Project management/Juggling: Self-taught lessons

Apologies for the long hiatus, and certainly I've been meaning to write more regularly, including my epic 2 week Australia drive from Sydney to Adelaide. There's been a multitude of changes, including on the family front, that required my attention first.

Side note, I've been also trying to find something to write about. January and December has honestly been quite quiet months, that there just haven't been.

So yesterday, my friend and I had this chat about how she can't cope like, her more experienced colleague, with the multitude of projects that seem to keep coming. No app or software can help her keep track of the pace of things that demanded her attention. She asked me how I managed to cope (she calls me an octopus for my seeming ability to multitask) with it all.

I don't have any "guru" tips, but I can share my experience with "multitasking" and what goes in my mind. How to switch gears quickly and shift tracks as soon as possible.

First and foremost, practice. It was cliché back in 1990s - the number of times I've been told that practice makes perfect - by the time 2010 came, that good advice has taken a backseat for innovation, thinking out of the box. Nevertheless, you become good at projects or managing a multitude of tasks because you have been doing it for a long time. With exposure to different types of demands on our time, we hit hard lessons and from those lessons we learn and become more efficient. The people we see who are "gifted" simply have years, starting from childhood (piano, tuition, social life, homework....) to get better at it.

Well if you've missed the boat there, you can always start now, which brings me to my next point.

Vision. You must have vision of where you end-game is. If life is a map, and the demands on your time multiple checkpoints and your attention the toy soldiers you use to move around on that same map, you start to think of time and attention as very scarce resources right?

It's the same, with a sense of urgency, that arises from scarcity, we become very picky or at least not so yielding to all the demands from us. It's also important to know what we want, because like every story, it must end, and we take the position of a director where we must know where your work will end up after all this work. So use your imagination and visualise where you want to end up. It's the same for small company projections (get 5% uplift in sales of product X) or big life decisions (do I see myself growing old with this person? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?).

Lastly, once you know where you want to go, what limited resources you have, you can then use the below pragmatic rules about juggling.

1. Task list or to-do-lists are crap (for me)

To-do lists makes you focus on linear progressions. It is great for homework but not so much for real-time stuff. In reality things move in parallel. By the time you finish your list, something has changed and you keep rewriting things over and over again but find yourself having no time to actually do them.

Instead, plan all your actions in a gantt chart, or for simplicity, I put them into my calendar ahead of time. It takes the worry off me that I'll forget something later and a nifty calendar alert 2 weeks before give me ample time to work on it. By blocking time, you also practice scarcity and force yourself to plan leisure in!

2. One feet in the pool, one feet on the grass

Always have an antennae permanently tuned to what's outside your 3m radius. Have one allegorical ear out for developments (or game-changing gossip "She's leaving!", "He's a new joiner and he'll be taking over this big client") that can potentially affect your work. Plan in your mind what options you have if it affects you. If you have no options and it affects you, at least you know you can't do anything about it and life carries on. No fret.

3. Allow new things to come in on a case-by-case basis.

Today got time for meeting? Let me check - see that the calendar has too much stuff, nope.

Today got time for CLIENT meeting? Let me check - new client worth 10 times more - YUP.

Reality is as such. Of course you don't have to go by monetary value, personal values come into play as well. Whichever scale you use, at least always have the right to say no when you are tapped out.

4. Stop being fucking nice

I used to be bristled by how some people are "rude" about their time. Just 5 minutes also cannot?

Yah, sometimes it's really cannot.

While I believe in rejecting people plainly and very politely, it doesn't mean you have to be nice by allowing people to trample on you. Bosses, colleagues or friends, be firm and polite. Being nice just gets you no sleep and poor performance.

5. Ditch the personal project management tool for some space to think

I have no qualms about.project management tools by the way, absolutely no reservations of a much needed system when you need to manage multinational projects.

In my style of working, those personal project management tools take up time to update, refresh and strike off. Personally for some of my friends it works - and if that's how you work by means go ahead. My point is don't force yourself to use something that doesn't feel natural.

Take time off to think and reflect on how you can work more efficiently, how do you make life easier for yourself. How do you increase capacity without increasing costs to yourself (time)?

These are just some of my WIP approaches to juggling in life, and like most humans I do fail from time to time. #notashamed As my best friend can attest, I actually suck at multitasking.

Just keep going and I hope this serves to help you in some way or another. In any case, like a wise aunty colleague once told me, "工作做不完的啦~" (Work is never-ending).

