Constant Evolution

My fren just posted a blog about his childhood bad memories and his depression happened two years ago. He has mentioned about his childhood before and I think it has haunted him till now.

So I decided to write this blog which is about changing our pattern.

When I was a kid, my brothers and I were taught many things by my mum:
1) We should have good manner in front of everyone.
2) We should be 'pai seh', not to ask favor from others and to keep low profile in public.
3) We should give way to others.
4) We should not expect too much.
5) We should help others.
6) We should never talk back to our parents, always obey.
etc...etc... etc... all about suppressing ourselves and giving way to others.

There we followed her teaching for years and my younger brothers and I are always very 'kuai' in the eyes of all the uncles and aunties. At the same time, we grew up becoming a bit shy in nature. When there were bullies, we gave way even though we felt angry inside. We didn't like to cause people trouble so we kept all the problems to ourselves and tried to solve them all.

After we went oversea, we faced difficulties dealing with people. Our 'ang mo' neighbour didn't like chinese, so he often walked over (even straight to our backyard) and started criticizing and telling us to do this and that. He asked us to chop off our trees as he didn't like the leaves. He asked us to move one of the small trees as he was worried that it will grow up becoming too big that the root will grow over to his house. We shared the same fence with him which were basically formed by small leavy plants that need to be trimmed very often. So he made us do it. Basically he voluntarily took up the boss and parents role, just because we never disobey or fight back.

In school, we treated people well but often ended up with disappointment, as they used our weakness for their benefit. My youngest brother was used and bullied by a Hong Kong guy at school till he felt angry and complained to me everyday I drove him back from school but he never fight that guy back but just tolerated it.

When I started working, I worked hard on my own job but part of my job required me to drive people which I was really weak at. Then during one of my yearly reviews, my mentor Ashok pointed it out to me that my work quality was excellent, everything exceeded his expectation, except one thing... i.e. I need to learn how to ask favor from others with skill, meaning I need to learn how to drive people.

From there, I started to study why I was so weak in driving and I found the root cause i.e. my up bringing. So I decided to change and here, I became this me that can bite a tiger... hohoho.

As for my brother who was one year younger than me, he was truly a successful example of constant evolution. He was a quiet and weak kid at school last time. However he noticed his weakness and he tried very hard to change. He was very fond of basketball but he was too skinny and short for the game. However he never gave up, he trained himself very hard everyday at home. Ended up he got in our uni's basketball team. I once went and watched him playing a match, even though his team mates and opponents were all big size 'ang mo', he managed to score well due to his agility. He moved faster than anyone and he was clever to have used his advantage.

Then he told me when he was doing his phd in Sydney, he took up rock climbing and joined the uni 'dragon boat' team which he was one of the smallest in the team. Again he worked hard to master the skill and in the end, he became the captain of the team and was well respected by all his team mates. He kept a little book that the team members gave him as his farewell gift, inside there were a lot of stories written by his team mates about him.

Till now, he is still constantly observing his weakness and working on improving. I was very amazed to see how much he has changed over years, but it was only for better and better.

What I would like to share here is that 'we are what we think'. Many people tend to be trapped in a living pattern and believe that their life is just going to be like this forever. Some tend to think outside the box and make changes from time to time, break the old pattern and create new one. I like to meet with people who never stop thinking and creating. They are inspiring to me. For me, I'm working on it too and I wish I could find my next break through soon.

One of my uni classmates once told me : "There are two types of girl in this world, one becomes like aunty after 30 yrs old, another becomes more and more beautiful". That serves as a constant reminder to me.

So to all my friends : "Never believe that you are just the way you are now and your life is just gonna be the same forever. You will be the same only if you choose to do nothing about it but it can definitely be different if you have a paradigm shift and put it in action, because you are what you think."