Paradox and Inspiration 112: Embrace or Eradicate Internet Anonymity?

The anonymity of the internet is a double-edged sword.

Peeking into this paradoxical topic, we learn how anonymity emboldens users to be culprits of hatespeech, financial scams, disclosure of trade secrets and exposure of personal information or secrets, astroturfing, online harassment, cyber bullying, child pornography, vicious behaviour, stalking, personal threats, stalking, and even extortion among other illegal activities, you just name it. The ferocious onslaught of internet predators and cyber crime is unimaginable, extremely dark.

Yet, we long know that the internet’s anonymity sets the basis for upholding and protecting the freedom of speech effectively. Just think of the knowledge we have acquired through this medium, the many more ways to connect, socialize and communicate than ever before. Anonymity provides people an outlet for their opinions, even the most sensitive and controversial ones. Cyber defamation law requiring verification of the user’s identity in online activities will curb freedom of speech, which depends on anonymity in some cases to shield the weak from abusive powers and for truths to be exposed without the fear of being punished.

So where do we go? Envelop or outlaw internet anonymity?

Paradox and Inspiration 111: Paradox Parenting

This paradox parenting perspective might surprise you.

If disciplining your children is driving you insane, what James Lucas teaches in his article "Paradox Parenting" might help you formulate some strategies to overcome your struggles.

Paradoxes identified by James are - expectations versus tolerance, justice versus mercy, teaching through values versus results, authority versus shared power, "The Way" versus freedom, protecting their innocence versus exposing them to reality, keeping a distance versus connecting at the soul, conditional love versus unfailing love.

Paradox & Inspiration 110: Excellence Redefined

The word "excellence" gets a new meaning today.

If there's one thing that I had craved for badly in my life and the lives of my children, it has to be "excellence". I yearned for it; I aimed for it; I planned and worked for it; I strived towards it; I prayed for it; I had been disappointed because of it; I had been troubled over it... For me, the end-result of having achieved excellence in life was always images of "success", "full marks", "A", "100%", "best", "number one"...

Pastor shattered that definition and revealed a fresh new perspective for it.

The spirit of excellence enables one to do his or her very best, to give hundred percent, and to leave the results to God. So, my best may not be someone else's best! A 50/100 may be someone's best, while a 100/100 may just be someone's partial effort. These statements are so very straightforward and familiar, but yet have never struck a chord of understanding in me!

Truth sets people free. All I need to do is to present my all and best in everything, and even if the results are far from perfect, I can actually say with good conscience that I have achieved excellence in my life! How wonderful is that!

Inspiration & Paradox 109: When Only Staying Alive Seems to Be Enough

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to write about Jason’s quite out-of-the-ordinary encounter at the hawker centre.

There he was, having lunch with a friend at a hawker centre when a very normal looking middle-aged man came by at their table and said he was hungry and asked if they could buy him lunch. Not sure if he was one of those rogues or ne’er-do-wells who preferred begging to working, they just ignored him. Moreover, he didn’t have the slightest look of an impoverished, filthy beggar.

It was just a little while before he noticed Jason’s friend had stopped eating and asked if she still wanted the remaining rice and fish soup. And in the next few moments, he was busy helping himself to the left-over. Guilt-stricken, Jason offered to buy him a new lunch. However, he declined and requested if Jason could buy him a drink instead, breaking out in sweats and explaining the peppery soup was too spicy for him. He got his drink, of course.

I couldn’t be more stunned when Jason finished his story. Couldn’t the man find something less demeaning to do with his life? What had reduced him to stooping so low? What could make him push back all dignity to publicly eat what’s left over on a plate by a stranger? It can’t be just the will to stay alive, can it?

Inspiration & Paradox 108: He Wants Our Yesterday

Just when you think that you have put the past behind you, something happens and all the old memories and feelings come piling on you again. Have you felt this way before?