Rediscovery: lessons on G string

I have always had a phobia of performing on stage as a soloist, or being the focal point in an ensemble. Post-school, I chose to hide behind thick heavy curtains as a stage hand and later, a stage manager where the dark nooks and dim safety lights cuccooned. I would stand backstage applauding the actors who've worked so hard to bring the scripts to life, but also at the same time yearn with envy at their ability to delight and inspire.

I was determined to stand in the light again, and with that, to learn a new instrument. 

1 month of cello lessons have helped me rediscover parts of myself I didn't want to contend with. It really hit home one day while I was watching a particular episode of the Crown, where Churchill was having a heated exchange with his portraitist.

My teacher have said many times, astutely, that I want to be correct more times than I want to play music. In practicising one passage, I gradually realised that, in all irony, the more I forced the correct, the more it came out sounding awful. That is not to say proper bow strokes or posture is unimportant. It's the approach and the preoccupations of wanting to be correct all the time that distracts me from the sound I was correcting for. At the end of the day, I had to remind myself that everything is a work of progress and I have to be patient for muscle memory to form, for my body to become accustomed.

I have always been afraid of performing solo - because the task of being correct in music,where no 2 notes are the same - become too daunting a task for any conscious mind.

Art and character
In the episode of the Crown where Churchill, a prolific painter himself, criticised and insinuated that his portraitist had lesser experience and aptitude than he (lesser works a year, his lack of knowledge of pencil and paper types for a sketch). His portraitist, went back to do research on Churchill's numerous works. He returned and pointedly told Churchill that his painting constantly returned to the subject of his pond. He asked why Churchill was so engrossed with the pond. Churchill sees art as battle, to win over the subject matter as conquer. The pond with is dancing lights, was difficult to capture completely. The artist made a passing statement that the way he framed and painted the water, revealed that Churchill wanted people to see something that he feel people didn't see. It was calling for the viewer to see beneath the muddy surface for something. Something might not be there. Churchill was visibly struck, it was a quiet scene, yet resonated loudly under my shell.

In the context of an aging Churchill with his illustrious career, it was tragic, the denial of one's age and limits. The forced perspective of wanting others to see the greatness without also acknowledging the weaknesses.

Why do they say art is reflection, food and sustenance for the soul?

Is this why Einstein plays?

Is this how Bach felt when he composed his preludes, fugues, and many other concertos?

After years of knowing these statements from artists, I am beginning to embody the experience and understand why.

Both experiences brought tears to my heart and eyes. First, with immense sadness because after a long time, I am finally at the cusp of realising a deeper part of myself. To remind ourselves that life is more than just right and wrongs, more than the petty politics and power struggles. Empathy is a resource fast running out in this distracting world. Every day I play simple notes and yet I am reminded that while as a beginner we need to get the simple things right, but it is all about being able to feel between the notes. We underestimate the touch of sound, the vibrations that rock us within a concert or dance, that also exists between the tense pauses on stage.

I took a breath and pulled my first bow, ah! That full tenor of the G on the cello. Beyond technique, beyond correctness, we all need to be reminded that life is about fullness. Sound never lies. What I play, is a reflection of what is inside me - a scratchy distorted conflicted sound. There is no way I can play without releasing tension in both my mind and my body. No way I can feel the notes if I constantly berate my ineptitude. In time...in time...

Like Churchill's obsession with that pond, that forced perspective on his viewers to  my forced cello sound was born out of pride. Humility releases the soul in ways that is indescribable. Like theatre often theorises, when an audience laugh, it is because they feel uncomfortable, it is a visceral reflection and reminder of the shady parts of ourselves. When I played my cello, the sound is a direct manifestation of insecurity. Indeed the obsession with being correct, is a selfish endeavour. It emphasizes the player's self-absorption to be correct and the audience becomes alienated. It is masturbatory and fails engage nor does it serve to communicate. People become disenchanted when art is supposed to do just the opposite. 

If you are disengaged from any performance or art piece, when you also have all the lenses and grammar to read and interpret, it is fault of the artist.

I am afraid of performing because I am simultaneously afraid that people do not like me for who I am. I am scared shitless because we bare our souls, and run the risk that people do not like that part of us that was made public. I still have a long way to go, in accepting my own weaknesses as well as strengths. Like learning is a life-long skill, may this journey never end.

Email writing: some ideas to help

Recently, there has been a lot delicate ballet surrounding emails.

