Things they don't teach you at school

On the public transit on my way to work, it suddenly dawned upon me that, in order to get to a certain position I want in life, what I need to do is to be totally likable for the people who are responsible for hiring people for that particular position. Either that, or you're the top skilled candidate in that field, so people have no choice but to hire you for the reputation of their institute.

This may be blatantly obvious to most people, but I had been so focused on improving my technical aspects, that I had completely ignored the first part.

This realization happened because twice in a row, I have picked supervisors who do not really possess strong technical knowledge, yet they seem to do really well in their careers. What they have in common that verbally, they can communicate themselves in a very logical, convincing, and smooth manner that make it sound like they know the subjects very well. When I actually started work with them, it became obvious that they depended on their students and employees to be totally talented... otherwise the projects just stall. However, they also possess the capabilities to make any task done sound like fabulous accomplishments rather than minimally achieved results.

I feel like because I always juggle with a million ideas in my head, I sound very scattered and don't really know what I'm doing (as evidenced by the random ramblings of my blog posts).

They say that university doesn't really prep you for anything but to become a scholar like your professors. I feel like university education doesn't even prep me for becoming a successful modern scholar. School didn't teach me how to play politics, how to figure out who has the most influential power in the selection committee, how to tell when your boss or colleague means something else when they say one thing (and expect you to know it), how to deal with difficult people, how to sound pleasant and interested all the time, how to distribute time between socializing and doing actual work (and what proportion of time division is optimal for making me look good at this job), how to deal with psychopaths, etc etc.

Still a lot to learn... still waiting to achieve equanimity.

Interview with Richard Freeman

Somehow I accidentally deleted my last post. Here is the link again:

Interview with Richard Freeman

Yoga for strength for hypermobile people

Practiced Jason Crandall's Yoga for Strength class on YogaGlo. It was only 60 minutes long but I left a puddle of sweat on my yoga mat. I like how the postures are not super "advanced" (ie. no crazy arm balances, no pretzel moves, no handstands, no headstands), but all my major muscles got a good work out. I need strength and support in my muscles more than flexibility now so I am happy to practice yoga sequences that do not require me to twist into a pretzel. Even for this class I realized afterwards I need to further reduce the amount of hip openers than what was offered in this class (3 legged dog with the lifted knee bent and opening chest to the sky).

Yah, so for the hyper mobile me: minimal hip openers, lots of chair poses, lots of planks/side planks/push ups, lots of lunges; less twists, crazy forward folds, pigeon pose. I still love backbends but gotta be careful of neck and low back. Have to be so careful about hyper flexible joints. I'm not injured, but my body doesn't like me if I take one of those free style vinyasa classes with a million hip openers and too many fast vinyasas (low back crunch in upward facing dogs).

I also really really need to do more cardio. Spring hiking every weekend for me!

My blogging process

An anonymous reader asked me awhile ago to keep my posts short so that it's easier for readers to absorb the information, and may increase reader interests.

I have to apologize because that's not how the posts happen on this blog. What actually happens is that some ambiguous idea comes up in my head that I feel the need to sort out; I start brainstorming it in an electric Notepad. Very often I only make it half way through and my steam runs out. Often those half-written items never appears on this blog site. Occasionally, my brain transfers enough commands to my fingers such that a full blog entry appears (usually too long.. sorry). I try to do some editing, but I'm aware errors may still exist. As soon as I think the entry is somewhat coherent, I hit "publish", and enjoy the sense of accomplishment that I've released some emotional daemons from my body :D This blog is almost like an exorcism site.

The hope was that I would go back to my old entries, re-read through them, and some day organize my thoughts better so that they are more presentable. So far I notice that I seem to dwell on a few topics for quite awhile. I don't seem to be able to steadily move on to the next Yyogini -- improved version. I don't seem to cover topics as broadly as I would like to. For some topics, I just cannot seem to write a full blog entry without having to spend a ton of time doing some research. The creative juice in my head runs out after two paragraphs, just as I start getting into the details.

I know I started out writing this blog just to practice spitting out somewhat coherent sentences, since I was having so much trouble generating text for my research proposals, progress reports, scholarship applications, PhD thesis and boring crap like that. I think this blog helped me improve my writing flow quite a bit, at the expense of boring the hell out of poor readers who happened to have stumbled upon this site.