The meaning of 1 John 4:18 “...perfect love casts out fear” was revelation to me. It is not our faith but our belief and trust in His love that will cast out our fear, fear of lack, fear of inadequacy, fear of failure, fear of tomorrow... It is the confidence in God's perfect love for me that will keep me there. Perfect love is love despite of. He loves me unconditionally, He loves me first... And if I decide to choose to believe that He loves me despite of what has happened and will happen to me, I can have no fear. Focussing and concentrating on God’s perfect love for me will drive out all fear.

And the greatest way to demonstrate that I trust in His perfect love is to give Him my yesterday, and thank Him for every failure, every setback, every pain in the past. Knowing that God has allowed my yesterday to make me what I am today gives me the peace and assurance that I can face tomorrow. God is a God of progress. He’s never standing still. Even when it seems that absolutely nothing is happening in my live or worse, life is taking many steps back, God is working behind the scene to fit me into His scheme of things.

Inspiration & Paradox 107: Time for Recollection

“Don’t tell him (my-father-in-law) that I am not working”, “why did you tell others that you are not working”, “there’s no need to tell others”, “keep these things to yourself”… my mother-in-law’s words repeated in my mind for many days.

For a while I really didn’t get what she meant. It was minutes before I could sense my crumbling pride and work through my own thoughts…

I was a bundle of nerves after I left my full-time job, but I was also very much looking forward to a new leash of life as a stay-at-home-mum. Whoa, new schedule, new objectives, new plans, new tasks and new routines. Honestly, I don’t mind a teeny bit rolling up my sleeves to dish out hot meals for my family, in fact I have a fetish for it. I know very well the importance of coaching my children, enjoy the new routines of morning exercise, cooking and baking, gardening, and putting in more hours on my website, and taking up part-time teaching in the university. But at the same time, I still miss that sense of “thrive and strive” when working in an organisation, especially when the days are so filled with “to-do-lists” and become rudderless with no sense of direction or focus. I seem to be shortening my sleeping hours, hatching more plans than ever, and having more anxiety to do more every day.

I began to understand why I was fazed by my mother-in-law’s words as I recalled my own feelings in my first month of staying at home…

I didn’t like buying groceries on a weekday morning in the cold stores with slow streams of maids and old folks coming in to browse and shop. I am not trying to make a mockery of these people; but being part of that picture made me feel like I am leading a mundane little life. Neither did I like to see mothers all dressed and powered up for work in the morning saying goodbye to their children as I sent Jackie to her childcare centre in my tee and shorts. It was like as if the whole world was reeling under rapid progress, while I just stagnated away in reclusion. And as if these were not enough to bruise my ego, the credit card telemarketer who was soliciting for new members had to drop my call the moment I told him that I was not working. I thought he was mean. Paging through the daily newspapers was also a dread when the economic slump news became massive. Headlines that read “The most important thing to do now is to keep your job…”, “More retrenchment expected…” “Families making ends meet” made the future gloomier by the day and put into me thoughts that I must be a nitwit to quit in such a time as this. I managed to shake off those negative feelings every time it came without trying to figure the reason for them. Some friends said I must be out of my mind to quit my job, while others applauded my boldness to step out of the corporate world. Then I actually felt quite proud of myself – hey, I was not mainstream! I had what it took to go against popular decisions! I realised there was a host of other meanings in those words that I didn’t associate with. And now I recall what the office canteen boss exclaimed when the news of my resignation reached his ears, “What a waste, you studied so much and now you’re going to stay at home to be a yellow-faced old hag, I just don’t understand you people!” and how the department secretary carped at me, “I tell you, the worst job is to be a housewife!” Names like “yellow-faced-wife” and “housewife” sounded terrible to me, but I didn’t care a fig what was hurled at me. To a certain degree, I even thought these people had quite a fair sense of humour.

Were my emotions then suppressed? I’m really not sure. Perhaps what my mother-in-law said just tipped over some large heaps of words that were piled over me before and caused me to quicken to my own inner senses.

