The Journey Within

Developing altitude sickness is not fun, whether you are in the mountains or in your mind. Getting things done (GTD) has a nice framework about altitudes. Just like climbing a real mountain, we can see what’s at the bottom of the mountain, because we are standing at it. We can even see what is just above it, because the clouds have not covered it yet. But moving higher requires some training, and some level of maturity.

A quick introduction about GTD. It is a way of identifying what is the very next action of a certain project, where a project is just something that you need to accomplish but couldn’t do so within one action, like finishing your homework. You may need to find out what is the homework, how long does it take to do the homework, schedule a time to do them, borrow the books that might help you finish your homework, research those books, highlight them, discuss with friends, discuss with your teacher, write it all up, summarise, hand in your homework, wait for it to be marked… etc. So, a simple task like finishing your homework is actually a long(ish) project requiring a lot of steps before you get there.

Now, we can see what is a homework. However, moving up a level, can you see what is the purpose of the homework? Do you know why are you doing the homework? Maybe it’s to pass an exam. And that takes you one level higher. And then the next question follows. Do you know why you want to pass that exam? Fulfill your dream? Fulfill your parents’ dream? Become a doctor? Become an engineer? So that you graduate from school? By being able to answer this, you are taking yourself to a next level of altitude in your life. Slowly, these steps will lead you to the ultimate question of “Why am I here on this planet?” type of question.

The journey within can be seen on this framework as well. You don’t need to go all the way to the 50,000 feet altitude. In fact, you can’t possibly reach there if you can’t even clear the homework right in front of you! However, as you clear your path in front of you, slowly, you will be able to see the woods from the trees, the forest from the woods. Slowly, you will be able to see your ultimate purpose “up there”.

The point here is this, you don’t need to go there in one step. You will fall. Jumping a great chasm will mean certain death. You’ll have to respect the spaces. Just take a small step. Find out more about yourself one little bit at a time. Train to climb a higher mountain. Your body and your mind will thank you for it.

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I have to say, looking deeply into yourself is not easy. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Why? I think we procrastinate against finding out the very thing that makes sense of it all. In short? We don’t want to find out about ourselves.

Strange isn’t it?

I love finding out more about my friends. I love to know what makes them tick. I like spending time sitting down, having a latte, and talking about what’s important in their life. What drives them in the morning. What makes them wake up. What is gripping their mind at the moment. What is occupying their attention at this very instant (apart from me of course). I like to probe. I am a tabloid news seeker, and yet, when probing inside myself, it’s just too damn hard…

Why is it easier to pry into other people’s life but when it comes to your own life, you set off anti-probing missiles?

It seems like we just don’t want to find out about ourselves. This is the mother of all types of procrastination.

There are a lot of things that we procrastinate on. Doing the dishes, ironing the clothes, meeting up with friends. Sooner or later, they will catch up to you. The dirty dishes will overflow the sink and onto the work top that you can’t ignore them any longer. You need the shirt for a big meeting today, and wished you’ve ironed it yesterday. Your friends will call you up and most likely scold you for being MIA (missing in action).

But, the one thing that doesn’t catch on to you, is you. If you don’t want to know yourself better, no one will try to force you. No one will come knocking on your door and sell you a “know yourself instant pill”. No one will want to know yourself better. I guess the question comes down to…

Do you want to know yourself better?

“They” say, the truth hurts. “They” say honesty is the best policy. THEY are not you. You get to decide how much truth you want to know. In fact, the body has built-in mechanisms to avoid truths, sometimes at all cost. You’ve heard about how a mind blocks out the past so that he can lead a future life.

Sooner or later, the past will catch up as well. You might be lucky in your lifetime that it doesn’t catch up with you. It might catch up with your love ones. It might catch up with your children. It might catch up with your children’s children. It might catch up with the friends that you tried to avoid. The point is, IT WILL CATCH UP.

So why wait? Let it catch up now and move on. Don’t wait to take that first step to knowing yourself. Don’t deprive yourself that opportunity to know yourself. Get the book. Make that appointment. Begin your own journey. Find out, before it’s too late.

It’s not too damn hard. It’s too damn hard not to…

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When I said that I wanted to be an artist, I didn’t know how to define “artist”, until I came across this definition by Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art:

“… His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to permit the luxury of self-examination. The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it. He is lucky. He was born in the right place. He has a core of self-confidence, of hope for the future. He believes in progress and evolution. His faith is that humankind is advancing, however haltingly and imperfectly, toward a better world.”

So, do you think you are an artist?

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We all have to deal with limited information. Perfect information is never perfect. You will never have all the information in the world. Despite Google’s efforts of organising the worlds’ information. Despite Economists’ assumptions of a perfect economy. Information is and forever will be limited. You can possibly scrub the information plate 99.9999% clean, but you will always fall short of the last speck of information. You cannot get perfect and full information.

So what do we do without full information?

We guess.