How do I reply an email from my boss that has Cc-ed the whole village for a decision that looks like I missed my work when in fact, s/he changed his/her decision?

How do I reply emails that compliment my work?

How do I reply emails when my colleagues are clearly throwing me under the bus?

How do you write a sensible reply to someone who is passive aggressive?

How do you reply your CEO who has dropped you work and skipped the entire chain of command?

I am constantly amused at how writing, despite advances in technology, still revolves around 3 principles - context, power and tone.

Human communication over text is a fascinating thing - the semiotics can be interpreted widely depending on our mood, or even time of day. We read what we want to hear. Literature and authors, like musicians, exploit this to create colour and suspense. Yet, in professional business writing, a "colourful" tone can be mis-interpreted as sarcastic or worst-still, offensive.

The worst part is, the more people jump on the bandwagon, the confirmation bias grows every stronger and it email becomes morphed into its own interpretation regardless of the author's original intention.

So here are my 3 humble thoughts about email writing based on my personal principles. I've learnt these skills from mistakes, as well as my bosses, for whom I am eternally grateful for pointing out these hesitancies.

1) Context - reading between the lines

So you wrote an email, and you expected it to go cordially. Before you know it, a harsh reply came back and you are fuming. You feel wronged. You feel that the other person is unreasonable. She's a bitch, he's a jerk. This problem compounds when that person is someone with power.

Instead of hitting "Reply All", it is perhaps easier to pick up the phone. Come forth from the position as a listening ear, hear why and what this person is trying to tell you. That anger might be completely misdirected, or someone else is trying to send an indirect message via you to your team or boss, who's conveniently cc-ed in there. If you are completely sure of your innocence, then you don't have to go on the defensive and start a shouting match. Let it go and reply pleasantly, more anger doesn't breed resolutions.

Listen, understand, rant a bit...and calm down.

Secondly, you receive a very cryptic email towards a potentially very awkward conclusion. You can't seem to figure out exactly what has happened and you are too embarrassed to ask. What then?

Context becomes extremely crucial in the environment where information is non-transparent. You could be a scape-goat in the making, or be unknowingly complicit to a whole scheme of things you'd rather not get involved. In this context, ask very awkward and difficult questions, escalate matters if this is out of your pay-scale. Clarify with the sender if this was a mistake, seek confirmation on the objectives and have that in email. When the context is not clear, being clear about what your unknowns might raise the right alarm bells. There are no stupid questions.

But there are stupid assumptions.

2) Power

One of my personal pet peeves, is people who write short curt and very accusatory emails that at once suggest very little in way of direction and also insist upon a multitude of things.

You know, those emails?

"I saw "X" this morning, what the hell are you people doing. Inserts sign off"

Or

"Insert Cc to entire team: Please activate this for Amy as discussed, why is this still not done."

The former is a poor email form that js outwardly demanding, with all the room in the world for the team to jump in and start pointing fingers.

The latter, is passive aggressive. It suggests the receipient is incompetent of following instructions or the person giving it has a point to prove on the earlier point.

While I personally don't agree with these forms of email, they are dis-empowering to the receivers - even if they are guilty of the act. But wait, you cry, what if that person is a repeat offender! What if they don't move unless I resort to such tactics.

I believe that dealing with difficult people require strategies. For now, assume you are innocent and you find yourself on the pointy end of the stick, how do we reply?

Firstly, do not wrestle back control. Do not fire off another email that is equally foreboding and petty. Secondly, write to clarify, not defend. Do not start by saying "you didn't tell me" or "Ernest failed to...", it will just make the endless witch-hunting even more tedious.

We don't want the Salem witch hunts, we want to resolve a problem.

So the key is to write what you do know, how it will be resolved, and what is preventing you from finding a conclusion. It may well be a lack of information, your boss forgot that 5min discussion in the pantry, etc. Confirm that discussion, seek clarity and with each onion layer you peel, the power balance tilts in your favour. Consider your positionality, and how much change you can effect over the organisation and adjust your content. The less power, the lesser explanations on email. We're not called to answer for problems beyond our pay-scale - unless the problem is you or your team.

If you truly forgot to do something, do not over-explain. In true Gordon Ramsay style, recover, and save the excuses. By giving excuses, you are crippling people's expectations of your work, when what you really want is to admit that we all make mistakes, and they can adjust their own worldview. The latter being, everyone can identify with and the former being just someone desperate to cover up. Ironically, you win power by being more vulnerable because you don't win approval, but you win empathy.

