dear God

I pray for strength,
to carry myself and those who needed me,
through this trying period.

I pray for wisdom,
to dispel the unnecessary thoughts that flood the mind,
to filter the unnecessary words that came into the ears.

I pray for you to guide me,
when fear, anger and sadness overcome me.

I pray for a mind clear of emotions,
and the ability to protect.

Dear God,
please be with her.

Please,
be with us.

Disappointed

How could you?

How can you bear to hurt,

the one who sacrifices and loves?

I can never see you in the same light again.

dear God

请你告诉我，

这世界还可以相信什么？

致妈妈

亲爱的妈妈，
我终于明白为什么，
你总是叫我要听话。

今天又有一位老师离开。

临别前，
他也嘱咐我们要乖乖听话。

听说，
他的离职就是因为不听话。

小明过后告诉我，
他妈妈说要赶走一个人，
再容易不过。

一封投诉，
就能毁了一个人的生活。

难怪妈妈，
你总是要我把语文学好。

那么下次写信去投诉的时候，
就不会不知道从何下手。

可是妈妈我不明白，
为什么我喜欢的老师都要离开。

是不是因为，
他们有太多的想法？

那天听到一位老师说，
思想是灾难的根源。

做人最好不要有太多的想法。

最安全的生存方式，
就是随波逐流。

如果觉得不开口说话犹如骨鲠在喉，
那么大可以落井下石。

那是最安全的发言方式，
反正大家都往井里莫名其妙地扔掷。

亲爱的妈妈，
你总爱问我对于这个世界的想法。

而我总是回答，
我希望世界和平。

但老实说，我没有想法。

然而老师教我，
不管回答什么问题，
都要以“最正确”的答案来回答。

所以我已经学会了，
如何以“最官方”的想法，
作为我的想法。

现实告诉了我，
想法是灾难的根源。

所以我认为，
我不需要想法。

我只需要去做，
大家都认为我应该做的。

你说，不是吗？

亲爱的妈妈，
我不明白为何，
你如此心痛我的漠不关心。

我也不明白为何，
你如此痛斥我的不可一世。

这不是你们想要的结果吗？

你们教会了我，
没有一个人比自我，
更值得尊重。

你们示范给我看，
如何利用舆论和身份，
把看不顺眼的人和事打下。

你们证明了，
说太多、想太多，
都不会有好结果。

你们成功地造就了，
这样的一个我。

心心

累积

寓意

这种反应

我始料不及

我真的不太明白

自己

视线

不知不觉

发生、改变

眯着眼

又开始看不见

Inner self

今早读了这篇文章。

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happiness is finding your inner receptionist
By Lucy Kellaway (Financial Times)

A couple of months ago a friend asked if I’d write her a job reference. She is bright and witty and sophisticated and for about 20 years has held a succession of powerful jobs in television and newspapers.

Yet this latest position was rather different: she had applied to be a receptionist at a small office building in Mayfair. This struck me as an eccentric career choice for a clever woman on the cusp of 50, but I wrote out the reference and in due course she got the job.

Last week I had lunch with her and asked how it was going. She told me that for the first time in her life she was entirely happy in her job. At last she had found something that had all the good things about office work and none of the bad ones.

Her routine was soothing. The people were friendly. The work was pleasant. It was also finite, easy to do well, and ended on the dot of 6pm. There were no unmanageable work loads, no ugly competition, no gnawing anxiety that you aren’t up to it and that someone else is better.

But best of all, she said, the receptionist’s job didn’t swamp her mind and her life; instead it left plenty of room for her to think her own thoughts. The only thing that wasn’t fantastic was the money, but it was enough and she didn’t mind.

After our lunch she took me to see the site of such happiness. I eyed her curvy glass desk and saw through the square-paned windows the bare trees of Green Park. I imagined myself smiling at the hedge fund managers who came in and out: “Hello, it’s milder today isn’t it?” I could see a certain charm in it.

Yet what impressed me most about her satisfaction was how it contrasted with the dissatisfaction of almost all my other contemporaries. One word describes how most of us in our late 40s are coping with far more interesting jobs: badly. In varying measures we are susceptible to boredom, fear, exhaustion and frustration. We’ve all been working for an eternity as it is, but we now realise we’ll have to go on working until we are 70 at least and so there is still a long way to go. In all it is not pretty. We feel we ought to leap, but don’t know how and don’t know which way to go.

A relatively sensible article in February’s Harvard Business Review attempts to explain why we are getting it all wrong and why my receptionist friend is getting it right.

The rest of us are falling for the most common misapprehension of mid-career crisis – which is to think this is the beginning of the end. Instead the magazine insists that we have more opportunities than we used to. Because we have worked for a few decades, we know what work is like and what we are good at. The trick isn’t to hanker after some magical transformation – one minute you are a banker, and then, hey presto, an organic farmer – but to think carefully and practically about what suits you.

When I think about it now I see that, unlike my friend, I’m not ready to get in touch with my inner receptionist. She says the job gives her space to think, whereas I have a horror of unstructured thought. Indeed one of the things that I’ve worked out over the past few decades is that I need to be wildly busy all the time: in fallow periods my thoughts wander off in all sorts of unwanted directions.