Also, as I have dramatically cut down on yoga practice time, it's been next to impossible to blog about yoga. But maybe it's a good thing not to be so obsessed about it. I do miss my yoga community badly though. It makes me wonder why I moved to another country when I was living only 5 minutes away from Fancy Yoga Studio that pampers me and boosts my mood tremendously every time I enter the facility. Before yoga I was a career-above-anything-else gal, but in the last couple years, I started to think that I could have justs gotten one of those mundane routine jobs and focus my attention on my yoga practice. Now I can't do that any more... too many other challenges in life.

It'll take me another while to sort out what I really want in life. I know now that I don't want work to be  my absolute top priority in life, but I am not satisfied with a life of only yoga obsession either. As my career path pushes me to work on a whole bunch of "professional" skills, I need to somehow decide for myself if I am okay to be pushed around by the system to do whatever it wants from me (Fill out this and that paper work, write this grant and that fellowship application, sign up for stuff just because they would make my CV look good, network with people I may or may not like, collaborate with these big name people in the field just because it might  help me advance in my career, etc.), or should I jump off the bullet train at some point and live a much more leisurely and perhaps a more fulfilling life.

Getting to the bottom of discontentment

A friend just came back from visiting southern Europe and the first thing she tells me is how much Sweden sucks compared to where she went. Stockholm is too cold in April; the grasses are not green yet; the beer here sucks (she doesn't even drink beer normally); this is crap; that is sh*t. It actually made me quite upset and I really wanted to tell her that she can leave this country right this minute if she wants to. Nobody is forcing her to remain here. 

It made me think why I am so upset about this.. I also think it's kind of cold for April. I guess when I stand in the gorgeous sun, seeing how it illuminates this breathtakingly beautiful city, it feels tough to stomach someone complaining non-stop about it. If one can complain being among this much beauty, then everywhere on earth is hell for her. She may like how the southern European city looks, but I'm sure she'll easily find something to complain about there if she lives there for more than 1 week. 

But why else was I so upset? The complaints were annoying but not outrageously offensive. I guess it's because I couldn't pull myself out of this situation soon enough. There are plenty of Debbie Downers in the world. One can easily walk away from them and go towards to more pleasant, grateful people. But I couldn't seem to just walk away. I just stayed at the breakfast table and listened until I couldn't stand it any more. The real reason I was so upset was my own lack of competence to handle uncomfortable situations like this. It's an old habitual pattern that I acquired as a kid, and I can't seem to kick it.

I haven't been practicing yoga lately but I am glad I am noticing these samskaras (habitual patterns) in my every day life. It's so built-in that even though I've noticed what's wrong, I am aware of what I *could* do in the situation, my behavior, still on auto-pilot mode, follows how I've always handled this kind of situation in the past rather than my logic. It's like I have 2 selves: the acting self and the (sometimes) wiser observing self. The reasoning brain also has two parts: the fast acting part says, "Your friend is the reason you're upset", but the slow acting part takes awhile to kick in and say, "You could have done something about it but you didn't. You are upset because you gave up the control of the situation when it was really under your control". 

A big struggle for happiness/unhappiness is to figure out what type of events/situations are under our control and what are not. I cannot control the weather, or other people's words and actions. I can however choose where to live, how I interpret other people's word, and how I act during uncomfortable situations. The old me still passively wishes the weather could be better, that my boss would be a better boss, that my dream job would fall from the sky into my lap, that my co-workers could be more understanding and more fun to be with, and that my friend would stop complaining and start appreciating all the nice things around her. None of these external people/issues are under my control, yet the strong desire to want to control the uncontrollable makes me (and my friend) unhappy. I need to instead work towards mastering actions that I could take to improve my situations and my well being.  The rest of the world may or may not change due to my actions, but at least I will feel better if I have done my best to serve myself.

The world is against me... or is it?

Things have not gone well this week. Nothing's going right... I got nothing accomplished at work. I don't get the Swedish jokes. The boss, the roommate, the colleagues, my family, the bus driver... everybody gets on my nerves. The weather's gray and gloomy. The air is difficult to breath.  Life sucks. I hate where I am in life right now.

Wait a minute.... Back track... Rewind, and replay. Does my life really suck that bad? Or.... Perhaps it's because I've been so anxious and stressing myself out lately, that I've been walking around looking grumpy and giving off a vibe that it's likely not safe to interact with me? Am I the one who's been avoiding eye contact with others, and not greeting people when I see them first thing in the morning? Have I been wearing a frown on my face, looking all depressed and mad? Could it be me who's been pushing everyone away, rather than people treating me in cold ways?