Here I am, born and bred in a culture where everybody tells everybody that a good education is a passport to securing a good job, getting a good pay, and ultimately leading a good life. Period. No matter how much welfare you are able to contribute to your family, if you are not pursuing a good full-time job in a well-known organisation, you are not doing anything very esteemed. So when I turned against this social norm, I was actually secretly bothered by how I perceived myself – a small and insignificant nobody.

To say the least, my own self-discovery startled me. I know very well, it’s not my mother-in-law’s fault, or anybody else’s. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I sure can choose my own beliefs and not let any negative thought bug me. This time, I blame it on my own egotism that has turned the wrong side out.

I need to go recollect myself.

Inspiration & Paradox 106: Wrong Context or Wrong Crowd?

Following is one of those emails that flies around the offices on Friday afternoons. It's a thought-provoking one. The story wraps up with the suggestion that we humans are incapable of appreciating beauty and talent in an unexpected context.

Think about it again, is it "wrong context", or simply a case of "wrong crowd"? What's your take?

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A Violinist in the Metro

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

Inspiration & Paradox 105: Perfectly Imperfect Love

This morning I had a chat with Jackie’s child-care teacher…

Children are eager to please the people they love, and they do this by performing - behaving well and doing things right. And honestly, we adults often take advantage of that, don’t we. We show our anger and even say unkind words to our children when they misconduct. And often, they attach our emotions and reactions to how much we love them. Well, this happened to Jackie. In her most grown-up voice, she jested in the middle of our regular bedtime story-telling session last night, “When I don’t share my toys with my friends, teacher won’t love me.” Subsequently, a string of questions led me to discover that her childcare teacher has been teaching the kids to “win her love with good behaviour”.

So there I was at the child-care centre, trying pretty hard to put it across to the teacher in a nice way so that she wouldn’t feel embarrassed or offended, and frankly, most importantly, it wouldn’t cause a backfire on Jackie. I shared with her my concern about what Jackie had been picking up in the child-care, and my earnest request that the kids learned the correct reasons for good behaviour. I told that I would like Jackie to understand that our love for her was not a result of how good her behaviour was, and that her disobedience would not make us love her lesser even though we could be upset and appear to be very angry with her.

Awfully tough, isn’t. As much as we know the right things to do with our kids and want them to grow up feeling confident and secure, sometimes, we adults cannot even really grasp the concept of unconditional love ourselves very well, let alone a three-year old. Without a loving relationship, children don’t seem to have any reason to want to learn to behave in an acceptable. And it’s so hard for them to understand why when they do the wrong things, the love adults flaunt about is not expressed in the way they can understand (hugs and kisses).

God, help us flawed parents (and teachers) have a significant positive impact on our children’s lives with our imperfect love for them!

Inspiration & Paradox 104: Stars Do Not Twinkle

As with most young children, my 3-year-old loves the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.

But we know that stars do not twinkle. When we look at them through the telescopes, they appear as discrete, tiny points of light.

Stars only appear to twinkle. We are viewing them through the thick layers of the earth atmosphere. As we look at them, the light given off by them has to travel through the moving layers of the turbulent earth atmosphere to reach our eyes. When this happens, the light of the stars is bent or refracted in different directions, resulting in the twinkling effect that our eyes see.

Inspiration & Paradox 103: An Adult Trapped in a Child’s Body

Lately, I have been looking for my favourite cartoon again. Most of the people around me have not heard of it -- Mafalda, a character created by Argentine cartoonist Quino.

Why do I find this 5-year-old girl so remarkable? She makes me laugh.

Patriotic, deeply concerned about humanity, human rights, and world peace, Mafalda is super-quirky, always posing awkward questions to her parents and friends. I adore her pure innocence, child-like temperament, and marvel at her strong character and sharpness of a grown-up thinking all at the same time. “An adult trapped in a child’s body” is how I describe her. She doesn’t try to be funny or even thinks she is funny, she is just funny! While her thoughts do evoke some very serious thinking about the ills of society, how the messages are crafted and delivered and the humour that comes with them will make you rock. Also, her bunch of quirky little friends (businessman, rich mummy wannabe, dreamer, and rebel) is a big attraction to me as well!

