Friday, May 23, 2008

Love Politics - Are You In Power?

Have you been reading the news lately? Besides the two major disasters that struck China and Myanmar, I read about the constant changes and more changes to the political climates of many countries.

One upheaval that I like to mention here happened very close to home. That’s right, if you placed your bet on Malaysia, you just struck bingo!

Looking at the way they are playing politics in, well none other than the political field, is indeed interesting and refreshing. Dr Mahathir, the veteran in this game is competing against other old hands in a very different and modern era now as compared to his good old days when he was in power.

Still, whether his antics work or not, and whether they work to his advantage or not, is yet to be seen. What’s for sure is he is still in the game.

It’s the same for love and relationships. There are people who like to play politics even at home to gain favour of whoever holds the ultimate powers. Power play begins, sometimes subtlely, other times blatantly. We can see this very often in dramas, don’t we?

And it’s true in reality too. Even within a couple there could exist a struggle to have power over the other person. Without being part of them, we can never tell who holds the reins and who rubs the back. What we can do is basically analyse using whatever tell tale signs as clues to gauge how the power is being divided among the pair.

Angelina Jolie looks every bit an Alpha female, in my opinion. She is beautiful, confident and smart. I was under the impression then that Brad Pitt is probably the one rubbing her back while she holds the reins. But of course, it wouldn’t be a complete fall towards one side, in this case, the female, but the power scale would probably skew more in her favour.

I guess some other people in this world do share my view and this was probably what prompted a reporter to ask if she is the “controlling type” in a relationship during a recent interview in the press conference for the movie Kung Fu Panda (I’m going to watch this!) in which she played the role Master Tigress. We all know this reporter is referring to which relationship don’t we?

This was her answer: “I think I have a very even partner right now. We’re balanced with our power sharing.”

Nice. Short, sweet and precise. I think we may just have an equally powerful partner that adds up to a more powerful couple in Hollywood!

Love politics can be a fatal game to play, if not handled well. It could have such a demeaning effect on one party that when the relationship ended, this person might bring with him or her negative feelings about him or herself and internalise them. Put it simply, they may eventually turn into this victim and lost their self-confidence and self-esteem.

How sad when that happens, isn’t it? But it’s true that such things happen, and more often than not, people don’t know it is taking place in their relationship! What’s worse is the victims don’t know it’s happening to them!

Maybe it’s wrong for me to use the word victim. I should say the less-empowered party. I talked about the specifics of power sharing in a relationship in my book under Secret #40: Power Play – Are You In A Tug-Of-War as I find this aspect too important, and yet too often neglected till things turned awry, in a relationship.

Love is a wonderful thing. And in order for a relationship to last successfully, it really is not about who has the final say, but rather on knowing how to love and respect each other. Taking time and effort to sit down and discuss before deciding on an issue doesn’t mean you don’t have the power to decide things. It only means this person has a significant weight in your heart and in your life, and that is why his or her opinion counts.

In successful relationships and marriages, that action counts a lot.

Are you involved in a love politics situation?

Friday, May 16, 2008

A Tale Of Two Cities

I have to make a comparison; otherwise this trip would have missed some of its meaning.

You probably knew I was in Jakarta over the last weekend. (Please read my previous post if you haven’t)

I arrived a day earlier before the program starts with Stuart, as he wanted to make sure that everything would be well prepared and ready when the clock strikes 1400 hours on the actual day.

My first impression of this big city was everything and everyone was slow. Slow in relation to the speed at which we get things done in our lion city.

The time taken for checking in was almost double that in Singapore. The fact that not all of them spoke good English meant that it took an even longer time to complete the process.

But this shortfall was compensated with smiles, and good manners.

After taking a short rest in our room, Stuart and I headed down to the café for some food to appease our growling stomachs. There was only one other table that was occupied with two patrons, with about 3-4 waiters roaming around.

After placing our orders, we had to wait for about 15 minutes before our first food was served. Then we decided to order one more snack – calamari. Hence another 10 minutes passed before the waiter brought us our dish, only to be rejected by us because he had taken the wrong order. We had to wait a further 10 minutes more for the right snack to appear again.

I wondered at the efficiency of the staff there as we ended up spending slightly more than an hour, and most of the time spent waiting.

Again, this inefficiency was made up with smiles, and good manners.

Now, can we fault this city? We can’t, can we? Because these people are so nice, warm and friendly. Even when they don’t understand you, they are there with their beams. The reason they were not as efficient is probably due to the culture, or maybe even the systems and the governance.

