What keeps you going today?

Good morning fellow salaried citizens,

As I ride the train to work, between the impossible squeeze and torrid weather, I ask myself, what drags me out of bed every morning at 6.30am?

Is it the endless bills and debts I've accrued, or the nagging worry that I might not have enough for my old age? Or is it my aging parents whom I have to support, or the pride in being part of the "working force"?

What keeps us going?

I have long doubted the career I'm in, and I thought I was alone. And then I spoke to many of my peers and many don't seem to know what they are going about either. We seem to bumble along, finding the next opportunity to skip and hop, until we finally find the sweet spot we could then finally settle - if we're lucky.

Many of my peers express a reluctance to go to work in the morning, and display a similar degree of joy when there's a public holiday or when a long leave break is coming up.

We work for survival, we work to keep ourselves financially afloat - our eyes shine when we see the monthly paycheck come in, only to also have it shine in tears when it flows down the drain within the same month.

So back to my question, what keeps us going?

For some, it's their family and children, the exchange of money to bring their families comfort gives them a sense of pride and responsibility. The insurmountable fulfilment you can give. Yet others are content with the material pleasures their money brings, the occasional pamperings and having freedom to be able to buy almost anything they'll like. Those that work for peanuts, and also asked to perform like monkeys who see themselvew work for a higher cause. They plough through the dirty and demeaning because they know their work holds purpose. It is duty that carries them through.

What do I work for? Honestly I don't know. Most times, it's auto-pilot that I wake up 6.30am, collect my paycheck on the 23 of every month, and pay my bills shortly a week after. Other times I relish in the warm companionship of my colleagues, and think "life isn't so bad". Some times I walk down the CBD feeling lucky to have a full time position here where it all happens. On rare instances, when shit hits the fan and there's no cover, I am filled with doubts if this brittle façade is really something that brings me joy and happiness.

A job, in all intents and purposes, does not bring joy. What does bring us fulfilment, is knowing who we are working for, who we are working with, and ultimately it's all about the people you meet and care for. I find it exceedingly idealistic when someone said "find a job you're passionate in". Yes, nonetheless it's true, we should find a job we are at least somewhat passionate in, but not because the job will make you happy, but because you'll join a community of like-minded individuals. People who speak and listen like you, they may even dress like you, or see things the same way. You will never have to work another day, if your work is surrounded by supportive individuals who make the workplace home as much as your own family does. It is a feeling of belonging we crave when we work in an industry that we're passionate in.

I wake up every morning because there's something to solve, a goal to work towards to. I push through the fog of sleep because I know there are people at work who understands the difficulties I'm facing, who have the same wavelength as I. Some days are harder than most, and until the day when most days are harder than some, I see myself keeping calm and carrying on.

It's the little things that get to you, the alarm in in the morning, the tough times in the office. But hang in there, and soldier on, you are not alone. We are all in this huge foreign world together.

The pursuit of peace

I think mundane every-day history, revealed that we are a very unrestful race. From Buddha's journey to find nirvana - the state of everlasting peace and serenity - to Judeo-Christian doctrine to find peace amongst ourselves and in God, this illustrious quality in life have always been overshadowed by the more positive, more active pursuit of happyness.

Happyness - a state of elation, fulfillment and satisfaction. It is a state where one seeks to be happy, to perform actions to then achieve that state. Like a good panadol, the effects are immediately felt, no matter long difficult the journey it took to get there.

However there is always a sense of uneasiness. How long will happiness last? And like the musical Wicked reminds us, at what cost? What whose cost did we pay or others near and dear have to pay for this?

Ultimately life will always throw a wrench in our plans, and happiness and sadness come and go. Perhaps active states are not what we look for, but a state of being still in the midst of rushing water. It is not the same as relenting to one's fate, but to do what we can and accept whatever the consequences that occur that are out of our power to control.

I have given what I could to A job, and if the rewards are still not justified by industry standards, then that is out of my control. Instead of vexing over say, the lost of my memory (an entirely senior moment) that cost my team time and money, we can choose to be let the mistake go and learn from it. To find peace with myself is to learn how to let go all recognition and blame, to understand to some extend we are responsible and the rest was all up to the incalculable odds of probability.