Yes. We guess. We make use of what information we have to make a decision. We make use of the limited time that we have to do what we have to do. We make use of the limited resources that we have to make do.

Why?

Because we are wired that way. Because that is the only way.

Before I made my decision to quit my job, I have been waiting and waiting and waiting… waiting for the sign. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting for someone to push me away. Waiting for a better offer. Waiting for the next best thing. Waiting for someone to tell me that I am doing the right thing. Waiting for advice to fall from somewhere, anywhere.

And what happened before I quit my job? I kept waiting…

I was waiting for quite a number of years in fact. I was waiting to finish my exams. I was waiting for a promotion. I was waiting for the new role which seems to be quite suitable for me. I was waiting for the pay rise. I was waiting for the bonus. I was delaying my decision by waiting.

It seems that queuing up in traffic only represents a small proportion of the waiting time that I have been doing. The larger waiting seems to be happening 24/7! I sleep, I wait. I wake up, I wait. I take the train. I wait. I go to the office. I wait. I go to lunch. I wait. I go home. I wait. I go to the toilet. I wait.

What am I waiting for?

I’m waiting for all the information to come to me.

Yes. Making a decision to quit a day job may be a big decision. Or is it?

I wouldn’t advise anyone to quit their day job easily. The biggest factor against this is financial. Can you sustain yourself and your love ones financially? If you can’t even meet the basic needs, you need all jobs, any jobs. Beggars can rarely be choosers. But if your dream is strong enough, if your dream is wild enough, if your dream means as much to you as what you dream it to be, you will find a way. Life will find a way.

I quit my day job to actively search for information instead of information searching for me. You don’t need to quit your day job to do that. That is my choice. And what have I found? The information that I need is, and has always been, in me. I just need to dig deeper.

A deep journey is not for everyone, yet. We all have to start somewhere. You don’t just scale Mount Everest. You train your body. You get the appropriate equipment. You puncture it with steps so that you can go one level higher.

The same with making a decision with limited information. You don’t need to make all the decisions all at one go. Often, limited information is all you need to move forward, to move one step closer to your ultimate decision.

Can’t seem to get a reply from someone? Try someone else. Try some place else. Find someone with similar experience. Find someone on the other extreme. Find a book. Read widely. Speak to people. If you have been creatively resourceful and still can’t find what you’re looking for, look within you. See whether the answer is “under your nose”. Meditate on it. Sleep on it. The universe will reward your efforts. Otherwise, screw the universe. Just make up your own damn mind. And you will sleep better. There is always tomorrow to take one more step. You know you are getting closer.

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As I ponder upon being focused, I come to realise that being focused means selfishly doing what we want to do, disregarding all else. It is this selfishness that allows us to be absolutely focused. It is this selfishness that allows us to say no to the other things that are not within our area of focus.

We are being taught that being selfish is a bad thing. We should be generous. We should give be willing and ready to help the others less fortunate than us. BUT, most of the time, we do the exact opposite. We claim to give to charity, but when doing so, we were hoping for the tax breaks it provides. We claim to be socially responsible, and churns out reams of paper to report on how socially responsible we are, to convince others how socially responsible we are. We dominate cocktail conversations about how disadvantaged a certain section of the society is and how everyone should help out in their cause.

I’m not going to go into the debate of whether the report is reflective of the principle underlying it. I’m not going into a lengthy discussion of how you are really generous despite your conflicting actions. What I want to point out is the fact – the fact that everything can be seen from a selfish angle. The fact that everything we do can be seen as selfish.

Doing what you love is selfish. Loving someone is selfish. Creating the greatest company on Earth is selfish. Helping only a certain type of people is selfish.

And it is this selfishness that marks our claim in this world. It is BECAUSE of our selfishness that a little bit of the world is better off, because of us.

My selfish aim for this blog is to write out my selfish point of view. To communicate my selfish kind of understanding. And hopefully, my selfishness will help you a little as well. Hopefully, my selfishness will give you the courage to be your selfish self.

Love yourself, and do the things that you love. The world will thank you for your selfishness. At least a little bit of the world would. That is my aim. Just to help a little bit in your world.

Selfish Lee signing off.

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The last point came from Toastmasters. I have finally summon enough courage to attend a Toastmasters chapter meeting, and boy was I in for a surprise. I see how effortlessly the people there get their point across. I also see people who struggled to get their point across even when the whole speech was prepared before hand. And then, the real kicker came when they started to analyse the speech.

I then see how difficult it was to make a good speech, and how the really good ones make them look so easy. They look at everything, from the eye contact, to the body language, to the tone, to the actions, all down to the very detail of how many times “ah” and “mmm” were said during the speech.

Everyone is trying to get their point across to the audience. Everyone is trying their best to make their point as clearly and as interestingly as possible so that the audience do get the point.

What i want to highlight is this, again, it’s the environment. Toastmasters is an environment where you can learn to get your point across. It is a safe environment. It is a controlled environment. You get feedback from people who wants you to succeed. You get encouragement from people who wants you to succeed. Everyone is afraid at some point. And I guess that’s the main point isn’t it?

