“If you are so desperate for change, how well do you respond to other people trying to change you?”

This was particularly in the context of your significant other.

This is obviously a delicate question. The fact is – I don’t respond very well at all.

The hardest thing in the world to do, is to change somebody. For myself, I automatically detect the change attempt and all kinds of defense mechanisms kick in. As a kid, I hated being told what to do and would prefer to do things myself.

However, there are some legitimate changes that I actually want to do with myself. I have a bunch of “New Year’s Resolutions” that I keep up to date all throughout the year. Wouldn’t someone reminding me about them help me carry these items out?

Ultimately the motivation must come from the inside, not externally. Otherwise, your will to follow through will stop once someone stops reminding you. In fact, you may become annoyed with this person, even though he or she is really trying to help you.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

(That’s a quote from the author of “Le Petit Prince“, Antoine de Saint-Exupery.)

You have to do a root cause analysis to get to your rational for doing what you want to do and change things from the inside out. This is what Anthony Robbins refers to as changing what we link to pain and pleasure. As long as eating junk food gives you pleasure, no amount of nagging will make you think otherwise. Instead, you must link pleasure to eating healthy and link pain to junk food which is filling up your body (or your temple) with filth and garbage.

But back to the original topic – of how I should respond to someone trying to make a change in me. I think that it is important to open your ears to listen (which I do). Then it is necessary to internalize what was said and see if it converts into action.

Easier said than done, haha…

I love item #4.

Try to talk as little as possible, and when you do speak, only ask superficial questions

Given how I feel about small talk, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to do it just to make everyone feel comfortable. Especially when I bump into the sales guys in the office kitchen.

I don’t think that I was always like this. I swear I was much friendlier and outgoing back in high school than I am these days, despite my nerdy interests like reading, computers and chess. Somewhere along the way I developed this mildly anti-social interaction patterns.

By the way if you enjoyed that particular essay by the author Philip Guo, he has a whole bunch of other wonderful gems:

Attention: Overbearing Asian Parents – There are actually quite a few more posts on his website about this subject.

Some tips for life – All the things I wonder about life in one convenient serving.

Types of Friends – If I blow you off, it’s cause you’re lower on the totem pole. Sorry. This is a pretty taboo topic to be writing about if you think about it.

I like the preciseness of the writing, probably because of my nerdy academic background. And I like how he goes right into tacking some pretty difficult subjects such as the ones in the articles I picked out. I may not wish to write in his style, but one day, I sure would like to be able to write with as much impact as he has.

I haven’t gotten around to doing all the things that I should have been doing. I feel like I am on the brink of dropping the ball on something important. Sure, I have my to-do list on my computer but day-to-day, the inertia of having to turn on my computer to look at it is leaving me pretty ineffective.

I think back to when I was in high school: I was getting things done left and right and never felt like I had any “open loops.” I suppose that as a part of becoming an adult, we start to carry more and more projects and responsibilities. The system that worked for me as a student is no longer effective.

If this is the first time you’ve heard about “Getting Things Done,” a quick google should lead you to many praises and props about GTD. I just got the book and I am getting a high just from the thought of getting organized and productive. Maybe I’ll get a little more regular with my blogging again!

“Hi, John. This is Alfred.”

“Hey how are you doing? Did you get the car inspection report from BCAA?”

“Yes, it looks good. There are some items but they are pretty minor.”

“So are you still interested in the car? People have been calling me up and and I told them that it’s already been sold. And also, you paid for the car inspection – so you are committed right?”

“Well, about that – listen. I like the car, but I can’t buy it.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m in this car give away contest and right now I have a 1 in 10 chance at winning a car for free.”

“What is this?”

<Insert explanation of hypercube contest, about how I made it into the top 500.>

“Are you f-king with me? You serious?”

“Yep. I’m real sorry about taking up your time.”

“Your loss buddy. Let me know if you change your mind.”

KIDDING!  That’s not what really happened.

The real story: I bought a car on Saturday. You hardcore hypercubers might stop voting for me at this point but hear me out.

My life’s got to go on. I can’t drive around in one-tenth of a car. I am currently a car-coop member, but I need to be more mobile than this. I’ve got people to see things to do.

Take this weekend: I finished moving back home; I met up with a girl from Plenty of Fish for the first time IRL; I went salsaing on Saturday night; I went to check out a church in the neighbourhood (okay, I walked for this); I went shopping with Mom; I went to bachata class at Dance Addicts; then I went to salsa class with Alfonso Caldera, who happens to be the best salsa teacher in the Lower Mainland, in my humble opinion.

So yes, I really did buy the car in question. Names and details have been changed dramatically to protect the innocent.

So what about hypercube? I have been thinking pretty seriously about this as well. I mean there is a real possibility (9 in 10) of NOT getting a Cube. In which case, all that effort will be for naught. However, if we decide that the journey is more important than the destination – then we will all be winners, no matter whether you go home with a free car or not.

For myself, I am taking this hypercube contest as a challenge to myself. I have probably spent far too much time moping and doping on my computer at home. I really need to get out and about a whole lot more. To that end, I shall be slightly more proactive about calling people up and getting out and about. For this purpose, I actually need to have car to facilitate this.