Either way, I don't like how this is going. I could complain forever about a million things. I could try to come up with things to be grateful for each day, which is useful but only up to a point, and/or I could think about ways to actively improve my life situations.

- I need to go to bed earlier

- I need to cut down the amount of time I stare at a screen (blogging feels therapeutic. Browsing psychology sites obsessively does not)

- I need to take more walks

- I need to do more pranayama and meditation

- I need to try to spend more time with people who cheer me up ( they are few but thank goodness they exist!) 

- I need to actively work on relieving my anxiety. It's good for myself and for the poor souls who have to be around me

- I need to be more aware of my needs.. Do I need to socialize? Do I need to eat better food? Do I need more: Fresh air? Friends? Kindness? Exercise? Pampering? Hugs? Time to myself? Nature? 

- Do I need to be less hard on myself? Less stress? Less workload? Less complaints? Less criticisms? Less negativity? Less stimuli? Less judgements? Less comparisons with others? 

- I need to distinguish my desires from everyone else's desires. Just because others crave a house, a nice car, and two beautiful kids, does not mean I should stress out about not owning these myself, since they were never big on my list of priorities in life anyways.

- Same goes with career advices. I get anxious reading about how all there are not enough jobs for PhDs; how all these PhDs stay as postdocs forever and never get any further in life. These guys want to become professors. I don't. Stop  worrying about my career outlook when I have less ambitious goals than other overly-anxious people. 

- Declutter, Declutter, Declutter.

- Cannot re-emphasize enough: do not be anxious over other people's expections of me or of how they think life should be. Everyone wants different things in life. Some are more ambitious than others. Some handle stress better than others. Some can multitask at a higher level; some are natural born leaders. Stop comparing myself to every single successful person my age. Keep my goals framed within my means and abilities.

- Be happy with what I have and what I've achieved so far. As long as the boss isn't anxious to kick me out the door ASAP, so stop beating myself up.

This list will probably just keep getting longer. But it feels good to be able to do something about the crappiness rather than just feel crappy every day. 

What little things can YOU do for yourself to lessen your crappy feelings about life?

Life recently

Last week I experienced improvements in moods, due to meeting good people, hanging out with good friends, having friends visiting Stockholm, etc. My moods predictably crashes every Monday, when I have to meet with a Debbie Downer colleague at this other office. I really wish I were more immune to the influence of others people's moods. Can you imagine becoming depressed yourself every time you bump into someone who happens to exhibit depression traits? It doesn't seem like the boss or other people in the building are affected by it as much as I do. I don't like to be this sensitive, but pretending I am not affected doesn't seem to actually improve my mood. I notice that prolonged gloomy weather also has this effect on me. Maybe I should count my lucky stars that I don't catch a cold or some other infectious disease any time I come in proximity to somebody who is sick. If you have any tips on how I would very much appreciate it.

I try to savor the moments when I am surrounded by positive, caring people. It seems like when I hang out with certain people, they make me feel welcome and that I belong with the group. At work I feel like an outsider, not really fitting in with the colleagues for various reasons (language, different sense of humour, cultural differences, scientific interests, etc). The expat friends I've met recently all seem to have developed their own strategies for surviving in a foreign country where the locals don't exactly understand why they bother to move to another country. Everyone's strategies are quite different, and catered to themselves. I need to develop my own strategies as well.

Yoga practice has been tough. Seems like I haven't been engaging my abs enough and have been dumping into my low back. Also, because of friends visiting, I haven't been able to go to that many morning practices. I am horrible at managing my sleep schedule so I don't know if I should keep going or if I should take a break and re-assess my daily waking hour allocations.

I do wonder why the heck did I get myself in this situation. I think I'm not assertive enough in asking for what I want. If I did I could have done better with my studies and careers in my own country and not have to move to another continent. Feels like working in a foreign country is something I should have done in my mid-20s rather than my 30s. Younger people are just more tolerant of foreigners I think. I don't feel that life will be better if I move back to my home city right now. The science community is the same as before I moved. I miss my yoga community dearly, but yoga is a hobby not a career for me.

Feels like the strategy now is to try to be more efficient at work. I will feel better about myself if I become more productive. I should also take up any opportunity of socializing and recreation events that will cheer me up. I need all the positivity and cheering up I could get.