Still more hearteningly, the HBR reminds us that even though some doors may be closed at 50, in reality there weren’t so many open ones at 25. This is a truth that we tend to forget: most people are in a rut from the start, blindly pursuing careers with no idea of what the other options were. When I was in my 20s I didn’t feel that I was deciding rationally between hundreds of possibilities, I was simply trying to do what I thought was expected of me, and what my friends were doing. My motivation was to do it better than a tiny handful of people I considered to be my rivals.

Now that I think of it, I have stopped caring about these petty contests. I am doing better than some of my former competitors and worse than others, but either way it doesn’t matter any more. This is liberating. I am starting to mind less what other people think of me and that is liberating too.

My friend confirms that she couldn’t have become a receptionist in her 20s or 30s. She would have been miserable, unfulfilled and certain she was throwing her life away. At 49 she has nothing more to prove; she has already proved that important jobs are no longer what she wants.

A couple of weeks ago another cheering piece of work was published by scientists at the University of Warwick showing that happiness over a lifetime is U-shaped. It looked at thousands of workers in 80 different countries and found that most people start off happy, and then slide towards misery, reaching a trough at 44. By our early 50s we start to get happy again and by our 60s and 70s happier still.

It isn’t altogether clear why we get cheerier as death draws closer. I suspect it is mainly because the burden of ambition and expectation slips away. We no longer hanker after what we are never going to have. I’m not quite there yet and neither are most of my contemporaries. Ambition still rages, and prospects are intolerably uncertain. But if we hold tight, the upward curve of the U will carry us along soon. We don’t need career coaching. We just need time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

它让我记起了，

一直在提醒着自己的些什么。

If you believe,

that giving more monetary compensation,

will keep the really willing people in this industry.

You sadly do not understand,

the nature and fundamental requirements of this job.

Money cannot buy heart.

And heart can only be enriched and nourished,

when given enough time.

Dear Valentine's...

深呼吸

因为我不是你

我不能左右你

但是我却可以

掌握放慢自己

Blues not

Shanghai Blues.

Esplanade blues.

It was a night of

bad acting, bad dancing, and weak singing.

I was grateful for Emma Yong.

I had good company,

so it makes the entire night better.

On our way out of the theatre,

I saw 鸣鹊姐.

I called out to her,

and was pleasantly surprised,

that she remembered me.

It always warms my heart,

to see familiar faces from that memorable past.

新年快乐

Alright, I admit.

I have been most irritably grumpy,

all these while.

The lack of good sleep and rest,

the overwhelming burden of work brought over,

the endless mindless visiting and

the unneccessary implications that comes with it.

And it just keeps adding on.

Despite myself,

it has been a good new year.

And I so wanted to start afresh.

It will be a good day from now on.

No more new year visiting.

*fingers crossed*

Will do some dressing up later,

meet up a close one and do a nice cosy dinner.

And the best thing is,

we will be watching Shanghai Blues,

at the end of the night.

It will be a good day.

And tomorrow,

I will do my overloaded work justice.

So here's to a fresh start,

to a brand new year.

For once, CNY song is music to ears.

(Images provided by Min)

新年。心辗

我非常不喜欢过年。

这是一段，

虚情假意的几天。

真正在乎的，

根本不会一年才见一次面。

其余只不过，

想在别人面前演一簇好戏。

我非常不喜欢过年。

我越来越看不出，

其中的意义。

看别人演戏，看自己回戏，

一场假欢喜的大闹剧。

非常讨厌过年。

我感觉自己身心疲惫。

如意

陈老师和疼爱我如女儿的萧老师，

个别在不同时间，

递了封红包给我。

不知为何，

大家都不约而同，

祝愿我找到如意郎君。

ZH 得知后，啼笑皆非。

所以，如意郎君的基本条件是... ？

嗯... 可以背起我，然后走很长的一段路。

好奇怪的条件... 为什么？

不知道，就一直这么想。

或许，要将我背起，走一段路，

并不容易。

犹豫

越是害怕

越想脱离

越陷下去

束缚

今早醒来

眼睛睁不开

时间

流过每一寸肌肤

身体却无法动弹翻覆

那一刻似乎

一切变很清楚

久违了的领悟

Voices

Wow, you i/c again ya... Poor thing... They see you up, you cannot come down.

It's barely a month... but it felt like a year... Why ah?

我叫我老公有心理准备。哪天我真得受不了了，就解约、赔钱。

我真的很怕。一年后从英国回来，如果不适应这样疯狂的工作生活，怎么办？

This work is crazy. I will go away after that bond. Nothing can be as bad as this.

这份工，在这个年代，不能做长久。我现在每天倒数四年后退休。

I wonder if Durai work as hard as us. But I don't earn even peanuts. Darn.

Of course she kept asking you and SS to do things. You guys are up and coming. It used to be me and CJ.

Are you alright? You're walking with your eyes close, for heavens sake!

我不明白为什么我们那么可怜，连好好吃顿饭的时间都没有。

And we are not even asking for time to rest. We just hope for more time to sit down and mark proper. Even that is a luxury.

加薪，只不过让你短暂的高兴。老实说，也加不多，不够我们应付其他费用的增加。

Wow, 6.30am to 10pm. We are so well-paid. And I do not even have time to sit down and finish my own work.

我在存钱，一年半后，自己出来做生意。这份工，难做长久，吃力不讨好。

此刻，我真的累了。

你呢？