rawakramblings: self-reflection

When I attended a talk by Mufti Menk last 3 weeks on parenting, he pointed out something very true in our modern era of hi-tech.

With the smartphones, we spend so much time on these social medias (Facebook and Instagram and Twitter), just to keep ourselves occupied that it has become a habit.

Image from Google

Whether its 'going into the lift' or 'waiting for food to arrive at the restaurant' or even 'in the toilet'! It has become a habit to just click on the instagram logo and click refresh even if we just did that 5 minutes ago.

Menk puts our brain just like a computer - that it can only do so much in a day. He said that we've been spending too many space in the brain for unimportant things that we don't seem to have time for the important things like memorizing a surah from the Quran or to gain more knowledge to enable us to be better people - better Muslims. At the end of each day, we're just too tired to even reflect on our day. The excuse seem to be the same all the time - I don't have enough time.

I was ashamed because I was one of those. It was time to set on some rules. He also reminded that if we want to see results in our child, we need to start with ourselves first. Since Aisya is still small, its best to just start right away. So we've decided that our new rule now is to not have phones on the table during meals. And not to play with our phones at traffic lights in the car. Me and and Mr can just go on and on talking and sharing ideas and perspective on things - on how to raise our child and our family - on Joe Flizzow and Vivy Yusof. Quality conversations.

However, that only lasted for 2 weeks and we're somehow back to our old habits back. Old habits do die hard! I'm not sure what's the power of these smartphones that just attracts you to just hold onto it and feel restless without it. I know for sure on of the reasons is because we're running an online store, so orders and enquiries come in various ways; facebook, instagram, whatsapp, emails. But we can limit a time to when we should check on them right? We should set a time!

I'm a little bit disappointed but I'm gonna take this as a reminder and a challenge that I can do this.

Lets.

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Just this morning, I attended a meeting with the project team to discuss on the mobilization plan for the vessel and barges. Throughout the meeting, attendees threw out comments like “We’re not sure if this other vessel will arrive on time,” or “What if the weather goes bad and we cannot depart on schedule?” and then we were discussing on what ifs and what ifs and what ifs. Then out of nowhere, an American member of the project team, voiced out clearly and loudly:

“Everybody in this room DOUBTS, but no one is daring enough to make a DECISION. No one wants to hold the responsibility to do so. Make a decision, commit and we tackle the problems as they come. We need to change the way we think here. We need to change our mindset and stop this mentality,”

And then everyone just kept quiet and nodded, agreeing to what he just said.

All you need is just an outsider, a different race, a different nationality, to come up with a different opinion on the whole situation.

The mat-sallehs aren’t the best in everything, but when it comes to their ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking and their attitude, their values, I give them thumbs up. It was some of the things that I learnt during my 4 years studying in Sydney.

But what happened? I’ve learnt a lot from them. Have I not applied them in my everyday life? Or have I been too absorbed with culture of the majorities here? It has only been two years since I came back.

That particular incident had me thinking.

If I were to work in an international company, there will be a variety of people right? It will be good to learn from them and to absorb their culture, especially at the start of our career years. Imagine what I can learn from a Japanese! You know what they say. Your surroundings shape you!

It also makes me sad that Malaysians have quite a long way to go when it comes to the right mentality, the right attitude in life.

But we really can’t be depending so much on the surroundings right? This is home after all. Malaysia. What I can do instead, is to reflect, on myself, on the surroundings, and BE that different outstanding person that sees things in a different manner.

Why expect a change in the society when you cannot even change yourself?

“If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and make that CHANGE,” Man in the Mirror by Micheal Jackson

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This morning, I was walking from the car to my office "lalalalala" and then I received a phone call which triggered my anger. I kept it cool and proceeded on towards my office and then received another phone call which again, pushed my limits and then the series of phone calls and arguments started.

Sometimes when others test your limits, its very hard to keep it cool and get back on the right track.

Somehow along the way, my head told my ridiculous emotions to "take it easy" and so I remembered some of the tricks I learnt from this motivational training course I attended last 2 weeks.

1. Firstly. Breathe in. Breathe out.Then only can you start thinking.

2. Bring yourself out of your body and be this third person, looking at yourself and the other party arguing. You'll realize how stupid the whole thing is.

2. Now question yourself, what is it that you want out of this argument? You for sure don't want it to go on and on and on, with both parties just saying the nastiest words which will only bring bad impact to each other.

3. Question yourself, why is this happening? Is it a misunderstanding? Always remember that arguments most of the time are due to two parties not seeing things on the same page. We just have to try to look at it from their side and try our best to understand, what is it that is causing this other person to be angry too. Rewind back to the moments on how this started in the first place.

4. Stop blaming the other party and start taking the blame yourself.

5. Think of how you can move on. Stop putting more oil to the fire. Be the water. Say sorry, tone it down, and try solving it realistically instead of emotionally.

6. Remember that not all issues can be resolved right that moment. So cool it down, and talk about it another time, when both are at a better mood. Don't try running away from it, because the issue will alwayus come back.

Of course I didn't manage to handle it all that well but I managed it better this time around as compared to previous times.I also did say some nasty things in which, I regret. We always do that right? Regret for saying the wrong things when we're angry. But I hope this is a good self-reminder. I hope I can handle these arguments better the next time around.

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