Interests and Parental Figures

Being sick these past few days has given me ample time to let my mind wander with little consequence. It’s amazing how a previously unconscious thought or idea can become forefront in our conscious mind when we do a bit of self-mind analysis. This blog post is about interests and parental figures, and how to connect the two to get a rough idea of your interest’s personal character.

Simply observe how the person interacts with their parental figures: if they still talk (like best friends or like enemies), if they live together, if they visit each other often, etc. Don’t intrude on your interest to find this out and don’t pry (e.g. “Hey, so tell me about your mom.“). It’s quite easy to observe without asking weird questions: just spend time with your interest and you’ll find out how close they are with their parental figures. If they don’t mention their parental figures at all, then that’s a possible red flag.

The main concept is this: a positive and healthy relationship between the parental figure(s) and your interest implies that the parental figure raised their child well. This would lead one to believe there is a high probability the interest will be a good parent in the future. If you’re thinking: “WHOA, I should think of my crush as a parent already?“, then disregard this post, but it is something that most of us will or should inevitably consider.

I don’t mind if I get referred to as a nerd/geek for this, but one must consider how well their interest aligns with their family, and how one aligns with their interest’s family. Sort of like strategic alignment for implementation projects in an organization: how well it aligns with the organization’s vision, mission statement, culture, and all that fun stuff.

I took a few key theories away from my psychology/sociology courses, one of them is socialization and how family is the primary socialization agent for individuals. An example of this are feral/isolated/captive children where some documented cases involve children who don’t understand basic linguistics and communication methods. Moving beyond the basics and moving higher up the hierarchy to more complex items such as virtues (formed on values), the importance of positive, constant relationships between parents and their child/children cannot be emphasized enough and will reflect in their child/children themselves.

There are exceptions to this. Sometimes a person has no parental figure to look up to,  or for some reason has no contact with them. Sometimes as time passes by, you find out that their parental figure(s) are, in fact, despicable with warrant. And of course, an individual can make choices that lead them to be a better or worse person than their parental figures not just based on their interactions.

Perception is everything, so don’t believe just what you see, use your other four senses as well (where applicable of course, don’t go licking everything). Take this concept as your grain of salt, with a grain of salt as well.

Reassurance

Reassurance is a double-edged blade. Why? There are a couple of facets to this thought: needing reassurance and giving reassurance.

Needing reassurance. This isn’t the main thing about this entry, but I just wanted to touch on it. There is a spectrum of needing reassurance: Low = Medium = High. Needing reassurance and self-confidence levels negatively correlate where the less you need reassurance, the more self-confident you are.

Those who don’t seek reassurance often can either be perceived positively, as “mature”, a “pillar of strength”, “a Chuck Norris/Rambo”, or negatively, “antisocial”, “foolish”, and “arrogant”. This depends strongly on what they’re able to achieve without needing reassurance, or a vote of confidence from another individual about their own confidence.

Skipping the Average level (average = average), jumping straight to those who seek reassurance often, the same case as the above, can be seen in a positive (“consensus-building”, “collaborative”, “inclusive”), or negative (“needy”, “uncertain”, “incompetent”) light. What matters is being successful after gathering reassurance (and ideas) from others.

So one thing is common in both examples: there is nothing wrong with being a “nomad” (low required reassurance) or being someone who naturally asks for reassurance from others. There are pros and cons to both; the common theme is being able to embrace where you fall on this spectrum and pull things off. If you’re similar to me, someone who has a slightly below-average level of self-confidence (and a slightly higher need of reassurance), I go to different people for basically a vote of confidence, similar to saying “You’re in the right direction, keep up the good work”. I’ve come to embrace this because it doesn’t hurt to get a second opinion on things and include other people along the way (in projects, initiatives, and life in general).

Giving reassurance. This is where things get interesting (for me at least). Intrinsically, I’m a highly analytical and (reasonably) skeptical person. When people (try to) reassure me, I can’t help but be skeptical and initially be doubtful. This will probably be easier to understand with examples, so here are some:

• “Can I borrow your essay? I swear I won’t submit it ad-verbatim”
• “… unless I procrastinate to the point where I will copy it word-for-word, submit it, and get you in academic trouble.”
• “You can trust me.”
• Trust, to me, is a precious thing. I’ve learned to cautiously invest trust in people due to bad past experiences shattering the trust I had in them.
• Yes, I “invest” trust; I don’t give it freely. If I invest trust, just like money, I expect trust in return. Don’t say it without being genuine about it.
• “Don’t worry, I’m okay.”
• I get worried if someone says this to me, and I have a natural need to make sure they’re really “okay”
• To me, this relates to reverse psychology: either you’re really not okay, or you are intending on getting another person to reassure you you’re okay
• “You won’t find a better price anywhere else.”
• No explanation needed

So, how would one reassure a person like me?

