Dear Boys,
Sometimes the words we use often has an impact on how we see the world and in turn how the world ‘see’ us. This is particularly important because if you don’t get this right, you’ll spend a major part of your adult life trying to fix what you have already sub-consciously conditioned yourself into thinking and acting.
‘Always’
This can be a creativity-killing-word, and using this adverb carelessly will always ensure you relinquish your decision making to a conditioned state.
‘I’m always like that what!’
‘You always never turn off the lights!’
‘He always like that one!
We all encounter such statements and make many more ourselves, all the time. We do so out of efficiency and more often than not, laziness. We make quick statements like these so that we can get to the outcome quickly. So if you forgets to bring your masks out, you can resort to ‘You’re always the forgetful one!’ which followed by a ‘hmph‘ and entertain a self depreciating thought of how you have limited memory of a mouse, you’re getting senile and then ha ha and LOL.
Such confirmation bias helps us soothes our lives small little mishaps and sometimes even cushion us from the larger ones, by assigning blame to conditions that is beyond our control. It helps us manage our lives’ daily minute ups and downs and it can be a helpful coping life skills.
Not Always So
This is a Zen saying I learned sometime back, and I’ve forgotten much of it, I think it was by Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen monk who coined this ‘famous’ phrase. The point is, it helps us untangle ourselves from our daily, often self-limiting speech-act.
We need to know that we can make decisions, life changing decisions which can helps empower us beyond our feeble inconsistencies and insecurities.
This three words is the antidote to our ‘always‘ culture, paradoxically, it includes the very word we try to untangle ourselves from.
Every time, we do something that seems like a mistake we made before, or we got lazy and left the dishes unwashed, we can blame it on laziness, we are ‘always‘ procrastinating, or we can ask ourselves, Is that always the case? Am I always like that? Not always so! We can change, reflect and make amends, fix things, grow a new habit and exercise our decision making faculty.
Nothing is Fixed, and Nothing can be Fixed, Everything is Constantly Fixing
So we need to know that while we form habits which shapes our behavior, nothing is fixed, except our decision to set it. Even that can be changed, of course there will be consequences when it comes to a fixed habit, as well as fixing a habit, but as human beings, we must constantly make decision, that will change the range of choices that leads to a wider variety of outcome.
So to me it is not the faculty of choice, it is our ability to decide, when we make a lousy decision, we can then make another decision to correct it, or we can lament that we are always making shitty choices, which leads to a downgrade of personal empowerment, and then a replay of our entire life’s mistakes, failures and boo boos. Or we can decide to make another outcome, take another route, do it again, and again, and again, so that we get it right.
Life is about making one decision after another which takes us from one outcome to another, by constantly exercising our decision making muscle, we will never be short of choices that can take us from where we are to where we want to go.
Lt Gen (ret.) Winston Choo
Our very first Chief of Defence Force Winston Choo was a farmer, who became our country’s most well known soldier. Had he maintained that mindset that he was a ‘farmer’, will be farming, and always be a farmer, he will never have risen to his full potential.
Has he always been a farmer? Not always so!
As human beings we are here to make sure we keep doing what we can to better the circumstances we are in, otherwise we will always be homo sapiens. So learn from our country’s longest serving military chief, be something more that we we have always been, never settle for always, keep questioning our being, our ability, move quickly from our mistakes, learn from them and make our problems a source of solution and experience for us to become a better me.
Decision making are the breakfast for champions
In my dictionary, there is no good choice, no bad choice, no bad decisions, nor good ones, as long as it brings you closer to your outcome then that is the decision to take, not right nor wrong. Sometimes you make a decision that seems to take you to your destination, but we end up going another route, which serendipitously enhances our learning and experiences, in turn helps us revaluate our earlier decisions. Nothing is fixed unless we decides to fix them.
We often look at achievers and think why are they always the ‘smart’ ones making all the right moves and choices? Frankly, it all lies in our decision making and our ability to correct our decision quickly, so that we avoid making the ‘always‘ self-defeating statements.
‘Tom is always so lucky!’
‘Dick always gets good grades!’
‘Harry is always getting the promotion!
So if you want to have an always, have an always striving, always learning, always getting better, always the hardworking one.
So, boys, condition yourselves to make decision, constantly evaluate your ability to make decisions, and sometimes you might make a lousy stand, don’t die with it, don’t get emotionally or personally attached to it, change, make another decision, get new information, find out and study what you are lacking that resulted in you not making a quality decision, and please don’t dwell on self limiting conversations, you are never ‘always‘ like that or like this, unless you really make a decision to be!
P.S Lt Gen (Ret.) Wiston has a book out, titled A Soldier At Heart, is published by Landmark Books and is based on 40 hours of fresh interviews, oral history transcripts, speeches and Mr Choo’s writings, said a statement from the local publisher.
The book is available for $35 (before GST) at major bookshops. It will be formally released on July 16 by Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean. (Source: The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/life-of-singapores-longest-serving-military-chief-captured-in-memoir-0)
theaikidad 