psychology Archives

Reframing our relationship with earth

This ad campaign by Activista, mainly targeting Space X on Earth day – I believe that was in 2021 – is brilliant. It helps to put things into perspective in terms of how we approach our resources and earth.

The message still rings true today and in many ways, it is saying something about the human heart. Our wandering heart often wants to look for something else to sustain ourselves. Something else that may not be designed to sustain us, but we want to make it what our lives depend upon.

Yes, as a Christian, I’m talking about Christ, who provides the salvation we need when we are wandering about seeking salvation through our work, relationships and other forms of addiction in our lives.

March to mediocrity

The challenge of industrialising some kind of process, expecting things to move in a “business as usual” fashion is that it tends to decline towards mediocrity. There would be people expecting to just pick up how to do things once and then coast to keep things as status quo.

Yet the issue is less to do with this group than the leadership. Leaders who try to tighten things ad hoc rather than develop a culture of continuous improvement will discourage staff from improving themselves but instead see improvement as being able to guess what the boss wants. Yet if we are unable to see the mission of the organisation, only the boss, then the march stops when the boss is gone.

And the march towards mediocrity starts when leadership becomes weak and is formed from previous generations of followers who never learnt how to drive the mission independently.

Humanity in courts

This might be the first time tears have welled in my eyes as I read a news article. I was moved, perhaps, by the judge’s humanity. There was so much latent grief embedded in the case itself: the unreconciled relationship, unexpressed emotions, pent-up difficulties, and struggles that weren’t understood.

How different would the world be if we brought more of our humanity to our work, our relationships and our lives?

Pie-eating contests

Charlie Munger once said of the legal profession that it was very much like a pie-eating contest where the winner gets to eat more pie.

I laughed at that.

Because many other professions are the same. The capable staff gets more work to do; and having proven himself, gets promoted into handling more responsibilities.

But for most part, workaholics love their pie.

And to a large extent, for some, they don’t care about winning or losing at pie-eating. What matters to them is they get to eat pie.

Maybe that appreciation for work is what we need. Not to obsess so much over the winning or losing but instead, focus on the pie. And when the pie is no longer tasty, you quit. Because there wasn’t so much at stake to begin with.

Touting on streets

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but these days, when I’m walking in public spaces, I get really tense and stressed when people approach me to try and get me to do something. Something inside me feels like they are stealing my attention and time without my permission. Yet, at the same time, I do want to be kind and empathise with the person working hard on the street.

Forgiveness and repentance

Someone asked whether God forgives every single sin conceivable or possible. Most likely, the person asking the question thinks of ‘sin’ as some immoral, atrocious deed. As Christians, we see sin as inherently a rebellion against God and His order.

So, I’d answer that God, indeed, can forgive every single sin. And He has shown that by sending Christ to die on the cross. He made Christ pay the price for every sin.

The follow-on question, of course, is, “So why isn’t everyone saved?”

That is because I’d continue, “Every sin is forgiven, but not every sinner is repentant.”

The modern narrative about wrong-doing and forgiveness is such that forgiveness is an antidote against resentment, as if the forgiveness is for the victim or recipient of the wrongdoing, rather than the wrongdoer. And then that’s it; we say nothing about the wrong-doer or the part he/she has. Apologies? Making a restitution? What if that is beyond the person? The very least is repentance. Repentance is an appreciation of what sin constitutes, acknowledgement of culpability, and recognising the forgiveness for what it is, and subsequently being liberated from the guilt.

Story of guilt

I was listening to this episode of John Dickson’s Undeceptions Podcast, in which he and his guests discuss Guilt. With sin being a vital part of the Christian faith, it is unsurprising that a Christian podcast will explore this topic of guilt. What is surprising to me is that the culture of victimhood that we find ourselves in today is so intertwined with the sense of guilt that is ever-present in our lives. I say it as though it’s a statement of truth, but don’t take my word here for it.

Playing the victim has become so much more acceptable, so it has become a way to avoid culpability. If you’re the victim, it’s hard to be in the wrong; in fact, you’ve probably been wronged by some perpetrator – whether it is the system or some rules and process that didn’t have you in mind or just someone else! Moreover, we are now more conscious of the ‘victim-blaming’ behaviours, so it is all the more advantageous to identify oneself with and as the victim.

Yet in trying to stave off our guilt about the conditions of life that we might have to go through, the sense that we did not live the best life we could have, we might also take away our agency. When you cast yourself as the victim, you’re just someone subject to others and everything else.

What if we don’t have to be the victim to be non-guilty?

Stress from uncertainty

There is a fair bit of stress that is associated with uncertainty and we know it. Yet modernity gives us a lot of tools to prepare, and make certain bits of the future which only makes us crave for more control and perhaps heighten our expectations that the uncertainty can be eliminated.

So part of our stress now comes from the expectation of certainty. We no longer how to enjoy flexibility, and embrace the dynamism that exists in uncertainty. And then when everything is under control, we find ourselves bored, craving for some kind of variation and so on.

As the aspects of work that has complete certainty slowly gets outsourced to computers, robots and perhaps even artificial intelligence, we are going to be getting the harder bits of work. The ones that require us to actually embrace uncertainty; the type that involves no one knowing the answer. We need to regain our ability to think and solve problems bit by bit as opposed to treating everything as though there has to be a right answer and we have to get it right.

Grasping mistakes

We are embarrassed about our mistakes. We need to get over them, and often, we do so by avoiding them. Please don’t talk about it or revisit the experience. That can be psychologically comforting. But are we doing justice to the cost that we bear for the mistakes?

I’ve written quite a fair bit in the past about the social or culture attitude towards mistakes, and I think a lot of the ideas are still worth exploring:

All of this is so that we can build and develop wisdom, where we know how to work within and navigate a dynamic environment. The problem with theoretical approaches and specific methodologies to achieving outcomes is that they assume that there is an ordered, stable environment within which we conduct our activities. Sometimes, that is just not exactly the case.

Feature or bug

The only time you have to say something is a feature, not a bug, is when it appears to be a flaw. The notion behind this idea is that there was an intention. That aspect of a software, or product design, or service experience was not supposed to be a flaw but an intentional part of the design. It assumes there was an intention, some objective being served.

The reason people might think it was a bug could be because:

They had different objectives from that of the way the product designer had imagined the objectives of their users to be
They were not the target audience of the product/service
They were forcefully making a product fit their needs
They did not know how to use the product – which could reflect badly on the UI design or the UI of whatever instructions needed
The product had a poor product-market fit
The product designers were giving excuses for themselves

There isn’t supposed to be a debate whether something is a feature or a bug. It should always be resolved by the one who had designed the product/service. If it was a result of something being overlooked, it is a bug, and pointing out that it could be a feature is just an excuse.