Writing from power also means being affirmative. "I think", "It might be possible" are phrases to avoid especially when you are putting forward a recommendation. It cracks open debate which will further undermine your confidence. If you are not sure, then why are you recommending?

3) Tone

Friendly or business-formal? Should I insert that smiley face? Is slang allowed?

It is obvious that much of tone comes from the first 2 points. Yet at the same time, tone is the structure we put up to set ourselves up for success or failure.

Consider your relationship and objectives, if you would like you ease a tense situation by throwing a joke, you would be better off doing it in person. Humour is a risky thing, because it depends on timing and frame of mind. Unless the relationship is on a firm basis, risking a joke is generally not wise.

Consider tone as a bridge between 2 gulfs of ideas. If you have a point that you want to say, consider using tone to draw the person in. Sell-in rather than hard-sell. It is often much palatable if the writer seems to be open to a conversation, rather than coming as a directive.

Except of course, when it is truly a directive.

I consider tone like music playing. You can play the piano and the teacher often asks you to sing the melody line. You get a sense of phrasing where the composer intends to end a sentence. Tone of emails is exactlt that, you have to read your email out loud to consider if the text  reads well. Are your salient points are highlighted? Can some parts of the email be interpreted wrongly? Think about various ways of reading, like music, there are many ways to go about singing a melody.

Tone, is a word that is associated with aurality. When in doubt, vocalise.

Ultimately, this is a very long and convoluted way of thinking about email writing. I don't have specific tactics, because if those will automatically come to you if we shift our mode of thinking. Don't self-victimise, and tilt power in your favour. Appraise how your reply affirms or disavows your position in the company and write mindfully.

My rule of thumb is, if I have doubts about my email, discuss it offline with your manager or with that person directly. It's often a sure sign that the email will come back with a reply that is not entirely favourable.

So you didn't get that promotion...

Recently, many of my friends/colleagues had their bubbles burst. This cuccoon that good work should be commensurated by good pay, and the implied trust that you will get a pay raise when you get promoted, is sadly broken.

In many conversations, I've insisted that good work is rewarded by more work. Behind that, there's always a trust that you will be rewarded accordingly. More responsibilities means being paid for it and vice versa.

Then 3 years into my career, when I've had a peek under the hood, I realise that people are not all very smart nor rational. I discovered many ugly politics that resulted in my various hires, and the real reason why people leave. I've witnessed incompetent employers being driven by employees yet never sharing the profits with them. I've been disgusted by senior management's miserly cost-strapped approaches that deter growth. That "defend whatever pie I have" instead of finding more. It would seem almost fate, that a slew of articles and reports seem to correspond to my current worldview - young underpaid burnt out executives who leave or are asked to leave due to rapid financialisation of companies and rapid cost cutting measures to meet those financial goals.

Work more, for less.

This lore, must rest.

My best friend, like Morpheus in the Matrix, offered me the blue pill and I've since opened my eyes for the first time.

Meritocracy doesn't exist. If it naturally did, why do we still write it into our national pledge? Why do ministers still insist that the civil service is meritocractic. We hardly need to instate upon a concept that exists in reality.

I've burnt out before, and felt hopeless. For 5 months this year, I've come to re-assessed this lore that has been ingrained in me throughout my educational journey.

It is true to some extent, that the best people tend to get the better pay and education has had a big part to play, besides gender and social class, in one's life chances of making-it-out-there. Yet, when we tear apart the cohort analysis, across individuals or communities (like young executives), we face ever-increasing disparities. Not all education types are valued equally, not all industries reward the same, not all bosses promote individuals with good qualities.

As we are schooled to become ever so alike, ironically the notion of meritocracy as we know it changes. Merit is based on who can angkat bolah (carry balls), who's able to get into the good books and do what upper management want. Performance at work, becomes a wayang, and taken to the extremes, creates a vastly disturbing and toxic corporate culture.

The key is really to keep on learning, even when life is unfair and promotions become extremely biased, I believe it will play out and here's why:

Ultimately, success is about grit and resilience. Resilience is all about being adaptable and gaining the skills that makes you mobile and less-company-dependent. It is true for any HR, that the best people will always leave and the worst are hard to get rid of. Companies always struggle to balance short term cost cutting measures with long term gain. Given the financialisation of many companies, short term gain is becoming more of a reality than long term development. While that is none of our problem, since we are the cogs in this entire corporate machinery, that burden of sustainability is not ours to bear.

