#yourturnchallenge

Kate told me to start a blog. She was the small, jittery woman who shared a room with me in Twentynine Palms, California. A simple room that mirrored itself, split in half by a window facing the mountains. We were at the Dhamma Vaddhana Vipassana Meditation Center.  

We spent ten days observing the Noble Silence as an offering of space for oneself and others. 

".. being who we are and allowing the other person to be who they are.”

The teachers invited us to speak again on the last day —  a buffer for our return to reality. My feelings spilled out & Kate listened. She made her diagnosis and prescribed treatment for my ailments.

“You don’t need Vipassana, you need to write a blog!” 

Kate was a cryptocurrency trader from Belarus. She was traveling around the United States with her boyfriend, waiting for their Green Cards to arrive, before she could divorce her surrogate husband. Without words, she demanded authority. Never missing the 4am wakeup gong to mediate. While I slept through the optional  sittings, she sat in the hall and worked. Nine hours a day, everyday. Her story only added to the natural admiration i'd developed.

I completed the Vipassana retreat in March. While it presented a viable framework, I lack the tools to build it up. It took me two months but I’m ready to take my medicine.  

I assert now as I did when the suggestion was made that I have nothing interesting to say. My prose is cringey, mundane & self-concerned.  But I believe Kate when she says I need to start a blog. 

If you work in government service, I apologize for the satire. President Ronald Reagan used it well to express how many Americans felt about the government at the time. And I believe it aptly expresses how many recyclers feel about converter recycling companies.

Are you really here to help me? Or are you here to help yourself make more money off of me? 

It does not seem to matter how you sell the scrap catalytic converter, you can easily be taken advantage of - even if you are a knowledgeable and experienced recycler. This is true of the entire recycling supply chain; from recycler to collector to processor and even to secondary smelter, miner, and refiner. 

Free trade and market dynamics are essential. Volume equals leverage and is the only factor that commands an increase in margin. Transparent and accountable sales transactions must be verifiable. An independent expert that represents you in the trade is worth their weight in platinum, palladium, and rhodium.   

Most people are slackers. Information overload contributes to much of this. So does the general culture of work. There’s nothing terribly wrong with taking things easy - and I’m sure we’ve all seen plenty of articles about the importance of cultivating pockets of idleness - but time is relentless, and so you invariably end up achieving less. Personally for me, it’s about creating less.

Perhaps it’s my Asian mindset that makes me so fixated on accomplishments. I did a personality test last week (you have some animals with you, name the order in which you’d eject them from the group), and apparently I would hold on to work (the horse) ‘til the very end. As much as I am a huge cynic when it comes to these things (of COURSE you’d pick the horse; it’s the practical choice - but apparently not everyone thinks this way), this was a pretty accurate result for me at my current life stage.

Yet I do waste time. On silly things. Most times I am conscious of what I’m doing, but it’s a compulsion that is difficult to break. I continue to play a mobile game even though I’m thoroughly bored of it, for example. Aldous Huxley, author of the sci-fi novel Brave New World, made a prescient observation in the 1930s that humans have an “almost infinite appetite for distractions”. He feared that truth would be drowned in a sea of triviality, and that prolonged indulgence in the things we loved would be our ruin (check out this comic comparing the views of Huxley and Bradbury).

What this challenge has done for me: provided focus through regular and deliberate practice requiring that I put aside more trivial pursuits. Perhaps I don’t write something great every time. But it’s something, as opposed to, well, nothing.

Other things I could do to facilitate this:

Changing the environment - Deleting games from my phone - Listening to podcasts/reading while commuting - Turning off the 4G on my phone when I’m not at home or in the office (helps my phone bill too)

Got ourselves certified in sports climbing today (an early Valentine’s activity). I’m petrified by heights, so I’m quite pleased at how high up the rock face I got. I think it helps that I was mainly focused on reaching for the next firm hand/foothold, that my vision was mostly of the wall (unless I looked over my shoulder and downwards), and that there was the reassuring tautness of rope looped through my harness most of the way.

A couple of takeaways: 1) Ow, fingers. 2) Trust plays a huge part - it sets the climber at ease, and it puts a lot of stress on the belayer!

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We also celebrated a birthday today. 50 years - half a lifespan. Quite a lot of the conversation was rooted in definitions of success: wealth, generosity, skills, toys, pregnancy, freedom.

