The Karma of kind people

"... only blocks the way forward..."

It will be easier if the world only consists of "good" and "bad" people. It is complicated, however. Many a time,  a lot of people actually fall in between the "good" and the "bad". It then made human relation interesting  when we are not too sure how "good" or "bad" other people are. Have you had this experience, in that you "over-react" simply because you are a "kind" person and because you weren't sure of other people "intention" or "motive" and in the end you realise your assumption was wrong. I guess this sort of experience taken place in people life.

If you are a "kind" person or what some friends had subjectively claimed, you may then raise your defencive bar when dealing with people, especially if you had been "bullied" before. I don't think there is a one size fits all solution to this. But, do you believe that even kind people can have Karma? I considered this as the price to play for lesson learnt for the consequence of our behaviour. When we can't cure a situation , we accept and bear the consequence, in the future this "past" will become an experience and taught us how to devise preventive measures to avoid same thing to happen again.

Such life lesson becomes an important tool for future reference. People attract people, how we act, react and response all determine the consequence we get with people. The more we learnt  from our experience (arising from the consequence we have to bear), the more we gained. As they all said, older and wiser, that is quite true. Over time, we learned more, we bear lesser undesirable consequences. Of course, those who never learnt from their life experience only get worst over time and never get better. Human relation can be so delicate and subtle that even those considered as "kind" or "good-hearted" people could miss one thing or two  when dealing with people. This leads to consequences that just block the way forward for them.

Living life in Anger

"..... perhaps it's time to change job."

Recently, GS was promoted. I was really happy for him. GS is about 8 years younger than me and a bright academic. I often joke with him that, even if he were to waste 8 years of his life time, he would still catch me up. He is already promoted two grades higher than me, how fantastic is that!

Yesterday, I heard GS might leave the job, which I was a little surprised. Hasn't he just recently promoted? My other colleague, JS told me that GS was "not happy" and he had a history here where he was not "treated well". It appears that he still cannot get over it and had this urge to "want more" to "compensate" for the "ill treatment". GS's experience seems to be similar to mine while I was in my previous job, which explain why I resigned. In a workplace, Human Beings can become strange creature. At times, we may overestimate ourselves or overlooked our ability to "change thing". We forget we are facing an organisation that has lots of procedure and every step of the ways must be treated with care. Letting Anger get the better of us only block us on our way up and nothing else. In the end, it appears that GS didn't quite get what he wanted from his promotion Another colleague in the promotion committee, commented to me that, GS didn't appear as good as he thought he was, despite him having four 4* published papers. It seems that he didn't quite present or packaged himself good enough for others to be convinced.

If unfortunately one were to be caught in situation that is tricky and the inner silent anger (because you didn't  think things are being fairly developed in your favour and this bothered you sometimes) cannot be properly  addressed, you end up bottleneck your anger and it turns into intensity and frustration. This affects the way you communicate with people and making it even harder, coming to important matter such as those related to promotion. The workplace could easily become a nightmare. Like what I once heard, "if you cannot change the environment, change an environment to suit you". Perhaps GS already know this which explains why he might leave the job. 

We may carry our anger with us, even the source of it may track back to the distant past. This could be our past workplace, for example. The harder one, however, is the anger that developed at home. It could easily pass down from older to younger generation, if unfortunately you are borne with problematic parents. I am glad I no longer have issue with that coming from the family. As for the workplace, the previous job which I had left and glad I did so, had provided me with insights that help me deal with job expectation and human relation appropriately, which should be crucial for my career advancement subsequently as I progress.

Discover your strength the fun way

".... Okay, Let's look at how animals behave.." 

I love horoscopes. I read a lot about horoscopes. I even try to guess other people's horoscopes and sometimes I got it right. I have a book  that tell me each and every fact about the Chinese horoscopes, the yin and the yang, the effect on the 5 elements and more interestingly, the cross over with the western horoscopes and the characters descriptions.

Being interested and believing in horoscopes could be a sign of being fatalistic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, This is because I had fun in the process. Some people told me not to be too obsessed with this, as in this is a bit of "self-fulfilling" and could misguide oneself. I only know I would choose to believe in the "good" things that say about the horoscopes and ignore the "bad" one. This could motivate you if applied properly. At times, I get so "analytical" in it that I even use it as a guide in my human relations, as I slowly observed people along the way, helping me keep an interest with people and enhancing the relationship with them. Who can say horoscope does not serve any purpose.

I was borne in the year of Dog. I do make an conscious effort to think about the Dog's characters and relate that to myself. Yes, I can hear some said I should "hold life in my hand as it is my destiny", but sorry, I am not fighting this. I am following "what's there" and make the best of it. Certain things in life just won't change and in a good way, it should help move people in the positive direction, if managed well. The skills can be learnt.

If I am looking on the "good" side, then I should be thinking about the strength of dogs. One ability and strength of dogs are that,  dogs are capable of nursing their wounds. Applying this in my context means that, I would "move away" if I am aware I am "uncomfortable". This does not necessarily mean that I am physically hurt, but may be "emotionally unwell" too. Knowing and aware of this help me "nurse" it better and ensure they are sorted and gave me a chance to re-charge. In fact, I have been having a "time out" this few weeks, which explain why my blog was empty for a while.I am thinking there should be a couple of weeks within a month that this could happen and it needs some "nursing" and private reflection.