If you like comics, I highly recommend Malfada to you. It's translated into only a few languages though, and English is not one of them.

Inspiration & Paradox 102: The Older We Get, The More Lost We Feel

This comic strip by Scotts Stantis was published in the papers in 1995. It says in the first picture "WHAT AM I GOING TO BE WHEN I GROW UP?", and in the second, "I'M GROWN UP AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING." Then in my early twenties, I thought what was depicted was funny but very real, so I made a cutting to keep it. Today, after more than 10 years, I saw it again while doing some housekeeping. The same sentiments somehow came back...

Inspiration & Paradox 101: Children Without Limits Feel Limited

Time and again, I have been told that we need to know how to discipline our children, especially when they are young. One revelation that really stands out to me is, “Our children expect us to punish them when they misbehave, and when we fail to do that, they tend to feel insecure and afraid.”

How very true this is! Yes, all children do fear disciplining parents and want to run away from the punishments meted out. Yes, they hope and even beg that they be spared of their wrongdoing; however, when we let them go scot free every time they err, overtime, they form an impression of us – weak, irresponsible, and unsure parents. And when they live under a perceivably weak authority that fails to teach and show them the boundaries and limits in life, they grow up lacking a sense of being protected, a sense of security.

Interesting, isn’t it. Lesson gleaned: Rules keep us safe.

Inspiration & Paradox 100: Circumstances Make or Reveal Us?

Look at this pot of Prickly Pear Cactus. It’s desperately reaching out for the sunlight in my balcony and the shape of its pad has also evolved into some strange-looking thin and long strip. I’ve been thinking lately…if I had left the pot in a different corner, would it grow the same way like now?

Do circumstances make us what we are or reveal who we are?

Inspiration & Paradox 99: Every Ending is a Start

The standard answer to the people who have asked me why I left my job was I have chosen to spend more time to raise my kids by taking up a part-time role instead. It’s a brief response, but a truthful one. Recording in black and white my feelings about important journeys in my life always helps me in a way come to terms with things. I figure it’s a sense of closure, a sense of completeness; a sense of urgency to start a new journey. It’s a way of therapy, getting in touch with myself. And this is what I will do now, dropping that “period” as the chapter ends.

Part of the truth also has to be that I have come to a cross road after 8 years in the same place and function, where I feel I want to make a different choice in life. I guess at some point in time, you just want to make a turn and find a fresh start somewhere because riding on the same old road gets scarier and scarier. It just gets too comfortable each year. I need to feel that I am progressing, not in monetary rewards, but in my knowledge and experience as a human. Staying where I am does not make me contented anymore. I think I had made my contribution, and want to be able contribute elsewhere. Well, it’s not true that the job was not demanding anymore, it was still, but I just know the boundaries of the job too well, what I could do and influence and what I could not. I think it’s very correct when people say “once the real passion and vision for the job is gone, it’s time to leave”. It’s hard to admit it, but I think that has happened to me.

Now I need to figure how to work on my new beginnings and am very curious how my life would come together again after this.

Inspiration & Paradox 98: The Cheap Bubble

Shopping has become an emotional experience for a lot of people.

Many of us get into a habit of scouting and sniffing out for sales and buying cheap clothing, shoes, bags, and etc. The thrill of shopping at discounted prices and getting more for the buck has gotten us into this addiction of buying and stocking up cheap deals we don’t need most of the time. On one hand, our shopping behaviour thrives on discovering good bargains, on the other, it seems that we never really consider if we are really benefiting in terms of saving money or spending even more on unnecessary stuff.

