Revisiting the wiseman – lessons learnt about life and love

About a year ago I wrote this post, A few words from the Wisemen on how to survive and be sane in a corporate world.  A year from then I learnt a lot, not just from work, but from meeting different people, realising it’s important to just be and discovered that we all possess healing energy.  The importance of sharing and to let go – whether you’re my friend or you just happened to stumble upon my blog – it is all due to a trillion conincidences happening at the same time.  So bear with me on this slightly long post on revisiting the wiseman as my annual reflective piece.  I hope you like it and let me know if I miss something important!  Okay here we go!

1. Love yourself before you can love others

‘I love him(her), why doesn’t (s)he love me back?’

‘I want love’

I hear that a lot from people I come across, but sometimes we confuse the need to love and to be loved by someone with the notion of love.  If you have to mould someone into what you want him/her to be, you probably don’t love him/her, but the ideal image of something you invented.  Now this is interesting and critical.  Why do you want to project your love energy to this external ‘thing’?  What kind of void are you trying to fill in?

Do you love yourself?  The paradox is that, the more you try the seek love externally, the less loveable you become.  Only when you truly accept and love yourself as who you are, you will then attract the right kind of energy and people.  I know I sound crazy and new age, but this is one of the most important lessons I have learnt.  And that will require some practices, hence point 2:

2. The arts of just be
If there is a button in front of you, and once you press it you can become anyone else in this world other than you, what would you do?

[please pause and really think about it].

What’s your answer?  Are you ultimately contented to be you, or you feel that you are better off being someone else?  To those who are contented, you can skip the rest of this point.  To those who are tempted, why?  Why would you want to be someone else?  Why is not enough to just be you?

When you look at little happy and curious kids, sometimes you hear them aspiring to be an astronaut when they grow up.  It’s weird that as we grow older, we lose sight that we indeed can still become what we want to be, instead of who we want to be.  No, we will never be that 5’11 skinny model, but we can learn to love our body.  No, perhaps we will never make a billion dollars, but we can learn to enjoy what we have.  The media and the fast-pace society always prompt us to believe we are never adequate instead of believing in ourselves, and that we need to worry about our morgage, not getting married early enough, not earning the same money as our fellows…

Have we asked ourselves what we truly needs?  Do you remember to drink 2 litres of water everyday?  Are your shoulders strained?  When was the last time you gave your shoulders some nice stretches?  The answers are never external.  The more you seek externally, the more you lose yourself and your essense. 

3. We all possess healing energy

It hard to live the modern life when you are constantly reminded that you need to do better, but ultimately we all possess amazing healing power.  It’s amazing how much difference you make by just being someone who cares.  Think about people around you, how many of them care?  Care about themselves, care about their friends and family, care about the world around, a little toddler falls next to you.  Aren’t you drawn by them?  People who care are people that are in touch with their healing energy.  Ultimately they like to see others happy and the world’s a better place to be.  You are one of us.  Don’t forget that.

I learnt the most when I volunteered on the skills of listening.  Being listened by someone who cares is one of the most amazing priviledges that we easily forget.  For more information, I quite like this note on reflective listening.

4. Change is constant

For most of us who live and work in the city, 2008 is not a forgiving year.   Redundancy, reorganisation, resizing, £ falling behind all currencies, it’s tough, it’s stressful and sometimes it’s deflating.  But why is it so tough?  We definitely had our good time as well, but the challenge actually does not come from the outside but again, in ourselves.  Human beings are weird creatures – we are made to notice changes, but also to assume consistency.  For example we don’t really notice things in a room that doesn’t move (e.g. like books on shelves), but things that move (e.g. puppy running around).  Push this notion to the extreme, you wake up everyday you’d assume you still have everything you had from yesterday, such as your laptop still working, you sister still brewing her morning coffee, your mom and dad engaging in their small talks… but wait – this is actually a gift.  The chances is that, one day we wake up we MAY LOSE them (/touch wood).  Chinese we believe that it take millions of coincidences for you to happen to be having dinner with some new friends, and it take trillions of little coincidences for someone to become husband and wife.  It may come natural, but think of the odds for you to meet somene in a world where billions live, and to have a connection, and to engage in meaningful acts together… cherish it, but also (and particularly because) you know that anytime things can change.  Whether for the good or for the worse, change is the only constant in life.  Be ready to cherish, and be ready to let go.