Peace to me, are the little things in life - the mundane mistress of the everyday the gives us strength to take it 1 day at a time. It is an especially elusive mistress because our everyday is filled with distractions that clouds her presence and like a perfectly concealed optical illusion, we only see because we are in the right frame of mind.

A friend once told me she felt being successful in life is to be a peace. It might seem odd - but not anymore now after more thought because all the money and power cannot trade in for a good night's sleep. It is far more difficult than happiness and it is also no surprise we often relate happiness and peace, the twins of what we really want in life.

A lesson in the vocabulary of Empathy

These couple of days, I find myself being on the other end of a listening ear - career troubles, personal woes, insecurities and the like. It struck me how far I've come along, to be able to just listen and take in everything when just a week ago, I was doing everything but.

I have been accused of not being able to listen, and more so not being able to understand. I think this habit of judging is masked under the excuse of problem solving, when in fact I find it comfortable to judge from afar and dissociate myself from the situation. When it comes to problems that need solving, such an attitude is at an advantage. However, when it comes to putting myself in other people's shoes, all I could do was to critique how the colour of the socks goes wrongly with the shoes.

I think yesterday and today, I took a different step - I have decided to be more aware of what the person's trying to tell me. A good friend of mine told me, that people often know the answers for the questions they ask, and when they reach out, they really are just looking to you to understand and in their moment of weakness, lean on you.

It's true, and on hindsight, my friends often have decided their course of action and my "advice" is affirming and supportive - and while I may not agree, ultimately it's something that I keep in private. It is their time to speak, and so I've learn that keeping silent about my own opinions about their course of action is not essential, it is mandatory. It is the same, when I seek others for help - the last thing I want is a break down of 10 other ways I could have managed the situation better. I seek for comfort and understanding - a friendly hug and a warm smile to tell me everything is going to be okay.

It's the vocabulary of empathy that I need to build - amongst my linguistically ones, because ultimately people communicate with each other with more than just words.

I've chosen to act differently today - to share my stories when someone is sharing with me how hard it is to work-study a degree at the same time. I've chosen to show support and belief in a friend who feels that his career is going nowhere because of a glass ceiling. I've chosen to be thankful that they confided in me, and not take that trust and betray it by instilling my opinions of them which may hinder their spiritual recovery. I've chosen to be kind - and it took me a long way to finally realise what it means to listen.

Our culture is novelty.

When I just broke up, my aim in life is suddenly stunted because plans we used to make together, are now made apart. The loss is as painful as the knowledge that it is necessary to abandon the path once forged together. Like my very wise driving instructor used to tell me, "our basic instinct is to survive, to give up - now that's something we have to learn."

So give up I have, and moving on I shall. And in true Yoda fashion, I pledge to write again and while finding a topic to comment upon, an article about the frequent SMRT breakdowns struck me.

Mr Desmond Kuek, President and Group Chief Executive Officer of SMRT, added: “We apologise for the rail incidents over the past week. Our transport professionals are giving their all to make your journey a better one. The SMRT team will stay focused on safety and reliability improvements as we work to renew Singapore’s ageing rail network to the benefit of our commuters."

Source:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/singapore/east-west-line-train/1692110.html

Honestly, it's such a joke to call our rail network ageing when it's barely 40 years old. I don't know SMRT's definition of old, but I'm pretty sure we can all agree that 40 years in public transportation years is hardly a prick in the fabric. I am of course not here to find fault (hahaha geddit) with SMRT, but that phrase struck me about Singapore and our obsession with The New.

Even our Chinese phonetic translation of the Malay word Singapura - Singapore, has 新, which pretty much means new.

Our history is riddled with renewal and more specifically, the expulsion of what came before for what is coming. The British and the indigenous community, Raffles's schemes to establish a British trading port by out-manoeuvring the Malay royalty's influence. The current history (of you know who and what) also echoes of such patterns of supersucession and our people are immigrants embracing change of a better life.

This current hipster movement, to cherish the old through the commodification of items past their practical use - to memorialise childhoods that no longer apply to your own children is both a symptom and a cause of our own approach to cope with a culture who never knew how to cope with anything but being "new".

We see the old in contempt, our children chase the latest gadgets, our cars have an expiry date of 10 years, employment restructuring takes place a every 15 years, a rail network is considered old at 40.