And yes, I will continue to admire and pimp my fellow hypercubers whom I have taken a fancy to (in a platonic non-creepy kind of way). Here are some of my fav. I’ve included links to their hypercube canvases in case you want to throw some love their way:

Tha PHLASH – I love the anime inspired urban art work. Much more stuff on his website.

Mark Stevenson – Gets straight up props from coming from the same land as Anne of Green Gables. But we’ll give him some minor points for getting a radio interview and setting up cubeclub.ca.

CubeMAN – Anyone running the city like a Transformer gets my vote.

SunnyCrittenden – I am still not sure how to describe her special ability. I have previously pimped her as having “so much personality that it oozes out of her pores.” But I’ll let you be the judge of that when you check out her blog.

Ohaiqtpie – Okay she’s a cutie pie and I might want to be not so platonic with her (haha – kidding). I like the idea of supporting fellow Vancouverites. (Richmond counts.)

Maria Petersen – I feel sorry for her, living in Surrey and everything. (Okay – really really kidding now!)  You have to live out here to get this one.

There might be a few more – but these are my regulars for now (i.e. my daily voting routine). If you are voting for me, please send them some of your love too!

My old car was a ’99 Honda Civic. While I do have fond memories of AlfredMobile 1, I do remember the ghetto-ness of manually operated windows. It was a reliable vehicle but it wasn’t a something that evoked any emotions that I seem to get when compared to other vehicles.

The current top non-Cube choice is a used Honda Accord Coupe of some kind. Leather seats if possible. This is the sportiest mid-life crisis car I can responsibly consider these days. Then, I’ll pretty much have no excuses to be home so much. Things to do. People to see. Salsa to dance. The internets will have to do without me for a while.

(I am guessing that I can’t buy any used Nissan Cubes at this point in time.)

• I have met women who say that they would absolutely not date a guy who is still living at home. I think that this line of thinking is rather narrow and is not really as mainstream as I originally thought; pretty much all my high-school guy friends lived at home until they got married. This is definitely not a factor in relationship and dating success.
• Related to the previous point: While I (aged 33) feel more confident and is more attractive than my younger self (say aged 23), I honestly have not matured emotionally to handle relationships. However, I think that I am starting to have a much better understanding of my weakness (tendency to fall too hard, too fast, too easily). I instinctively know this and watch myself but I can’t save myself every single time. Dear friends, as a plea to you, please smack me hard if you see me starting to get crazy.
• Related to previous point: I think this is precisely why I don’t like social dancing too much (except with my people I already know). On the other hand, I really enjoy the proper structure and routine of a regular dance class.
• The economic conditions are getting hella scary. Because I am month-to-month with my landlord, I plan to talk to him and move out at the end of April. Yes, moving back home. Mom will be thrilled.
• I think that the non-car lifestyle is having an adverse effect on my social skills atrophy. I don’t go out and see friends as much as before. Part of the moving back home plan would involve me eventually getting a car again. And I really need to see real humans more often.
• I have become a pickier eater than before. Eating my own cooking has warped my appetite. (Cooking and preparing meat is a real hassle.) I think that my body is starting to become vegetarian and is starting to reject meat on some occasions.
• I think that in the last years or so, I have gotten arrogant in my ways; it is hard to describe but it wasn’t obvious until I mess up big time. I am going to try to embrace a more humble point of view. Instead of comparing my strengths to other people’s weaknesses, it is more educational to compare my weaknesses to other people’s strengths. The former is about self-satisfaction; the latter is about growth and learning. As much as I want to be some kind of self-help guru, I am not even close. However, I feel that my messing up can minimally serve as an example of what not to do. In that regard, I think that there is some value in my writings.
• I am happy and grateful for good friends and family, for being employed in this economic climate, for dancing, for Internets, for a life that’s really not too shabby when you look at the glass half-full. I am definitely grateful for life lessons – certainly makes for more interesting blog posts.

While this hasn’t exactly been a Walden kind of adventure, the last 365 days have been interesting.  What new adventures will the next 365 days bring?

So at lunch time today, I was just leaving Brentwood Mall when I was approached by a man in the parking lot. If you have to ask me to describe how he looks, I would say that he reminds me of Cypher from the Matrix – so much so that I wondered if he is going to turn me over to the machines. He seemed friendly so I figured that there would be no harm talking to him.

He was asking for directions to Champlain Mall and apparently his GPS wasn’t able to give him the directions. I am a visual guy so I ended up drawing a map on an index card and talked him through the right/left turns needed. (Yeah, I just happen to carry index cards with me – inspired by the Hipster PDA.)

Is there any point to this story? 

Honestly, I had a tingle of “fight-or-flight” when he first approached me. I guess that it is an automatic reaction built into my system to keep my safe from the boogeyman gangsters in our city. I wasn’t panicking or anything but his looking like Cypher probably didn’t help.

I think that I have always had a bit of FoF response whenever I get approached by strangers. Because I don’t want to provoke an FoF response in other people, I tend not to be so much an initiator in social situations. This is really just plain silly and I should reprogram myself (or de-program if you want to look at it from a different perspective). It probably doesn’t help that my job involves sitting quietly in front of a computer and I am on the computer again when I get home.

