Hacking the Good Days... » feelings

On Being Woman, on being Human

cathyma — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:49:54 +0000

I picked up on Danah’s post commenting on Clay Shirky’s post on ‘A Rant about women’,

It’s tempting to imagine that women could be forceful and self-confident without being arrogant or jerky, but that’s a false hope, because it’s other people who get to decide when they think you’re a jerk, and trying to stay under that threshold means giving those people veto power over your actions. To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction.

I am usually very private and do not discuss anything personal on my blog, but this topic is too close to heart and here is what I learnt:

1. Stereotypes sometimes contain some good schemata for us to quickly categorise and ‘manage’ people, but not always true: My experience tells me that there are men who suck as self-promotion, there are also women who put themselves out there and talk themselves up.

2. You don’t need to talk and act like a ‘man’ to get respect. You need to be good at what you do and be proud to tell other people succinctly. This does not discount your respect for other people, but it means that you are STRONG enough to stick to your gun when you guts tell you that you KNOW what you’re talking about. People can doubt you, but not yourself. Same lesson for men and women.

3. Everyone has their own insecurities and things that they wish they are better at. I am still struggling at times of projects that I have no prior knowledge to – but do I rant/share my fear? To be honest, I would just do it. Research, ask questions, think, use your bloody brain, talk to someone who is good, hire someone to do the part you are not sure about and focus on your strength. At the end of the day – focus on the deliverable – if you’re passionate and conscientious about your clients’ work, it comes across. Whether you are a man or a woman.

4. I love how Tom Coates put it in bigger perspective,

And while encouraging people to spot the talented and the creative, we should also be considering how we shame those people who self-promote without creating. The financial collapse has taught us that rhetorical bubbles divorced from reality are a danger to us all. We’re already approaching this point – our industry has become venal, insular and dominated by marketing. We have come to value the wrong things. And if we want a continued vigorous, creative, free, open and equal environment, that’s something we have to fix. It’s not something to aspire to.

Time to get real.

5. Finally – I am not actually arguing against Clay, I just want to clarify that women and men might communicate differently, but none needs to be arrogant/ego-maniac to gain respect. What I note is that when I work with younger people (I’m sorry to generalise), they tend to focus too much on ‘what I can learn from you’ and ‘how I can help’ instead ‘I know what I am talking about and here is what you should be doing. I can help you with this and that’. To be fair, I do see more men talking with the latter perspective, which is pretty handy in building confidence with people you work with. Having said that, I do talk like that too… and I’m a woman. Damn proud of it.

In sum, the key thing is:

Don’t let other people decide who you are. You know best, and with trust and compassion in yourself you stand tall. A weak ego usually comes big, because they need all the fluff to fill in the room. But there is little substance, or foundation of trust in it. When it bursts, nothing stays because it’s all air in it.

A small but strong ego is a beautiful ego. It is quiet. But when it speaks, people listen.

The two brothers on the 80th floor

cathyma — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:40:37 +0000

Here is a Chinese story,

There were two brothers who lived on the 80th floor of a building.

They went out together for a party without noticing there’s no lift service on the day. The brothers were very frustrated when they realised that they were kind of doomed, but they decided to slowly start climbing the stairs flight by flight.

By the 20th flight, they decided that they were going to drop their heavy knapsacks and planned to pick them up the next day.

By the 40th flight, they started to blame and yelled at one another for not being attentive and missed the notice.

By the 60th flight, they came to accept fate, slowly and peacefully they inch up and eventually reach to their door.

Only then, they realised they left their keys in the knapsacks…

If the keys are like our dream and passion and vision when we have in our 20s: With all the pressing needs in life, like paying off loans, getting a mortgage, finding a partner, raising children, many of us decide to set our dreams aside. Eventually we work hard and move up, from the beginning till the end, in our 40s we start blaming one another for not having the vision and strength to carry forward. And then we come to accept fate and become serene for the rest of our journeys in our 60s. At the end, do you have the keys with you?

