Tag: Opinions

If you could read my heart

In Eastern cultures, one relies on traditional matchmakers to “read” marriage prospects.

Online, we’ve got eHarmony.com or Match.com.

Over job interviews, we rely on body language, off-guard remarks and (in)consistencies to form an impression and to determine candidate’s culture-fit.

If only could you read my heart.

How are we to determine his/her reaction after the learning curve? We don’t.

But there are a few principles:

– one tends to act consistently with his or her own internal set of standard

– we subscribe to a social compact

– we seek to preserve a long-term win-win balance i.e. cheating doesn’t pay

– collaboration leads to synergy which in turn feeds the virtuous cycle

– we seek to need-fulfill from the bottom of the Maslow scale up (survival first).

I never forget the Northridge quake, when we couldn’t get to work.

Co-workers, Hispanic, Korean, American, Vietnamese, Chinese (Los Angeles office), were all “quake victims”.

Apparently, there was something bigger than ourselves (and our ethnic make-ups).

We cared for one another as fellow human beings and shared inhabitants of this fragile planet Earth.

If they could have read my heart then.

So, on this Valentine Day, may we – co-workers – assume first the role of fellow inhabitants: from the inner ring loved ones to the outer ring – the human family: black, brown and white.

Once that social compact is bought in, it is easier to work with someone, to empathize and to collaborate. Test your candidate, see what planet he/she is from. Does he/she even feel at all? Respect at all? Or just go about “doing my job” regardless. No man’s island. Especially on Valentine’s Day.

Above and Below

I live next door to a convent and behind a restaurant/bar. The differences are quite obvious: Above and Below.

One life style is to focus on the afterlife, the other , this life.

For the weeks leading to Christmas, I heard rehearsals and refrains on one end, toasts and talks on the other.

Both found an intersect: human frailty (life is too short!).

But parted company at different conclusions: invest in the afterlife vs burn baby burn.

Paul Anka’s My Way speaks to man’s deep desire and yearning for self-assertion “I did it my way”.

We are endowed with different set of genes.

Combined, we shall conquer, Our Way.

I am not proposing Purgatorial compromise.

Just 1+1=3.

We would all be better off learning how the others feel, and fail, how we could be of help, or send for help.

Instead, we close our eyes (and ears), mumble a few thoughtless words, and secretly wish the problems (in this case, person) would go away.

Of course, we all are going to go away (Life is too short)

But in the here and now, we share the commons, and together we can conquer.

It’s better for students to learn the science and art of being fellow human first, than for them to learn the high art and science of above. Or, as a compromise, I propose a triangle: Above, You and I. In other words, the person we are interacting with deserves full and equal weight in that triangle at each  encounter and engagement (after all, we are all Mercy’s presence to each other).

We know Life is too short. We appreciate each passing moment and memory.

We realise each one of us is far from being perfect. The burden is not on us to “decode” them, or “fix ” them. Just acknowledge that we are weaklings, our weakness is their strength, and hopefully, vice versa.

That’s why we need each other, even enemies. In Joyeux Noel, opposing sides agreed on a cease-fire to celebrate Christmas. All Alpha Males. Farewell to arms. Just toast. Just below, but thanks to Above (the Reason of the Season).

What a beautiful picture. Very moving. And it could be found in the here and now, even in enemy’s camps. I know, I know, you want to do it your way.

I am just saying, this is “My Way”, not necessarily Above-or-Below forced dichotomy.

Blogging is sharing

It is also fun.

Certainly it is not work.

An insight here, a discovery there.

Hey, look at this!

I still remember appearing in a school play (Elementary).

Got a lot of laughs from the student body (playing a mother, Tootsie style).

Somewhere along the way, we have lost the inclination for play, the urge to create and an eye for  possibilities.

IKEA is redesigning its home-office furniture to accommodate digital demand of a mobile workforce (first they sit in cubicles, then they commute from home with virtual-style cubicles at work or at Starbucks and finally back to the office, per Yahoo).

More than furniture, we too will need to adapt (CD holder and PC desk anyone? before Goodwill takes them).

Even Palm is up for auction.

I didn’t  let Amazon‘s Fire go unnoticed.

Whoever named that product knows a thing or two about human need for tribal affiliation, for gathering around the camp fire.

Camera men and news men all know that viewers glue to the set when they show fire scenes.

TV screen has replaced that warm fireplace in everyone’s home. Now Amazon’s Fire (pad) wants to take it to go.

Hey look at this (from my Fire).

E commerce has just got leg.

No longer shoppers are desk-bound or multitasking during lunch hour (last-minute browsing and clicking “Put this in Shopping Cart” for the holiday season).

Speaking of Holiday Seasons. It looks as if we are home free with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas-shopping).

Consumers spending drives the economy forward (bulk shopping in December).

What is the point of putting up Christmas decoration in the house while telling your children to shut the door (to guests and families).

Kids are smarter than we think (mine said yelling is counter-productive i.e. honey makes for better mouse trap).

Back to my Elementary school play. Back to childlike creativity and imagination. Back to sharing. Back to the beginning when everyone got his/her allotted sparks of creativity and of the divine.

It’s still there, lying dormant underneath your Christmas decoration. Sharing is not seasonal. And the tribal fire has never meant to be extinguished. It was meant to be shared, in gathering circle.

Just like when we were told to sit in circle, at a school play, dressing up like Tootsie.