Question: is social skills atrophy an issue in the software industry? I know it doesn’t affect everyone to the same degree but I am pretty certain that it can take its toll. I just might have to join Toastmasters again or something to get my mouth moving.

1. The Desire to Have More
2. The Desire to Know More
3. The Desire for Thrill and Pleasure

And when we talk about the desires, we are talking about indulging in them excessively. Most people have a good understanding of how the first one and the third one works.  For myself, the desire to know more is the vice of choice.

The desire to know more is unlike the other desires. You don’t get full from knowing too more – unlike eating more. It doesn’t create physical clutter like stuff does. You can indulge in the desire to know more, under the guise of being productive and strengthening yourself. In fact, with the limitless amount of data available on the internet, you can just go on and on aimlessly or as in-depth as you like; it is like wishing for a meal of your choice and getting it instantly.

For those of you who work in the software field, this is easily a never-ending treadmill of books, classes, and websites. Besides the actual art of software writing, there is also the business aspects like marketing, sales, management, and entrepreneurship.  Once you get hooked into keeping up, the limiting factor merely become the number of hours in the day. In the last couple of years, this has turned into a habit of staying up late – just to see if I could squeeze another ounce of tid-bit into my already crammed head.

Anything in excess is not good. In my case, I’m just continuously tired, usually with nothing to show for it.

So what now? I think that I just need to manage this like I would manage physical stuff and clutter: be more aware of what I am taking into my brain and be more deliberate and focus as appropriate and disregard what is unnecessary. One downside of non-physical clutter in your head is that it is very difficult to do housecleaning.

Another thing to do is to blog more. The result of this is that it focuses my informational in-take into a tangible output. This will reduce the aimless never-ending web surfing.

Of course, we should take a moderate approach – we can’t just stop reading and learning and go back to being ignorant. We just have to be more conscious about the goals of learning – it should be directed and I shouldn’t be “stuffing my face”, metaphorically.

Besides, I get enough computer time at work anyways. I need to learn to chillax.

Why is this? My head is full of other loud voices* that remind me to conform and please others. It’s also full of noisy advertising like: buy a new car or be hip like the cool kids. Or, you should worry about pleasing Mom or make the boss happy. And then there’s also the incessant money, sex, and rock & roll.

I feel like my personal growth for 2008 mostly came about when I do listen to the little voice of truth. My blunders happened when I don’t listen to the voice of truth and cave-in to the louder easier to hear clatter-chatter. (By the way, I would say that blunders are really character building opportunities.)

So what for 2009? Actions and thoughts based on thou-shalts or everyone is doing it is no longer going to cut it. Rather than looking externally for the truth, I shall look inward – and listen to that quiet little voice that knows what I really want. Note that the voice of truth is not necessarily going to give you the same answer as the voice of reason! What you want to do with it is your business, but it is important to acknowledge that truth – no matter how crazy, silly, selfish, boring, exciting. Listening to it lets you move on, and get on with whatever you need to be doing.

There are two ways that I found that works for me to get at the little voice. Method one, I could shut everything down (no music, TV, internet) and just listen; a variant of this is for me to formulate it in a long email to a friend (again sans distraction). Method two, I have someone that I trust throw “hardball” questions at me and I try to “catch” or answer them; the trusted friend should poke hard to ensure that the question has been answered as truthfully and honestly as possible. Method two is kind of like looking in a mirror to see inside ourselves.

The thing is, truth and knowledge really resides in us all this time. My endless reading, web surfing, and listening to people has cluttered my head and made it harder to get to this built-in voice of truth. Probably should cut down or at least be more selective about what I let myself read or listen to; we might deal with media-dieting in a future post.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to wish you all the best, in your quest for love, truth, and happiness for the new year! When in doubt, listen for the little voice.

(*Note: The voices are metaphoric and I really don’t hear-hear them.)

In the past, I have just considered food to be fuel and/or entertainment. However, if you think about it, there is a whole lot of things going on behind the scenes that we don’t even get to see. For example, organic foods have really become mainstream in the last while as people are more concerned about the use of pesticides. And then there is the talk about treatment of cows, pigs and chickens before they turn into consumables.

I have been more interested about vegetarianism as of late. When I was a kid, I used to think that vegetarians are weirdos. These days, being vegetarian is relatively mainstream; just ask Pamela Anderson. Generally, I think that society’s tolerance of weird has improved so neither being Pam or being a vegetarian is as strange as it used to be.

Other people’s reasons for becoming vegetarians are pretty straightforward: kindness to animals, religion, health, etc. For myself, a efficiency obsessed technie, I like the idea that vegetarians has a smaller ecological footprint than meat eaters; the beef that you are eating has to be grain-fed with a pretty large amounts of grain. Also, I like the idea that my food preparation would be simplified if I don’t have to deal with meat.

I would say that I am veg-curious these days. When I eat out, I sometimes order the veggie burger (and sure, pile on the bacon and cheese please). I think that it is a matter of finding some basic recipes to try out and then going from there.