Knowing ones strength is important and knowing a bit about horoscopes help support oneself soul searching and identifying area that perhaps needs improvement and others which are the strength that can be tapped upon and use more often. This is an interesting alternative other than sourcing for "self-help" mechanism. It works for me.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

"Have you thought of who would you like to be by your side when that day comes...."

In the end, Mrs Palfrey passed away on the hospital bed, next to her faked grandson, in "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont", a story about the friendship between a 80 year old woman and a young writer. If time flow like water on a river stream, throughout one's life, then at one's old age, one would have reached the ocean as the water gradually flow and ended up. Ocean is deep, accepting and take on anything that eventually reached it. It is only the weather that stirred it up, but its nature is still peaceful, just like Mrs Palfrey.

Mrs Palfrey moved into a retirement hotel, the Claremont in London, just to be nearer to her daughter and grandson, so that she can be in touch with them frequently. One day, on her way back after helping Mrs. Arbuthnot (another hotel resident) to get the book she borrowed from the library, She had a little accident and on that chance encounter, she met Ludovic Meyer, a penniless young writer and struck up a curious friendship. She then  invited Ludovic for dinner at the hotel and they agreed a date, without even taking note of Ludovic's address, Mrs Palfrey left him. Later the day, upon Mrs Palfrey's returns, everyone at the hotel was excited that finally Mrs Palfrey would bring her grandson for a meal and they were all looking forward to that. It gave Mrs Palfrey a little trouble here, as she didn't correct the residents about the mistake they made, and so she asked Ludovic to be the "faked grandson" and the latter agreed! This then led to both opening up to each others about their lives, and a very heart warming friendship developed between them. It also then became clear that the relationship between Mrs Palfrey and her grandson and daughter was "emotionally distant". They hardly return her calls and kept her waiting, but then Ludovic kept her company, which Mrs Palrey was happy about.

The movie was powerful. It's not only about friendship, but what's thought-provoking was the moment of the last day of Mrs Palrey, that adds significance to this friendship with Ludovic. He was by her side, reading her poems day after day till the last. Nowhere can we see the real grandson, only the faked one. I began to wonder, does this matter to anyone at all? if you are on your last day, who do you wish to be by your side?

Actually, Mrs Palrey seemed not too troubled not having her own grandson around, even though it would be the best to have him. There is a certain degree of intellect/openness that allowed Mrs Palrey to engage with people better than others. I am thinking as people of my generation, who are relatively more educated, become old age and ill and laid on the sick bed one day, how would we feel and who would we wish to be by our side on our very last day? Perhaps those who we can connect with would be important to see on those last few days. Those people may or may not be our "closed" family members and it does not matter.

Ludovic narrated the following as the movie came to a close, "There are people that cross our live in tiny fraction of time, in the briefest of encounters, and yet they leave an indelible mark in our hearts, in our minds."  and I guess this summed up everything. Those whom we met and could connect with, may be the people we met only for five minutes. They remained the  most important, especially towards the end of our live, in our old age's days.

Doing "anything" is easy except doing "nothing"

"...... If you know how to do "nothing", one day you would find that you could just do "anything"......"

"How many of us actually sit and do nothing for at least five minutes a day in our daily life?". Natalie asked that in the first session of the meditation course I attended last August. The practice of the Raj Meditation is simply "sit and do nothing and keep a peaceful" mind. It's a very intuitive way to encourage people to start doing some forms of mediating. Since finishing the course last October, I have not been doing much meditation. I made doing "quality" meditation as my new year resolution. Even if we are "doing nothing", the mind may "wander" about and hence need some controls to stay put.

In order to motivate myself to do more meditations, and to remind and assure me of the positive impact, I should practice more often.  I first identified a time that I would need meditations, for example, in between doing two different tasks. Today, I meditated for 10 minutes. When I finished my two hours revision lecture, my lunch and some friendly nice chats with colleagues, you really need to "settle your mind" before the next task, so I switched myself off and "do nothing", just close my eyes and let my mind wander, not necessarily an empty, but peaceful (enough) mind.

I read an article, doing nothing, which says, "...... when doing nothing the prefrontal cortex is quiet…the human brain moves to a deeper state where thoughts and sensations come through without being controlled, judged, or censored" It looks like the state of mind of "doing nothing" is like in a "relaxed" state, where the mind is free of being controlled or judged.. I guess our mind is constantly being processed to think, evaluate, control or judged, simply because of the abundance of information. Therefore when no information are available when "doing nothing" (meditation), the mind becomes restless, instead of "resting". The mind wants to do things, but is finding it hard to "rest" and so end up "busy doing nothing".

I am finding that, though I am not doing a lot of meditation since beginning of the year, the frequent practice does help me develop a habit to remain calm in my mind. Meditation is like an anchor, holding me back and safeguarded me in time of "storm", help me keep calm as best as possible. It certainly needs a lot of practice and should bear fruits some days..