5. Draw the right kind of energy

Go away, whiner!  I curse you!  Okay i may be kidding, and although I try to be kind, I have no patience for people who are not grateful and keep on complaining about life.  You can’t change life by complaining, and the more you delve into the down sides of things the more likely you fail to see the plus side, and draw in more negative energy into you.  So if you whine, I am afraid I’ll have to ignore you.  (note: to my dear friends, occassional whining is healthy – here I mean people who whine about *everything*).  I think you probably know some of those fellas…

6. Learn how to be with yourself

Who says holiday is easy?  I tend to get more stressed out right before and at the beginning of a holiday – what am I supposed to do?? Do I just read, lie around, eat and do nothing??  Initially the notion of holiday without family around stresses me, because I used to spend my holiday with my family and living abroad does not always allow the luxury to do so.  But come to think about it, the way I was raised as an Asian kid actually has not encouraged time to myself, such as just a week of camping (I never camped), or on holiday (no, never have a beach-side holiday either).  So this x’mas/new year is actually my first real holiday and I am learning how to be with myself.  On the first few days I did try to look up my friends, organised my schedule so that I was packed with everything (and consequentially *more* stressed out than working).  But then after my lovely yoga retreat (at Clare Island and will blog about it soon), I came home and I just want to chill, read, eat, run and sleep.  Finally, I think I started to get the hang of it.  So for those natural holiday-people, it’s an art man.  I think we need life-hack tips on how geeks ‘deal’ with their holidays…

7. To care, is the most powerful form of energy

One of those days at work, you see someone else done something and you think, ‘what the hack was that dude thinking??’ Does it sound familiar?  When we see bad codes, malpractices, or just pure negligence, apart from the importance of assuming good faith, it is also important to know that there are people WHO JUST DON’T CARE / GIVE A SH*T.  It’s okay.  Yes, it’s shocking, and annoying, when you take pride in yourself, in what you do, and care about people, or even the planet around you, but there are people who just don’t.  Now, on the plus side, remember that when you care, you can do *ANYTHING*.  No, not in a way of an obsessive-compulsive freak, but in a way you want things to be in place around you.  You care if your friends are upset, you are there for them.  You care about your work, you fix the bugs you see.  You care about your parents, you think of them and you call them.  People feel it, even dogs feel it (it’s debatable where your computer feels it, but I do believe my mac can feel it…).  It is the most profound energy God (or the universe whatever you believe) gave us.  Do use it with caution and DON’T WASTE it on THINGs/PEOPLE who are NOT WORTH it.  Really.  Life’s too short for those idiots.

8. The art of giving and receiving

Now this is the trickiest and to me the most fascinating point – the art of giving and receiving.  What do you find easier?  To do stuff for your friends, like cooking for them, grabbing them the book that they always want?  or to be the recipient, to be invited over by friends for home-cooked dinner, or to be surprised with the little book that you always want and be given by your friends?  You may agree that recieving is sometimes as hard as giving.  I very much so.  It is difficult to recieve gracefully because when someone is giving, there is an implicit social contractual terms that you are of certain degree of closeness or trust with someone.  Hmm if I have to translate this to human language (haha, pardon my nerdy side), when someone gives, they expect something in return.  Always.  Even for altruistic deeds like donating money to UNICEF, you expect the world’s to be a better place, for example.  Appreciation, joy, gratefulness… doesn’t have to be materialistic but it shocks me how many people fail to simply bloody REGISTER the fact that someone done something for you!  It is work, it is of certain level of thoughts and care that someone does something for you.

Now the trick is, on the other hand, if you are a natural giver, you don’t want to stress the recipient too much either – I tend to over-attend to my friends sometimes, say, I am known to introduce people whom already knew one another.  And when you do stuff and expect return, you are putting yourself into unnecessary stressful situations as well.  It is tricky.  Last but not least, when people receive too much and fail to register the kindness, the weirdest things happen – they demonise the giver, and treat them miserably because they can’t handle the cognitive dissonance. (i.e. I receive a lot from this lady.  I didn’t thank her the way I should.  Either I am rude/insensitive or she is an idiot in treating me so nicely.  She is an idiot, because probably I am not rude or insensitive.)  This topic is a book on it’s own, but here’s my little summary of thoughts..

9. Healthy body, healthy mind

Enough said from my last blog post, don’t want to bore your brains out.

10. Life is a journey, enjoy meeting not just people, but souls

Finally I dedicate this blog post to my lovely friend whom father just passed away.  I wish her well and her father enjoying some peace and tranquility at the other side of the universe.  Life is a journey.  Due to millions and trillions of coincidences we meet and leave people around us.  We come with bare hands and leave with bare hands… But what we can take away is our the learning and exert kindness around us that ripples off.  You never know when that extra glass of clean water saves someone, you never know what something you say click with someone and make that person feels love and care.  Hope in the year 2009 you will enjoy being yourself, meeting kind souls, continue learning and grow.

To all of my dear friends, happy new year.