I always say, "this problem is above my payscale".

Yet it has implications. It suggests that with increasing short term worldviews, we have to ironically think long term. I live in constant belief that I might be asked to leave my desk tomorrow and every month I ask if I have the skills to go  elsewhere. If every month my answer is yes, I will sleep easy at night. If not, it's time to consider readjusting my position/scope in the company.

Many of my peers then turn to businesses, as an alternative eden. Your own hours, full profit, calling the shots. No more unfair promotions, no more nonsense from upper management. Except when you're daunted by real prospects, you realise how much more politics and craziness one has to bear. From unscrupuloys suppliers to powerful buyers, doing business come in all flavours.

Burn out. The candle's wick can only burn for so long. The wax is evaporating  Bills go up in smoke.

Generally, while there are tons of articles telling you how to deal with a burn out, my last takeaway is to not make work your all. Don't make work your reason, find a reason to work, to make it work. Yes it sucks that the promotion didn't come despite the hardwork you've put in. Leave for better prospects not for the feeling of injustice, but for a better future for your family. Arm yourself with the skills to negotiate for that future you want, build your reputation, which over time outweighs its worth in gold.

Meritocracy doesn't exists, not perfectly anyway. Find strength in places, seek solace in others =) push on.

Bosses are humans too - thoughts on humanistic leadership

Recently I've been interested in this idea of humanistic leadership. There are many schools of thought on leadership, and some of them may already cover what I currently have in mind.

Nevertheless, this post is aimed at that frustrated subordinate and the fresh-faced executive, about our managers.

I've always sought to find a good mentor and manager as my number 2 priority after job-scope/exposure. The reason being is that we probably see our managers for longer hours than our spouses or family. It felt only logical. Monetary issues aside, if one can afford it, seek a job to grow and learn first and foremost.

However, not all managers are leaders. Many times we are frustrated by the decisions they make, or do not make. They also chastise us for things that might not be entirely our fault, or may seem unreasonable in terms of deadlines. No one likes OT (unless you like escaping from home), and certainly no one likes uncertainty or negative energy around the office.

So we immediately turn to the manager who gave us that instruction, or directive. Why B now when it was A earlier? We question, interrogate and some managers stonewall us and ask you to "just do it". So we bitch and moan over lunches with our colleagues, and then complain to our loved ones that my manager has been unreasonable. Crazy even, especially when emotions were involved and things felt a bit personal, words were heartedly exchanged.

Ultimately, everyone goes back with their relationship just a bit sour. Bits of you promise that you'll never help your boss anymore. S/he has betrayed you.

There are a ton of articles out there that suggest what you should do if you have a lousy boss. How to "survive" a lousy manager. It is all about coping and tolerating the Mean Manager. This is where I beg to differ.

Coping and tolerating is a stop-gap measure, it suggests that both parties dance around the bush and ignore the white elephant in the room. Truce comes with developing understanding, and some empathy, as well as crystal clear communication.

1. Understanding, maybe you misunderstood the messenger for the message.

Managers have meetings, they have closed-door discussions. They have responsibilities and emails that you are not privy to, they text their own bosses, they have greater responsibilities beyond the organisation.

Sometimes we see the blood but not the battle, and we blame the soldier who fought in the trenches than the politicians that instigated the war. Messages flow from the top, and managers are sometimes confronted with the difficult position of being the messenger - to fire, to discipline, to U turn - because of whatever reasons. They could have spoke up for you, but their decisions were overrode by other people and considerations. Ultimately, we need to ask the right questions before we jump to conclusions. Managers have bosses to please too. How they handled the situation reflects well/badly on them. So while we can feel that the message could be phrased in a better way, we need to be objective and seek clarity on where and how this decision came to be.

2. Empathy, because managers have families too.

So she was snappy at you - it must be PMS or she is has issues with your slides last night. He was distant- maybe he has unvoiced disappointment and the hammer's gonna drop any minute.

Maybe you don't care at all.

However we see it, our bosses can equally be met with frustrations from home, they are not our managers when they are home but husbands, wives, children, friends. They can very well have had their heartbroken that affected their day. It's not always about you.

Junior-entry executives don't always realise how sheltered they are. Personal performance is easy and while there are some relationships to manage, the goals are often very clear and directive. However the higher up the corporate ladder, the view is less clear, the relationships less obvious and suddenly the phrase, "with great power, comes great responsibility" start to really sink in.