We are a nation who are not obsessed with the new, because it suggests that we are shifting from the old to the new. Truth is, new is all we ever knew. We don't know how to cope with the old. What do you do with old bits of history? CHIJMES. What do you do with old memories? Who needs them? In our school textbooks, heritage is taught as a  duty, to keep the old as something inherently valuable and as a culture where new is all we ever know, we cannot resonate with such a concept. We were never taught why it was valuable because that would raise awkward questions about how some things are done...If you get my drift.

Our solution to old things is to demolish, refurbish and gentrify. We wipe the slate because there is so little resistance and start anew. I think there is also a sense of arrogance because we measure time and chart changes within our lifespan, I don't think we stopped to consider that some things will exist beyond us. We also find a constant need for the "new and improved" - and we are intolerant to quirks that old things bring.

What does it say about how we treat our old? What does it say about how we maintain relationships once they are past their due? What kind of stories will our children hear, and in turn tell their own children?

Losing someone and hanging on

There are some people in our lives, we want to desperately hold on to, whether it's a friend, a lover or a co-worker. It hurts more for someone to leave us, than for us to leave someone behind.

So we try, very hard, to hang on to them, do everything within our power to make them stay, or have them connect with you. Mostly we will fail, and the emptiness that ensues haunts us for the length of days.

Perhaps people leave us for a reason, reasons that are not apparent to us yet. Maybe when people walk out of our lives, they are doing us a favour - to teach us an important lesson we must learn, and to take that lesson forward so we might become better people. We always see loss as a negative thing, something to be avoided at all cost. I want to think of it as renewal of our lives - as we change, so do the people around us.

For a long time, I have moved on from a lot of people, and many people have moved on from me too. Those that stay with me, are a few whom I had the fortune of growing together - although our paths are different, but we are all roots of the same tree.

It will always hurt to let someone go - especially someone you cared deeply about. It's even harder to let someone go knowing they are in pain, they are hurting because of you, and to cut out contact with those whom you once shared a life with. Saying goodbye is can be meaningful and it will always be something we carry in our hearts. They are landmarks through the course of our lives, to identify the pivotal moments where we've changed, and the adversities we're gone through. We may say goodbye to our old selves and the people we used to associate with, because our life view changes.

There are some goodbyes that are forced upon us, be it a heart break or a death of someone we love dearly. It is a painful and permanent reminder that life is too short to not give thanks to those we have around us presently, and to cherish each and everyone who walked in our lives.

 Don't cry because it's gone, smile because it happened.

How do I find meaning in happiness

Before I start, the title might somewhat be misleading because you might think that it's a self-help type of post. In actual fact, it's the exact opposite.

___________________________

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 8 that,
My bodyweight was not perfect.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 12 that,
My results were never good enough to go into a school I wanted.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 16 that,
The best of friends will turn you away because they couldn't take your truths.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 17 that,
The friends later regret because you were a threat to them.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 18 that,
I was good enough just to be the best, but I wasn't good enough for the rest.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 19 that,
My family will never be able to afford me to fulfil my dreams.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 19 that,
Very same year I blamed my family, I would also lose my mum.

I regret.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 20 that,
The people supposed to support you have instead betrayed you and broke your family apart.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 21 that,
My first brush with society out there was a lawyer who cheated my family's money.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 22 that,
All the hard work I've put in, will never amount to being bright enough to be accepted.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 23 that,
People can lie to you with smiles on their faces.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 24 that,
Most men only want to selfishly feel good about themselves.

How do I find meaning in happiness,
When all I've ever known when I was 25 that,
I've driven away the very person who made me undoubtedly happy in all other ways.

All the years, all these timesites,
I've forgotten how to find meaning in happiness.

All the people in my life in the past and present,
Have all tried to show me more than sadness,
And yet all I could think of was self-pity.

Simply because I did not know how to find meaning in happiness.
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Misery loves company, and I think I've become so familar with sadness, disappointment and betrayals, it is easier to self-blame and pin it on "just another lesson to learn" than to truly live in the moment and be happy about it.

I build walls to keep my feelings to myself because I assumed no one will understand me. When someone is reaching out - it is far more familiar to judge from afar, blame from afar, and solve the problem than to make myself vulnerable to the other. To feel together.