Speaking about governance, I have to mention the traffic. I was told how lucky I was to have to brave the jam for an hour, when I was feeling the agitation of having stuck in a vehicle and watching the world go by, in snail pace. The usual jam would be about 2 or even 3 hours.

The other coaches who were to arrive on the actual day of the program weren’t so fortunate. Due to a dam burst, the roads were flooded, and they had to take an alternate route from the airport to the hotel, which were equally if not experiencing a worse jam. In short, they took 5 hours to reach the hotel. Can you imagine? If you were in the vehicle for 5 hours, how would you feel?

I guess a high level of patience and excellent emotional handling is a requisite before anyone can head off onto the roads in Jakarta, the capital and largest city in Indonesia and home to an estimated 13 million population.

In retrospect, I must admit we have been pampered. We live in extremely clean conditions, drive with good traffic manners relatively speaking, and having so many choices on our hands that we tend to not make the right ones, given such favourable circumstances we are in.

The Indonesians, on the other hand, have to take matters into their own hands. I’ve seen some unparalleled creativity in beating the traffic. I’ve also witnessed the ingenuity in “job creations”. I was amazed and certainly impressed. We wouldn’t have thought of such measures, because we didn’t have to.

How are we appreciating our lives then?

Are you complaining about the toughness you have to endure in the army life? Are you whining or feeling unfair that you have to spend 3 years serving the nation, and doing some seemingly unimportant tasks that you had done?

How will you appreciate your life if you weren’t living in Singapore now?

I know I have been fortunate to meet all the nice people there. I am thankful. For I also know there are millions of Indonesians who might not be able to smile so widely due to the poverty cycle they were caught in. And frankly, I’m only speculating. Maybe they are still as warm, and still smiling. I don’t know, because I haven’t met or interact with them.

But I know, we are lucky to have a superior and responsible government taking care of us. Therefore, if we don’t make the best of our lives, it would be such a waste, wouldn’t you agree?

An Empowering Weekend

I just came back from a refreshing weekend. No, I should say that weekend left me refreshed, recharged and rejuvenated.

It was a 4-day fanfare of empowering messages, personal breakthroughs and mastery for a group of close to 80 people. They were the participants of the first Patterns of Excellence (POE) in Jakarta, the coaches which I was one of them and the trainers, which my hubby was one of them, together with his partner Adam Khoo.

In case you aren’t aware of what POE is, it is a personal development program created and done by Adam Khoo Learning Technologise Group, founded by my hubby Stuart Tan, Adam Khoo and one more partner. POE allows people to identify the patterns in their lives that aren’t working well for them, getting rid of bad habits and installing new ones, challenging them in their beliefs and many more so that they can achieve many breakthroughs and ultimately, successes in their lives in whatever they do, including relationships.

I took a break from coaching POE for the whole of last year, and I was getting very excited to be part of the first batch in Jakarta, because I knew it was going to be an experience that I would appreciate very much. I was right.

As much as the lessons were for the participants to learn, they were also for me. Those messages seemed to hit me once more, and I found myself looking back at the days after I graduated from this program till now. I thought about my achievements, and lack of, and more importantly, my attitude towards life and challenges.

Have I improved, or have I stagnated after that initial burst of fire? Even more crucial to ask myself is – have I deteriorated?

It was a very easy question to ask, yet a hard one to answer with the utmost truth and honesty. I need a lot of courage to face my shortcomings as much as I need the humility to embrace my accomplishments.

See how much self-reflection I made and have to make from this trip.

Now, do you do self-reflection regularly? Or are you still totally oblivious to this need?

I realised the many advantages of reflecting upon ourselves such as identifying my weaknesses and soft spots and finding out how to strengthen them. But this exercise isn’t about having to do something about myself. At times, I allow a particular weakness to remain as it is, as I don’t see any special reasons or benefits to gain from changing it.

Any change, if there is to be one, has to be an ecological one. That is to say, it has to have a positive effect not only on myself, but also to people whom I interact with and situations that would involve me. When such parameters are met, then I can find out my why. When I have the “why”, I’ll be driven to discover the “how”, and the “when” will be now. 

Some of you as you are reading this may be slightly sceptical of motivational programs, because as the name implies, they are there to merely serve the purpose of motivating ourselves, only for a short while. Many people fall back to their old ways very soon, while a percentage learnt their lessons very well and took to their new paths diligently, and almost always successfully.