It is always easier to be responsible for yourself, than to be responsible for others. That's why I'm quite resistant to the idea of the careerist individual, because more often than not, I see managers burn out and run ineffective and toxic teams that surrounds a person's ego. Without the support of family and friends, it is easier to be bitter, jaded and simply apathetic about other's predicaments.

3. You can never over-communicate.

A lot of misunderstanding comes from the lack of will and ability to simply tell others what the hell you are working on right now.

Sometimes when things are extremely overwhelming, boss forget to communicate, and because shit flows from the top, the landslide eventually lands on our 6pm shoulders.

Soldier on.

Shake it off like water off a duck's back and fucking grow a pair. It is not okay for any boss to tell you  to do something that was due 2 hours ago, communicate how this can be improved, mutually apologise and move on.

Of course with authority, no manager is going to tell you sorry for making you miss your movie with your partner, or worse still, the finals of EPL.

Yet, taking the first step to confront the issue achieves 2 objectives. First it tells you what kind of leader you have, and secondly, it opens a dimension of understanding that goes beyond passive-aggressiveness.

Nothing gets achieved if communications are reduced to passive aggressiveness, and people who are PA need to understand that this propagates and complicates the issue. If you feel you are not listened to, or are not appreciated for your opinions, just voice it out and see where the paint spray settles. If the organisation doesn't appreciate your skills and views, then leave. If you can't leave, then just press on. If you get brow beaten all the time, at least you did your conscience proud. Congratulations, welcome into maturity.

Bosses who are themselves PA, need to get a grip of their actions, and I fucking make no excuses for managers who are detrimental to their team due to ineffective (PA) communications. But all of us can do our part to improve things.

My point of this article, is that you don't need to have a shiny brass plate engraved with your name and title to exhibit leadership. In this day and age of rank-seeking individuals, we forget the software of what makes managers important. They are the muscles that hold the joints together, the nervous system that run effective communications, though while sometimes painful, helps the rest of the corpus understand that they have been burnt and back away.

It is not always about you, neither do people "have issues with your performance". Very rarely, people think about you if at all, and managers, those who are truly focused on the good work, have spare RAM to give a shit about your petty thoughts and drama. So grow a pair of bravery + transparency, and mature. This world is really not your polly-pocket universe.

Humanistic leadership is about understanding the individual and where they are coming from. Thereafter, to lead with transparency and empathy, to communicate clearly with people around you so as to develop healthy relationships. You may do it in any style, but you don't have to be a manager to lead - you can start with yourself.

Lifelong learning

I was searching my family document library 2 days ago, trying to get papers in order for an appeal application for my mother's step-down care subsidy. And my mum being the extremely orderly person she is, has kept everything in place and is a system we still use 7 years later despite her stroke.

Having said, I paused to flip through the numerous certificates, courses and accreditation that my mum has had throughout her career right up till her stroke. At first, it was O levels, and then a diploma in IT back when computers barely made it to the scene. My mother was a brilliant typist, scoring an impressive word/minute to qualify a shiny badge for it. She attended even more courses about logistics, learning advanced excel and so on. This was before systems like SAP and Oracle made it to our shores to help companies monitor complex logistics.

It was easy to pass these off as my mum's poor O Level grades didn't qualify her entry into a tertiary institution due to her poor English marks (she was Chinese educated). It is but of course, that she kept on learning so that she could continue to be relevant. It is a discourse we are familiar with and, with SkillsFuture, institutionalised.

However, being a university graduate, a person of middle-class privilege, it is easy to be comfortable in our worldly knowledge. To pass off my mum's pursuits as simply a necessity because she didn't have access to university. It is equally tempting to assume we know it all - and stop learning. A great deal of humility came when I entered the digital media world - where no such course is offered in Singapore, where the playing field is equal, that you feel that your entire educational hardwork seems less useful than when it first felt. My mum must have felt the same when she picked up IT as her profession of choice.

I find myself on the same journey as my mother now, learning and developing new skills, taking courses and getting certified for platforms I never knew existed or were possible.

Yet, a constant worry plagues me.