Where are you and your keys?

I read the story and something switched today, thought it’d be nice to share with you. Thanks for swinging by.

Be 1/0 happy

cathyma — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:53:39 +0000

Someone made me happy today, and I thought I was happier and I defined that as (1+x%)happy. And then I was asked ‘can you be more than 1 happy?’

Got me thinking,

Happiness is a 1/0 thing.
Imagine you are a happy person, you make someone happy, and that someone makes someone else happy, like butterfly effect it triggers down.

1/0 happiness seems like a probable notion. Sorry it does sound like an xkcd strip .

But something said by a yogi inspired me the other day, ‘Have no fear. Not courage, because courage is a reaction to fear. Have no fear, and peace be with you. And that is beautiful’.

So it got me to conclude that ‘Be not sad. Not happy, because being happy is a reaction to sadness’.

Well doesn’t make too much sense, does it? I think it’s time for a good glass of wine.

A wonderful thoughtful exercise created by Erik on Flickr, beautiful.

Hearing the Voice of the Valley Stream

cathyma — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:35:41 +0000

‘The water of the valley stream is always flowing. It races on, not pausing for even an instant. Its sound, to me, is the sound of time.

The water of time glistens on the riverbed of the universe. Though theirs is a much slower flow, Human beings and all things that have life flow. Thought and culture, too, flow. That all these appear to be unchanging is but illusion.

We make every effort to keep things as they are, because human beings, alone, lament transience. Yet no matter how we grieve or protest, there is no way to impede the flow or anything. If we but see things as they are and flow with them, we may find enjoyment in transience. Because human life is transient, all manner of figures are woven into its fabric.

[...]

When we listen subconsciously to the sound of flowing water, does it not seem to create a rhythm? Yet not a single drop of water passes over the same rock twice, and the murmur of water rushing over a rock is constantly changing. Sameness is but an illusion of the human ears, eyes, mind. Water has once flowed along a riverbed can never retrace its course. Human life is no different. It is only our mundane eyes and minds that see yesterday as being the same as today.

Enlightened eyes and minds should recognise that each moment has a form different from that of any other moment.’

Shundo Aoyama. (2001). Zen Seeds (pp 1-2). Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Limited.

Buddhism maintains that the source of suffering is our inability to accept impermanence. In ‘secular’ geek terms, you won’t wake up thinking that all the data of your unback-up hard disk can be all gone for no reasons. Obviously I cannot articulate as beautifully as Aoyama in her book Zen Seeds, hence reading her book is like looking at flaking candle flame for the first time – so magical, but yet so natural and non-contrieved. I wish we possess enlightened eyes and minds and recognise that each moment IS different, be peaceful, see that there is nothing we can do and enjoy it as just it is.

Revisiting the wiseman – lessons learnt about life and love

cathyma — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:29:26 +0000

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.

5 things that keep me in check

cathyma — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:32:33 +0000

Okay Staples tagged me on this meme on the five things that keep me in check, so get ready for my reflective post!

My five things:

1. Talking to friends and family – I need to *share* my life, whether it’s something ups or downs, news just random ephiphanies. My friends make me happy and calm me down. And I hope I have the same effects on them…

2. Exercise – Yoga, running and a bit of resistence training and random classes – anything that makes me move and sweat is good! I am a keen believer that sweating once a day makes you happy. And pushing your body a little further from its comfort zone also builds confidence. Doesn’t seem to be that direct but once you start doing that, you can’t do any less!

3. Quality food – vegetables, fruits, lots of fibre and occassion freshly grilled salmon fillet with honey and mustard saurce or freshly steamed sea bass with ginger and spring onion… the list goes on! Good, fresh food makes me super happy, and feel good too. Sadly I have to confess that I need my occassional dose of McDonald’s fillet O’Fish. Horrible, I know. Sometimes I even get migrane the next day I have one, but it’s sooooo delicious. Oh well.

