"Too much comfort leads to heedlessness"

 

"Too much comfort leads to heedlessness"- heard this statement in a podcast. It is an interesting and mind provoking statement. 

Heedlessness in my mind is being unaware or oblivious. Living heedlessly to me is like living with little awareness of the state one is in externally and internally. 

When I search the web I came across many topics about comfort leading to complacency. The most striking being Derek Doepker's : "Comfort leads to complacency. Complacency is the cause of stagnation. Stagnation in your life leads to bed sores on your soul,"

A person who has a smooth sailing life has little opportunities to overcome difficulties and may not be as resilient as one who grows up in more challenging circumstances. They may also be less appreciative of the world around them. For example a child whose parents cannot afford to own a house and is forced to live with relatives will truly appreciate a home no matter how small and basic once the family manages to own one. Compare it with another child who takes for granted having his own room and sees no cause to be glad for it.

We often chase comfort and pleasantness and push away negative experiences. However if we accept and live with the negative emotions that arise from challenging circumstances, we grow stronger and feel more confident. In fact we may even want to seek out the next challenge to spurt our growth. For instance when tasked to do something really stressful , for example when engaging a very difficult client, a  retiree therapist like me would feel "Oh No why am I doing this?" in between brainstorming how best to handle the case. However the satisfaction from a fruitful session is rewarding and can inspire one to do more.

Similarly a person who engages in addictive pursuits to suppress the unpleasant voidness or emptiness they feel inside will just be kicking the can down the road. Being aware of the emotion and accepting it as part and parcel of being human is a form of catharsis leading to initiatives to manage it better.

Looks like embracing discomfort is part and parcel of growing and living a richer life.

Never too late to know your passion

 

Today's ST published an article entitled : 'Follow your passion' advice can backfire on the young 

The writer quoted Stanford professor Bill Burnett who thinks it is a destructive idea to ask young people to follow their passions as it causes a lot of anxiety in them. It pressurizes young people to have it all figured out by the time they are in their mid 20s.

"It's a misconception that passions are fixed, predetermined, and uncovered in a fully formed state...It is developed. It requires experimentations, exploration, and investment of time and effort," said the professor.

I think about my own trajectory. As a young girl may ambition was to be a nurse after reading about Florence Nightingale. My mother thought it befitting as I had displayed quite caring traits and was tasked with looking after my younger brother. 

However that inclination tapered off when I acquired the baby boomer ambition to enter university and secure a high salary job. Nursing was not a well respected job too and was not offered in university then. So I studied accountancy and landed a boring job as an accountant in a semi government organisation. However I managed to maneuver my way to assume the position of heading the Treasury department which I thought was more exciting dealing with money, foreign exchange and financing. Indeed it was not a bad career, one which I kind of enjoyed and held onto until my mid fifties. Then I guess I entered mid life crisis. Difficult bosses and tiresome bureaucracy at work exacerbated the urge to find more meaning than managing money for others. 

I didn't actually have to grope around to discover my passion. Instinctively I knew getting a degree in counselling was the next step forward. I can't even call it a passion it was just the natural thing to do. So I landed up being a school counsellor before being a sandplay therapist and leader running workshop for children of divorced parents, a care service vocation not far from the nursing job I aimed for when I was a child.

Well I guess I only figured it out when I reached my fifties.

Seeds for Understanding

 

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to learn and understand some concept it just eludes you.

Years ago I attended a Buddhist class on "The Dharma of Mind Transmission" taught by a monk in Chinese. I have no formal education in Chinese but understand spoken Mandarin and simple Chinese characters. The course notes include the sutra in Chinese with explanation written in layman Chinese by the teacher , below each paragraph in the sutra. Though I got the broad ideas it was quite a struggle. To help me I downloaded the English version of the sutra. Every week before the lesson I would check the Chinese dictionary and read the English version so I could follow when the teacher read from the course notes. It did help but it was a struggle. Still my takeaway from the course was I had to try my best to understand this sutra as I believe it would help me a lot in my life journey. Years past and the course notes gathered dust.

A few months back I picked it up again. I remembered I told myself this Sutra will help me live my life skillfully. At the same time I wanted to learn Chinese to stave away from dementia. So I decided to plough through paragraph by paragraph checking the dictionary and reading the English version at the same time. However there are certain texts which no matter how hard I try to understand (sometimes turning to internet for other interpretations) I just have to give up and move on. 

"故但契本心，不用求法；心即法也", This paraphrase is an example.

The English version is " However if one can attain silent and unspoken understanding, one knows that because the mind is Dharma it is, therefore, not necessary to seek Dharma."

I know what the text is saying but not what it truly means.

Then last Sunday while I drifted into a "flow" mode while doing Taiichi, in a momentary connection with the surroundings I caught a glimpse of what the text means. 

默契 - silent and unspoken understanding

Learning is a process, laying seeds for understanding when the conditions are right. Determination is good but struggle is uncalled for. Move on for the time being when it seems dark and await a glimpse of light.

Probing into the Control Freak

 

When you start getting feedback, be it subtle, direct or critical, about your behaviour from several people it is time to do a self assessment. So I have been dismissing remarks about me being a control freak from husband and son as I thought my so called controlling behaviour is directed at either their unhealthy or unkempt habits and hence is for their own good. However when I start getting comments from sister and daughter as well, it is time to do some self awareness exercise.

I have always believed that this habit is carried forward from my previous job heading a Treasury department with quite a handful of staff, as well as tight and rigid procedural adherence expected of the team when embarking on overseas asset purchases. We had to make sure all grounds were covered. 