• Unless I’ve come to know how you are/interact with other people (e.g. genuinely as a friend with good values or shallow in order to just leech off of me), I will be skeptical
• Have a positive track record and be able to pull things off; have things to support what you say
• Mention the two words “trust me” to me with extreme care
• I’m mostly skeptical of people who talk “too much” (in the sense of being like a salesperson), so don’t fluff up what you say and don’t repeat things over and over. One of my personal pet peeves is people who say the same things more than once.
• Repetition, to me, equates to uncertainty, fear and/or hidden intentions behind what is being said

Another point of this entry is not to give reassurance/receive reassurance too easily. Don’t be easily blinded by the words of others, and don’t give reassurance to others where you’re not being sincere about it. It’s safer to be skeptical than not, but don’t be paranoid.

Tragedies Tragically Bring People Together… and Teach

Okay, maybe tragedies is an extreme example, but an observation is that people throw away their differences, almost always, during hardships and when facing a common “enemy”. Examples include 9/11, the Japan tsunami, terrorist attacks, a death of a loved one, a really brutal exam (study group anyone?), and other examples that fall anywhere on an imaginary scale of how many people the event affects.

It’s tragic that sometimes, it takes a tragedy for people to come to the realization that “Hey, we’re all human beings, we share the same hardships, why not help each other out?”. I want to make it clear that by “help”, I mean helping others unconditionally.

Over time I’ve learned to be wary of actions with a condition/conditions. It’s just like my experience with most salespeople: they accentuate the good but skim the bad, if at all (personal experience: “Very good watch! Will last long! Half price for you!” (Beijing shop owner) => stops working when you get back home). We learn through our mistakes, which can be heartbreaking, painful, casual (“oh the watch stopped working… okay”), but the main thing is that a mistake is a mistake only if the lesson isn’t taken to heart. A mistake that is learned from isn’t a mistake; it’s a teaching.

In other words, to be able to move forward as a human, we need our legs (physical) and we also need the capacity for self-growth (mental). It’s very easy for many of us to literally move forward with our feet; it’s hard (very hard) sometimes to move forward in our minds, but it’s something that we have to do otherwise the mind will just be a body of still water dwelling on the same set of ideas instead of being a vessel with a constant flow of ideas, thoughts, and motivation.

“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” - Bruce Lee

The world is full of horrible people. It’s a truth that I sometimes like to ignorantly deny (which I subsequently pay for), but it’s true. People do things with the intention/motive of some sort of reward, be it recognition, praise, money, affection, a gift, revenge, spite; a whole mix of benign and malignant outcomes. For this reason, I really respect people who volunteer in charities and for different causes (people who do things without the intention of getting much/anything back). What they’re ultimately giving is their time, which is the most precious commodity anyone can give as you can never get it back and it’s priceless.

There’s dark because there’s light, there’s good because there’s evil, there’s warmth because there’s coldness. Without one of the ends, we wouldn’t have anything to compare the other end to. In life, you sometimes have to be a salesperson to yourself: accentuate the good and de-emphasize on the bad, don’t amplify and dwell on your flaws/mistakes. Try to see the good in yourself and in others. If all you have is a grim outlook on life and in others, then there isn’t much anyone else can do to help you except yourself. “Don’t get set into one form”.

Maturity

I haven’t blogged in a while as I’ve been busy with life. I just wanted to make a quick post about life in general and maturity.

Maturity is purely how you respond to positive or negative events. If you throw a sissy fit when something doesn’t go your way, that’s being immature. Being mature means being able to try to understand the motives behind actions, being proactive and knowing what the most correct/suitable/reasonable (not right; there is no perfect response in real life) response is. You have to know you can’t “win” at everything, but you can at least instill respect in yourself being making yourself to be perceived by others as being “mature”, “understanding”, “courteous”, “patient”, or “down-to-earth”.

But you have to also have integrity and merit when you say things. One of my pet peeves is people who start off sentences with “you have to understand…” when I know that they don’t know much about what they’re trying to educate me on, especially when I know that I know more about the topic they’re trying to “help me understand” than them.

If something bad/unfair happens in life, I tell myself: “Everything happens for a reason, so forgive and move on, since bearing any ill thoughts will only weigh you down. Continue moving forward.” This reminds me of a quote from Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” If someone does something to upset me, I often comfort myself by thinking that karma will eventually catch up to them. Depending on the severity, I might even give karma a little nudge forward.

On the flipside, if something good happens, question it for a split second: “Is this too good to be true? Are there any catches?” as my trip to Asia has taught me that there is very little that is free in this world that has no catch. Don’t let emotions drown out reason. After all the smoke and mirrors, if there is a catch, the end-result would still be the same: you giving a possession to another person that is valued to be more than what they are giving you. Keep in mind that time is the greatest gift you can give anyone.

Everything in life has to be done in moderation: eating, sleeping, studying, partying, you name it. If you’re the leader of a team, you can’t be a micro-manager, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, you can’t be detached from everything to the point where you’re just a literal position. Power and reputation can get to a person very easily and inflate their ego to the point where all they see is themselves. Stay humble, stay classy. Think about how others may perceive what you say before you say things. Teach others on how to get to where you are. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” – Plato

It’s also important not to do irrational things based only on emotion without trying to talk things out and reaching an understanding, such as being aggressive towards others or lying. “A lie is like a snowball; the longer it is rolled, the larger it is“ - Martin Luther. A lie has the potential to blow a “small” thing way out of proportion since it then becomes an issue of trust when the lie is exposed.