Fear.

Fear of getting your point across. It comes back to focus. If we remember why we are doing what we are doing, if we remember our focus, there is nothing to fear. Just go back to our point. Always go back to our point. Do not dilute your point. Do not take a scattergun approach. Focus on your point, and fear will just melt away, because fear has no part in your point. Fear do not have a role when you know what you are doing. Because when you go back to your point, everything else is just noise.

Have you figured out your point yet?

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The next fateful event happened at a talk, by a very distinguished professor in physics. He also speaks about the point.

His example was this. During his early days, when he was still a student studying and researching physics, he got the opportunity to work in both the theoretical physics and the experimental physics. He can do both, but he never got the point in experimental physics. He can do the work. He can do the mathematical formulas. He can do all the technical analysis. But he doesn’t know what it means ultimately. It took someone else to tell him the meaning of what he has done. Only then, he realised that he hasn’t got the point. So he stuck with theoretical physics where he does get the point.

He said that it is very important to get the point. To get the purpose of knowing what it means, to you. The point is, understanding the purpose to you yourself. Make sure you know the purpose of what you are doing. If not, you will just be adopting the scattergun approach and losing the point in the end, losing your point.

He advocates the importance of an environment which promotes cultivating your point. The environment is important to allow you to see the point. Of course, his university gave him such an environment.

We all yearn to have such an environment. An open environment where your mind is free to explore to look for your own point. We can’t all afford to go to a top university. Well, the top university may not even be suitable as an environment to us! But we can create such an environment in our own minds. It just takes a little bit of imagination.

The purpose of promoting a journey within is to create such an environment. To let you seek your point. You may be seeking how to make a point in your email. Take a step back before you fire out another email which just blames that person and that person will in turn blame you back. We can rise from this literal vicious circle, and focus on your point.

Create a special space and time for yourself. Try not to make this special environment a difficult place and time to attain. It need not be an ashram located in the mountains where leaves will float across and a nice cool breeze is the norm throughout the day. You need to find somewhere, sometime, which you can call upon anytime you need it.

In it’s simplest form, deep breathing helps. Before replying, take a deep breath and that will buy you that few seconds that you needed to clear your head before you react. That few seconds will make you ACT according to your point, rather than REACT to his point.

If you have more time and more space, create a dedicated space at home or at your work place. Set aside a regular time to just be there with your own thoughts. Search for your point. Even 5 minutes at this special place can do wonders. I know some people use the toilet. I know some who goes to the book store. Some goes shopping. Some goes to lunch alone.

The key to get the point, is the create an environment for the point to flourish. As you make your point, you will solidify your point. Your point will slowly become larger as you grow your point, as you understand your point. The more times you make your point, the more times you reinforce your point, and the easier it is to get your point across.

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I do Tai Chi. If you’ve been following this blog, I do a lot of Tai Ji, but still not enough, not enough to be proficient, not enough to get through “the door”.

The door is a threshold metaphor used by the teachers. 入门 literally translates to going through the door, which I believe signifies a student gaining access to become an indoor student, during the older times. Being an indoor student is a big thing. It’s a student who has earned the right to study intimately with a teacher.

I’m not an indoor student, because I have not gone through “the door”. But I came across 3 fateful events which shows me a bit closer to the door.

My teacher made an observation on our push hand skills (a kind of martial art sparring, but a bit more gentle, some of the times anyway). He said that our approach to push hands seem to be a scattergun approach, i.e. our force is all over the place, and hopefully one of them will hit the right spot. With a scattergun approach, we will tend to use much more strength than necessary. So our tension will light up like a christmas tree – you can see them a mile away.

My interpretation? We are not focused enough, or rather we are focused on the wrong thing. We seem to be focusing on the easiest path, to win the battle but sadly, we are losing the war, the war with ourselves.

I find that the push hands class provides a controlled environment to test out my understanding of my own actions. Every push, every yield, tells me more about myself than sitting at home theorising it. It lets me know the kind of character that I have. I aspire to be more, so I listen more. But that’s still not enough. I have to focus to find the path. The point where it all melts away. Focusing on winning will win you the battles only some of the time. Focusing on the point will win you the war.

So what is the point?

The point is different for different people. My point of focus is to learn to sense the path of least resistance, and not to barge in all the time. Barging in releases some pent up anger because… well you might think the other person is using too much strength. He might not be pushing the “right way”. He’s not relaxing. He’s using brute force. He’s cheating. All of these anger can be melted away if I focus on the point. Focus on always looking for the point. If not, I will just be like him, using too much strength, not pushing the right way, not relaxing, using brute force. In fact, I will become him.

Why?

Because I have been brought down to that level. My focus degraded from winnning the war to winning the battle. I lost my point. Instead, I am chasing his point, which is to win the battle.

Remember your point. Focus on your point. That way, you will always win the war and not just the battle.

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