How to quickly establish knowledge on a field

One of the fastest way to create a mental frame of a new field is to do a literature review. But it is not a passive processing of reading and reading and reading. Instead, while you're reading, you're extracting key information, key findings; and recording them. Give yourself time to immerse yourself into the literature. Pursue threads that interest you. Allow yourself to stop at a sentence or paragraph that makes a lot of sense to you, look at the citation, find it in the reference list and go after that article to find out more.

I record key findings into a table.

Gratitude for a library subscription

 One of the things you may learn to appreciate most about being in a university - whether studying or working - is the library subscription to all the journals. After you are out, you lose access to all the knowledge garnered in the world in their original form. You want to check the accuracy of some research? You have to go right to the source. And for research, the first unadulterated and polished work of researchers is found in the journal article.