However as I think a bit deeper there may be more to it. I am prone to being very anxious and quite worrisome by nature. In every uncertain situation I research the worst outcome. I think by being mentally prepared for the worst I can have some control. However this can go overboard and lead to excessive worries which ironically feels safer. 

Now when a person becomes aware of one's weakness there is a tendency to blame it on childhood experiences etc. Somehow finding a cause can sort of make one feels less guilty. So no surprises, I ascribed my acquired traits from fears of my parents fighting (literally) which were frequent but unpredictable. Apparently such childhood trauma could result in a person being hyper vigilant and using control as a coping mechanism.

Strangely enough while doing all these self assessment it dawns on me that there are so much things beyond my control. So why not let go of things I can't do much about and also stop believing "I" have the responsibility to interfere. 

Just the thought of this makes me feel lighter.

Got to do the best we can

 

I have never recalled being so uncomfortable for so long a period in such unbearable heat. Asia is suffering from an intense heat wave and the forecast of El Nino in the coming months offer no relief. In fact we are expecting worse, dry season and haze from forest fire. 

An article in the Times titled "Where we'll end up living as the planet burns" quotes a research:

'....depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 years. ....In the absence of migration, one third of the global population is projected to experience mean average temperature (that are currently found mostly) in the Sahara.'

A tropical island like Singapore will be included in the list of uninhabitable place on earth.

So I was aware of the severity of climate change but just nonchalantly did what I can to minimise my carbon footprint sans travel. I wasn't too worried because things won't go so drastically wrong during my lifetime or even that of my adult kids. On unbearably hot days the sight of little kids running around made me think (in an unaffected way) these 'poor' children will have to find ways to adapt to climate change. In fact I was more affected when I discovered my plants in the garden being scorched. I felt more for the farmers whose crops were wiped out.

However now that I am a newly minted grandmother, news and reports about climate change draw grave concerns many times over. It now hits me hard that my grandchild's future is jeopardized and she will face loads of challenges including weather related calamities, food shortages, migration and even war over livable land. I feel angry and sad. Angry that we have been so uncaring about our planet, sad that our grandchildren will never have it better, as each generation in the past assumes the next should be.

What explains the change in attitude? Was it selfishness in the past? Is the biological instinct to protect one's offspring kicking in now? Whatever you call it is now a pressing anxious feeling every time I come across a doomsday climate change report.

"We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it."- Barack Obama

Eyes that talk

 

In an article in the ST on 7 May 2023, a journalist describes her experience attending a a class in clowning. Participants were taught how to use their bodies to play, connect and make one another laugh.

One tip shared by her teacher interests me. To try to make the group laugh she told the class to look at one person in the audience 'as though you are in love with him, and wink'. 'Eye contact is key to good clowning'.

This idea made me recall a workshop which I conducted recently for children aged 11 to 14 whose parents divorced. This was my first time running the workshop for an older age group. I have all along been conducting workshop (for children caught in between parents' conflict ) for the younger group between 6 to 10 years. Whilst the younger group workshop requires more activities to catch and retain their attention, the structure of the older group workshop is more content heavy.

2 boys aged 13 and 14 seemed to convey to me their feelings and their thoughts when they looked at me in the eyes. They were not very vocal which is common among boys not wanting to share their experiences in front of others, but when I spoke of the normal feelings and misbeliefs children from divorce families have, the way they looked deep into my eyes told me they could relate to what had been said. Such response also drew me closer to them like breaking a barrier which helped me connect like a friend or mentor. I was touched by the intense look I got from them when I spoke of strategies to help them cope.

The article went on to quote a clown doctor (therapist) who said "if there is no eye contact, there is a decreased likelihood of interaction........There must be a breath, a moment of recognition.....You see me, and I see you. We are now sharing this moment'.

As the saying goes, 'Where words are restrained the eyes often talk a great deal'- Samuel Richardson

Zen garden or miniature jungle

 

I love visiting temples in Japan with zen gardens. Using just rocks, gravels or moss they exude calmness and peace conducive for meditation.

When we bought our house more than 2 decades ago the first thing my husband and I readily agreed on was to plant a tree in the small front garden. Over the years the mango tree has spread its roots making it difficult to grow grass underneath. I had dreamt of a garden with just a tree and a green lawn like the minimalist Japanese zen gardens. Instead the garden now looks like a miniature jungle. 

We laid plastic sheets on some parts of the ground and poured soil on top to create small flower beds. We grew ferns and bamboo grass in them. To adorn the rest of the garden we use potted plants. A few pots has grown into a huge collection. Yes the garden is really like a mini jungle.

It is my daily habit to place my palms on the trunk of the mango tree for a couple of minutes every morning to absorb its positive energy (as advised by a new age teacher). During this time I would be observing the bark of the tree, the plants in the garden as well as the birds and insects all around. Watching the ants crawling in a line on a branch, watching the birds taking nectar from the flowers and noticing hosts of other tiny insects always makes me wonder how many gazillions of living creatures there are in our world. Spending time attending to each plant in the garden has also brought me lots of joy like the delight of sighting the first bud or feeling the softness of the lush fern leaves.

I would now think twice of replacing my miniature jungle and its myriad of uniqueness, with a zen garden of a solitary tree and lawn. I guess the former helps one to feel part of a larger whole while the later provides the quietness to look within oneself. Both are necessary. If only I have a home that accommodates both the jungle and the zen garden.