4. Detox your skin – When I first came to London I get irritated by the low humidity and the lime-rich water. It was only when I realised at a ski trip that by going to sauna and exercise crazy for 6 days, my skin restores itself! Skin is definitely the largest organ in the body and when you treat it nicely but proper exercise (sweat), exfoliation and moisturisation, you get happier too!

5. Thinking about thinking – this is key. Sometimes people call that meta-cognition, it’s the ability to analyse you own thinking critically. I am chicken-little – super risk adverse and sensitive, so very little thing can make me very stressed out, obsessed for a while, or just down for a bit. But sometimes if I think about, ‘hey if i were xxx in the same situation, or if it’s not me in the situation but xxx, how I would be feeling now?’. Having this mind-floating experience helps calm me down and makes me realise the importance of not to sweat over small stuff. And everything is small stuff.

Finally as my yoga teacher said yesterday during the meditation, ‘Think about what really you are, instead of the external pressure that try to tell you what you need to be. What is it that you truly want? Who are the real you?‘

What are your top 5?

Aw… Lego for the Olympics

cathyma — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:00:27 +0000

A bunch of Hong Kong Lego fanatics have created miniature Olympics village with Lego,

As the world watches the Beijing Games, enthusiasts from Hong Kong have unveiled their own Olympics — built entirely from Lego.

More than 300,000 Lego bricks and 4,500 Lego people were used to create the display, by the Hong Kong Lego User Group.

The stadium

Even the rickshaw was re-created with Lego – how cute!

Photo courtesy: Flickr images by Dunechaser

For more photos, check out Flickr. I particular admire this quote from the Lego folks, ‘We believe that creations are not limited by resources, but by ideas.’ I wish more people share that enthusiasm at well not just with lego, but at times with work as well…

Go on, Hong Kong Lego Users Group!

Journalism without the crap

cathyma — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:45:48 +0000

A good friend of mine sent me a link to MJ’s Photo essay on Phone Sex Operators, and asked for my thought on this. At first I thought it was a prank – as the thumbnails of the photos seemed to be a bit revealing, especially when he posted that on my facebook, where I still have not yet set out proper privacy levels (say my boss is on my facebook, duh!).

To my surprise, I was moved. This is good journalism – a subtle lens for us to see things in different light while maintaining neutral point of view. More importantly, you feel like you grow up slightly before and after reading the essay.

For the aesthetics of these amazing photos, and for taking a step back and see the world from someone else points of view, I recommend you to check out the photo essay, too. Oh, and by all means let me know what you think. I’ll end this post by my favourite quote,

I try to heal the wounds that our closed-minded society inflicts.
It may sound weird, but it’s true.

We as people should learn to talk and listen to our neighbors and share our inner light.

I wish the world was run by phone sex operators.

Spread the word

cathyma — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:59:02 +0000

Spend your every minute as if it’s your last one.

You think that’s a cliche until someone you care might be leaving you for good.

Dave kindly spotted Kate Reider’s story,

I read a very sad story today about a young, female singer-songwriter from my hometown. Her name is Katie Reider. She developed a rare facial tumor that took away her ability to perform, her left eye, and eventually her voice.

Her brother, Rob, was a classmate of mine and a fantastic guitar player. He was one of the rare people that managed quiet confidence and self-awareness even in high school. I remember being really impressed when he won a local ‘best guitarist’ contest on the local hard rock radio station — when his entry was played entirely on acoustic guitar.

Anyway, this site is dedicated to exposing Katie’s music to 500K people in one year. I highly encourage you to go there, read her story, and download Katie’s songs for a small $1 donation. If you like Patty Griffin, The Weepies or The Swell Season you will like Katie. Her albums are also available on iTunes, just search Katie Reider.

I urge you to visit the site, scroll through the photos and witness how Kate fought her battle, listen to her music and ponder on what really means to be here and now. I was profoundly moved – hope you feel the same.

Sing a song on human conditions

cathyma — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:54:20 +0000

I know you feel this, too.