It’s obviously an obsession, and I’m not immune.

Then I came home, and watched this.

A parting note on freedom/definitions (though certainly not a resolution):

I worked from home in my PJs today. A few colleagues called. One of them tried to give me advice on how to do my job (because HR is sooo easy, and why wouldn't good talent just be dying to apply?). The cat was mostly quiet when I wasn't on the phone. "Are you with a cat?" Yes, yes I am. It would've been nicer if I wasn't sick. Also if I was actually resting. Also if we did indeed have a nice healthy talent pipeline bolstered by brand prestige.

At 9pm I received some critical news, and as an extension of the push to react nownownow! I shared it instantly. Leading to an immediate reaction calling for instant answers. Which I didn't have.

Thinking about it now, I realise that usually, in such circumstances, my instinct is to react immediately, instead of waiting. I'm not sure if it's always the best way to go. 

If I wait, I risk being late to the party, or being the bottleneck. If I move, I risk not having answers on hand, or having to backtrack later when conditions change.

They all had forgettable faces. Perhaps they had tried too hard to assimilate, losing bits of themselves by lingering too long, and now muscle memory committed them to camouflage. Or perhaps just as goldfish are stunted by cramped spaces, the pressures of their ecosystem had forced them to shrink into themselves, condensed cores cushioned by soft, featureless bodies. Anonymity suited them just fine. What they worried about, constantly, were their outlines—once snug in porcelain edges, transparent membranes now floated above their skins, refracting light in ghostly ways, yielding alarmingly to touch.  And so they clung to corners, seeking respite from the Immutable. For one day, they knew, they would be pulled into the Great Weightlessness, and the Pearly Gates would set them free. "Corner Dwellers" by Constance Ho for the Bubble Tea installment of Math Paper Press’ 24 Flavours micro-fiction series

I work in HR, and long before I entered Management, I’ve had to align myself with company speak. That means embodying the firm’s values and defending its culture. 

Even if I don’t necessarily agree. Sometimes, it even changes me.

The piece I wrote above was in part inspired by a fear of integrating so effectively that I would lose myself. (A lighter reading, of course, is simply anthropomorphic tapioca pearls trying to delay being eaten!)

Teams often hire for Fit. It’s not always the best strategy (discrimination, teams of clones), but does make life easier (interpersonal dynamics, engagement, retention).

Candidates know this, and pitch themselves accordingly.

But I would caution against two things:

It’s February 4, a Wednesday. The Passion Planner the husband ordered for me hasn’t arrived yet, and I find myself in an absurd limbo. I found out about Winnie Kao's Your Turn Challenge more than 7 days ago, around the time the community was halfway through it. I have a lot of ideas I want to organise into writing. I considered doing it in video/soundclip form, since I think I could do with some practice expressing my thoughts verbally in a compelling way.

I have some notes scribbled on paper. A bunch of voice recordings from various bus stops.

I haven’t shipped anything yet.

It’s lunchtime - as good a time as any to start. It’s always the first step that’s the hardest: rising to the occasion; dragging yourself to the gym; making any decision; laying out a plan; typing the first word.

This year, my touchstone word is: Habit. It’s about finding my way through small maneuvers, making what was once unnatural part of the Flow. Reducing decision paralysis by establishing rhythm. Growing in unconscious competence through Doing - more, regularly, better. Recovering faster from failures. Carrying on.

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Today’s reflection: Look at all the fucks I don’t give

Someone once remarked to me (perhaps in a bid to build rapport, or to elicit a reaction) that she felt my manager was rather daft, because people would criticise her in meetings, either directly or cloaked in sarcasm, and it would fly right over her head. I doubted it then, but I am sure now that the speaker was mistaken.

If there are a few things I’ve learnt about directed negativity:

1) It often isn’t born of malice, but fatigue and insecurity. For your own health, believe in the best case scenario. (But of course be wary of slipping into denial; it often leads to being blindsided.) 2) You’re going to be misunderstood. A lot. You can repeat yourself, get things in writing, lock eyes, have witnesses. There will always be a disconnect somewhere. Don’t play the finger-pointing game. Breathe, fix it, and move on. 3) You cannot please everyone. Sometimes you just have to choose when not to give a fuck.