So, what makes one person become a totally changed man, and continue to progress while another only got to enjoy that short burst of enthusiasm?

Can you think of an answer? Maybe it’s time to do a self-reflection on how you have been living your life. 

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

I’m Having An Affair With Sudoku

I have a collection. This hobbit started very strangely and totally unexpected. I knew how the puzzle swept the world by its feet several years ago and created such an enormous craze that a certain airline had to ban their crew from playing it on flight.

I never knew why they could be so then, till I fell in love with the 9 squares now. Madly in love.

Let me share how I caught onto this frenzy after so many years had past. A friend bought the Easy Sudoku Puzzle book and started playing, much to my indifference. Till she taught my mom how to tackle the puzzle, I still remained nonchalant about it.

Only when I had nothing to do on a particular day, and I picked it up, and I began to play with some errors, and my mom corrected me, and I realised then what the rule was and how the game was to be played, then that was it.

I soon breezed through the easy ones and began to search for more challenging ones. Hence, my keen anticipation for the Weekend TODAY and The Sunday Times where they will post a puzzle weekly with the most difficult rating of 5 began.

The satisfaction of completing the hard ones is a good one, and certainly addictive. My sister caught onto this little fever too, albeit briefly. But it was enough for her to buy two puzzle books back, one of which is for the grandmasters. In fact, both books have a much higher difficulty rating than the ones found in the daily TODAY even when both puzzles have a rating of say, 2.

Amidst the head-wrenching and agony of being stuck for very long at a really knotty puzzle, I learnt some precious lessons too.

Strategy and tips aside, I found that one needs a certain level of perseverance to complete one puzzle. Giving up half way is a very tempting thing to do, considering that you could be staring at it for more than 30 minutes with no advancement at all. It is then when I find feelings of frustration secretly creeping in, which I have to handle it well in order to continue playing. So you see, the ability to manage emotions well play a critical role here too.

Another lesson learnt is the fact that I can be so blinded at times. A clue can be staring at me glaringly, only for me to skip by and never notice it until another day when I re-pick it up to continue the unfinished business. Why so? I have questioned myself each time such incidents happen, and I found one plausible explanation.

I have been in it for so long that my frame of mind began to be fixed. Therefore, even though I have analysed that particular clue, I still am blind it. Hence I need to get out of it and come back after a short break. It’s like being caught in a heated exchange with someone. Give each other a break from the pressured environment, get some fresh air, cool down and return to the conversation. This not only helps to resolve conflicts faster, it also eases the pressure on the relationship.

I find that many times when I get so stuck, I will begin to doubt my ability to complete it. This will be the time when self-doubt kicks in, and I have to use many other examples of me finishing an equally tough puzzle to overturn the doubt. “If I can complete that one, I can do this too!” is the positive self-talk I will engage in. Confidence is restored and I continue playing with a renewed zest.

When was the last time when you feel very defeated by a task on hand? Do you let this sour feeling pull you down or do you deal with it instantly and perk up as soon as you can?

As with all the challenges in life, I guess the “Never say die” attitude is imperative in Sudoku. Now that I’ve finished one grandmaster puzzle, I’d love to liken myself as truly a Sudoku Grandmaster. The only barrier that is in the way to me claiming the prestigious title is that last puzzle – which, seemed to be even more challenging than the one I’ve completed as it has taken me much more time and it is still a work-in-progress.

Then again, every new puzzle poses a fresh challenge. I wonder when will I get tired of Sudoku? I guess as long as there presents a chance to test myself I will be up for it. 

Friday, May 02, 2008

Even Harry Potter Flops!

You might have heard of this news already. And yes, it is considered news indeed when it takes a newspaper like The Daily Telegraph to launch a man hunt, or rather, woman hunt for an 18-year old boy who boasts a US$50 million fortune to his name. 

The star of Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe had a brush with love at first sight. Only a brush, because he let her slip away without getting her number. Fortunately, he found her, thanks to such a “massive woman hunt” operation by the papers.

Now he can attach a name to the face that has lingered in his mind. But there is an obstacle – she is attached. Will he go after her full force in spite of this, or will he just let nature takes its course and be happy with having her in his friends list for as long as it takes?

I’m sure there will be a sequel to that news. We shall wait and see. But Radcliffe is very brave I must commend, to acknowledge his “slip up” in the national newspaper and to broadcast his intention to search for this girl.