Inspiration & Paradox 97: Stop Looking For Trouble

The massive daily news on the gloom and doom of the economy is getting on my nerves. Reports of people cutting back on expenses, making ends meet, joblessness, failing businesses, deep pay cuts, restructuring and downsizing are all making wonder if I was too stupid to quit my job now, why didn’t I decide to just cling on to it for another one or two years and see how things move first….I hate these news, I don’t like the fact that they are making me feel wavered about something which I was very sure about, the future and my family financial security. What if Jason’s business gets hit by this economic crisis? Now stop it…cut out all the What Ifs, stop looking for trouble in the future, live in the present, think positively of new possibilities with my resignation, the work I am going to do, the time I would have after I leave my job in Jan next year...

Keep Your Spirits Up & Have a Blessed 2009!

"Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength."
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

"The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done."
Lichtenberg, Georg C.

"Worry gives a small thing a big shadow."
Proverb, Swedish

Inspiration & Paradox 96: Latest Beauty Buzz is to Get Eaten Alive by Fish

Yes, you know I’m talking about the peculiar skin treatment - Fish Spa.

When the legs are dipped into the pool, it's totally free of pain, but downright exhilarating, extremely ticklish. I had to slap my own face to keep my legs in the water as hundreds of these little fish rushed over to nibble and bite relentlessly, but the good news is, after a while you just got immune to the sensation, and then it became kind of therapeutic.

Garra Ruffa, also nicknamed doctor fish, is a small flesh-eating tropical fish now popularly used for treating skin diseases such as psoriasis blotches, flaky and crusty skin, and scabby epidermis. Once found in the lowly river basins of Turkey, they’re now a highly sought after fish in the fish spa markets of Korea, Japan, Malaysia, China and Singapore and are very expensive due to strict importation and exportation regulations. When placed in the spa, these Garra Ruffa fish feed themselves on the dead cells of the human body, leaving the healthy skin of the human body to grow. They not only remove dead skin cells, but also massage the skin and improve blood circulation. It's believed that when the skin is better supplied with oxygen, it becomes softer and smoother!

Inspiration & Paradox 95: When You Can't Gel Personality and Behaviour

Yesterday, while I was scurrying across the road with my two daughters in Orchard Road, making sure that we could beat the traffic light, I spotted a colleague in front of us. And as I was about to bid hello to him, he did something which I think I would remember for a long time…

You have to understand this, in the office, he is known to be an irate, brutish, heavy-handed, unrelenting guy whom most people don’t fancy working with in projects. Never, never did I expect him to do this… A granny was waving packets of tissue papers under the traffic light. When he saw her, he stopped dashing forward, turned around, and brisked up towards the old lady and hurriedly handed over a dollar coin, and when the three packets of tissue paper were dished out to him, he dismissed them with a quick signal of his hand. And before I could catch his attention, he had already scampered across the turning-red traffic lights and disappeared into the thronging crowd.

As people are writing to the papers to “remove” from the streets these people who simply are eking out a living in between the lives of others in the name of protecting the positive image of this affluent city, what this guy did, his compassionate gesture has certainly shocked me. Who would imagine such a roughshod personality to display such a tender-hearted act of kindness towards a total stranger?

Have we been judging too hard on people’s behavior and character? Don’t these hard-faces, people who consistently appear rude and unfriendly but can surprise you with a kind act deserve a million times of our respect than those double-faces who are consistently sweet and nice but can surprise you with a nasty stab from behind?

Inspiration & Paradox 94: Economy Down, Sales Up!

On 13 June 2008, Times Online published an article entitled "Rise in champagne sales is sign of recession" that began with this "Champagne sales have increased in Ireland which, according to an economic paradox, signals the country is heading for a recession."

Market researchers explained that with dwindling spending power during a recesion, consumers like to find small ways to cheer themselves up. When finances can’t stretch to big ticket-items like house renovation, cars and long holidays, they will always find money for less expensive treats such as sunglasses, nail varnish, lipstick or chocolate.

So, how true is this syndrome for you?

Inspiration & Paradox 93: When I am big, He is small

Truths learnt from Ed Welch's book:

• When people are big, God is small.
• Need other people less, love other people more.