My mother had to also banked on a particular set of skills - and it was IT. Very soon after the 2000s, a vast majority of consolidation exercises and downsizing caused many to lose their jobs. My mother included - she had to de-skill and work in another field that demanded a strict paycut. The last few years leading to her stroke were the most stressful. Being older now, I am starting to understand her frustrations. Back in 1970s, the government promised developments in the IT manufacturing sector. However that strategy quickly changed when China because cheaper and opened its doors in mid 1990s. We lost our comparative advantage in a heartbeat. Many industries today still grapple with this change.

It must have been infuriating to invest so much into one's learning, and not have it pay off in the future you aspire to. I am somehow doubly pained for my mother, who have always shielded me from these worries and allowed me to pursue my passion and strengths. Perhaps if she were healthy now, she would shared more with me.

There are two kinds of learning - often dichotomised as incompatible. On one end of the ring, we have the academic approach of meta-knowledge. The abstraction of common phenomenon into concepts that can be adapted to analyse anything - a way of thinking if you will. On the other side presents a realm of practical knowledge that get things done. How to fix a generator on a bulldozer, how to create pivot tables, how to run a training session.

The former comes at too high a cost, often econimically and scholastically out of reach from many. The latter is too specialised and can, in my mother's case, be obsolete if the wind changes directions.

So what then? While one can certainly, theoretically, keep getting skilled - some boundaries are harder to cross than others. A salesperson selling books can hardly transit into a role that sells medical equipment. This structural unemployment is not simply distilled to just the lack of learning. The person may very be learning all this time, just within their own vertical that no longer exists.

It is this insecurity that makes me question the viability of some of the strategies posited by armchair economists, often relegating the structural unemployment as a problem of the lack of self-improvement.

But what is clear is that we cannot stop learning, and be closed to the idea that being in a lab analysing cell division is a farfetched idea when you were a geography major. No doubt it comes at a very high cost. However my point is that if we are no longer hungry to learn, we stand no chance at all.

This post addresses many parallel and intersecting issues - but the tldr; version is simply this. Just keep swimming, even if it was the wrong direction, we can always turn back, but never stop moving.

By the way, my mum wanted to enroll into university to pursue her dreams of getting a degree after I "grew up". She never went on to fulfil that personal aspiration. It doesn't matter because he carries enough knowledge already that universities will be learning more from her experience than what they can offer.  Her dream lives on with me, and I will carry that torch of learning forever in my heart.

What lying does to you

Lies are a form of narrative, a story or a fantasy we tell people. It is often rooted in some sort of truth, or phenomena experienced but can either be taken out of context. Facts distorts into falsehood because it has been misappropriated to fit one's selfish interests.

People might tell a liar when confronted face-to-face, because lying to someone is uncomfortable and much more difficult than one might think. It's loaded with a sense of sheepishness, guilty conscience and plot-holes to get straight that it often takes less effort to just tell someone the truth and get it over and done with.

However, lying, like most things, can become a habit. It gets easier every time you do it, such that it is all paradoxically, becomes the only truth you see. It starts to frame how you see things - your neurons travel the pre-emptive pathways on how you place facts within a story that has become familar to you. So lies ultimately become a worldview, and in that worldview through time and space, situations become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is about not getting fleeced, but also and more importantly about vanity and pride of the Emperor. In a sense, he allowed himself to be deceived because he has already deceived himself that it is extremely crucial to have clothing that is made of the finest material as an affirmation of his lordly status. We allow ourselves to be lied to, or take into lies because the first lie starts with the lies we tell ourselves. We need that $2,400 bag because it makes us look good. We don't interrogate assumptions enough, especially the assumptions that echo in our minds.

So all in all, lies do something very particular. They feed. Rather than substract from your being, they add, feed, seduce and nourish. Whether it is desire, pride or even glory, it seeks yo affirm what may not be. And it is potent because since they are based in facts that do exist, we make logical leaps and jump to conclusions. When we lie to others comfortably, we have to lie to ourselves, and to do that easily, is to take mental shortcuts or erase outliers.

It becomes easier to find cause and effect, to sweep all other factors under the carpet. Dangerously, it becomes easier to blame, to seek justifications for extreme actions. We tell ourselves it is okay. And after a few times, lies replace truth as discourses that most accept. Not all lies are purposeful, and this is not the same as scientific theory that has been debunked due to new evidence or research practices. I am referring to the lies we tell ourselves, the personal touchpoints we have regularly that suck us in.

Lies are a false cucoon, one that is as brittle as diamond. It only takes 1 child on the street to say, "but he is naked!" to shatter illusions into a thousand pieces and have us all running back vulnerable and exposed.

Have courage my friends.