I'm afraid to feel - because most of my life, I've only felt pain. Subconsciously my mind drives me to enjoy pain, and suffer pleasure because I can deal with the former but the latter scares me. I felt undeserving, that happiness - after all I've experienced - is something that only happens to other people. I've hurt so much since my mum's illness, that I was resigned to a lifetime of melancholy.

What if I am disappointed again? What if I'm hurt again? What if one day, I can no longer pick myself up again? What if people tell me I'm not good enough?

All the what-ifs and why-me have manifested itself into this formidable fortress, fortified with pride and intellect, it has driven people away either in fear or in awe. It has cost me dearly, and this time I am paying the price of it. I deserve to be happy, to love, to feel, to empathise, to open myself and let others in.

I long to feel one day, to make my life slightly messy because it's worth it.

Some people, are worth it. 

Choices

A heart break is a literal thing - it's not a metaphor as much as it is a richly accurate description of the pain and disappointment when one goes through it. It doesn't always refer to the complications one faces in or at the end of a romantic relationship, but also the end of a life of someone we love, or the separation of two siblings, friends or comrades.

It is easy to become angry with the world, turn cynical and bitter at how life has treated us - and become even more angry at ourselves because of this innate helplessness we feel when we realise circumstances beyond our control has brought us to this state. We want to receive the help when friends tell us "let me know if I can do anything", we assert ever more agency in light of situations that are going out of control. It demands that we act, do, wield power over the mess of the nuclear fallout. It insists that we take control over things.

When it comes to affairs of the heart, we become stunted because we cannot control, cannot act, what more do. Instead of doing, we have to listen - to our friends and those who will be there for us. To take in not only the words of comfort, but the extension of compassion from a human being to another. Knowing that someone will be there for us, regardless of our mental state is something I will try never to take for granted. The wait will be painful and the nights will be harsh. Our minds will itch for a solution, or a resolution and our hearts will want closure. I found peace with myself after I relinquished the desire to want a person back. I could have wished ill for the people that left me, but isn't holding on to anger much like drinking poison but expecting the other person to die (from Buddha)? Detachment from another person is painful - my mum's stroke taught me that, and it's giving up part of you and understanding that you'll never get it back. So don't - let it go, and the part that grows from you again will be beautiful as well.

I think I'm starting to understand the sayings of Buddhism a lot more now, and appreciate the value of  letting go of desire. Nothing is truly permanent and attachment to things and people become a drug where the withdrawal is twice as much as the initial pain. Pain is there for a reason, it tells us something bad has happened to our body, it forces chemical reactions to start the healing process. Why should our minds be any different. Perhaps the break in the heart is there to tell us that some part deeper in our consciousness needs healing - and the situations that we're undergoing now are symptoms manifesting because somehow we've reached a threshold of tolerance. The dam is breaking, so let it flood our eyes. Let us ride out the pain and then let it go for all to heal. Forgive our mistakes, and all our past wrong-doings for we were not wise enough as today to see what the consequences of our actions have caused. We are wiser today, and will continue to be wiser tomorrow . And even if the mistakes is committed again, we can only tell ourselves we have chosen not to learn, and we have to learn to cope with that choice.

These 2 weeks have been rough - having relationship problems where the end seems nigh, and my mum hospitalised for pneumonia with her life hanging on oxygen for now. It seems that everything that can go wrong has. It doesn't help that my father is overseas and the one I used to turn to is facing personal issues of his own. But over the days, I've realised from the nuggets of conversations with my friends, we are all going through our own wars - and they have given me their time and love to help me through mine. I'm eternally grateful and thankful for the support my friends, and colleagues during these trying times. Encouragement can be hollow from those who do not mean well. It is twice as hurting to hear from someone who asks you "how are you?" only to have to give an obligatory answer that "I'll be okay". The question is not an invitation for us to open our hearts, but an assurance for the person who asked the question that their universe is still okay. My universe is not okay - not now, and I'm beyond giving a damn to give the obligated answer that I'm "okay". Real friends don't want to know you're okay, they know when you are okay.

To borrow a quote from the motto of Paris, "Fluctuat nec mergitur" - Il est agité par les vagues, et ne sombre pas. To translate the french translation of the latin phrase it simply means: she is tossed by the waves but does not sink. We're all bumbling along, with only stars for navigation on a good day, and the rest of the times we are constantly changing courses. Life is pointless that way, I guess the only thing I can really come to terms with, is just to enjoy the ride and the view while it lasts.