Have you experienced such an episode in your life before? That you caught the eye of this girl across a room, be it a party or right smack in a busy café, or maybe in the silence of a library, and didn’t have enough time or courage to walk over and befriend her.

Guess what? You may not have Radcliffe’s fortune, pun intended, to engage a national paper to help you locate the girl of your dreams. Therefore, you need to act on the spot, or else you will miss the boat, probably forever.

I know a friend who returned to the same place to wait for the girl’s reappearance. His patience paid off, luckily. And he made good of the second chance.

In another instance, there is this story about the guy who fell in love with a girl whom he would meet everyday in the bus. Each time withstanding the urge to walk forward and introduce himself, he was to feel extremely regretful when one fine day, the lady stopped taking that bus, and it then hit him that nothing is to last forever. Such plots can be found very often in dramas, and in real life too.

While it may be someone’s second nature to simply approach a girl, it could be another’s bane. But regardless if this is in you or not, what will never go wrong is that with mistakes come experience, and with experiences, success will follow.

He may be Harry, with the wand that commands him anything he wants. But in real life, Radcliffe may need more than just a wand. Some helping hands, maybe.

What Movie Shall We Watch, Honey?

Fists. Fights. Blood. Gore. Ewww… I am cringing with my face crumbling into all sorts of funny shapes as I’m typing the first four words of this post. But I’m sure if my hubby were to be doing what I’m doing now, he’d probably be experiencing some adrenaline high which I’ll never be able to fathom for as long as I live.

To set the records straight, my hubby isn’t something who will resort to violence when things turn nasty or when he is under the steam. He just likes to watch movies that contain lots of action, and this inevitably comes with some fists, fights, blood and yes, gore. (I’m cringing again…)

Of course, not all action movies and thrillers or psycho films have all those four elements in. For example, he managed to successful lure me to the cinema to watch movies like The Fantastic Four, Spiderman 3, Batman Forever etc. Now, he is eyeing the Iron Man which, honestly speaking, I’m not that gaga over.

I can already imagine a seemingly formidable man who got to be so formidable because of his super formidable outfit which, as the name implies, should be made of top-rate iron or steel. There has to be some evils in the show for him to fight and win over, and until we have the winner (which usually means the justice will triumph or we will have sequels to ensure this principle is not violated), lots of action (aka fighting and injuries) will be dominating the screen. Oh, unless the big bad man is the iron man himself. Still, scores of action to be expected till justice triumphs!

By then, the tone of my movie description should be blatant enough for anyone to make a clever deduction on my enthusiasm to go watch the Iron Man. I know, I am prejudiced. And very much so! Though I’m not proud of it, but there’s really nothing I can do about it. It’s in me, and I believe, in many women too.

But hope is always there! I will still go to watch this movie with my hubby because of other motivating factors. Like the pop corn, the hot dog, and most of all, the company of my beloved man. You see, watching a movie with that special someone holds more meaning than the actual activity itself, though any man who hears this will begin to say women love to complicate things which are simple, and over-simplify things that can be complicated.

In this instance, I am more than willing to catch the show that Stuart would love watching because I want to. I want to be there with him when he is relaxing. I want to be there with him when he is enjoying himself. Similarly, I want to be there with and for him when he is under stress or when he is feeling sad. In a nutshell, I want to be there with him and for him in any occasion, even if it means going for a movie that I will not particularly enjoy if I were to watch, say, Over Her Dead Body. Ouch, doesn’t it sound, erh, violent too?

Oh, talk about romance comedy! Now I’m getting more excited because I dare say this is one of the most favourite, if not the favourite, movie genres for most women, if not all. Not only do they bring out the good sides in people, we also swear by the positive effects such movie brings onto our relationships quite immediately.

The kind of connection we feel with our partners just by sitting there holding hands and sharing a cheese nacho or popcorn and immersing ourselves in the laughs and kisses onscreen is hard to describe. Although nothing really too physical has taken place between us, but looking at the intimacy of the male and female lead is enough to make us feel as if something has indeed, taken place between us. We leave the cinema walking with some air below our soles and tight clasps around our partners’ waists or hands. We feel that we know our partners better, and the emotional bond is there.

So guys, don’t you find this effect amazing? And all without you having to do anything except the companionship! Of course, the occasional and timely pats on your girlfriend or wife’s head will create more wonders too.

Hence, when it comes to the question “Which movie shall we watch, honey?”, I hope you will find the loving answer.

Happy movie watching my friends!