Is mindfulness making us ill?

I guess the title of the article is a click bait, where journalist Dawn Foster makes the piece controversial on purpose in order to get more readership. She started by describing her personal experience with meditation for the first time.  In the passage below, she described something I have also experienced myself:

"We’re told to close our eyes and think about our bodies in relation to the chair, the floor, the room: how each limb touches the arms, the back, the legs of the seat, while breathing slowly. But there’s one small catch: I can’t breathe. No matter how fast, slow, deep or shallow my breaths are, it feels as though my lungs are sealed. My instincts tell me to run, but I can’t move my arms or legs. I feel a rising panic and worry that I might pass out, my mind racing. Then we’re told to open our eyes and the feeling dissipates. I look around. No one else appears to have felt they were facing imminent death. What just happened?
For days afterwards, I feel on edge. I have a permanent tension headache and I jump at the slightest unexpected noise. The fact that something seemingly benign, positive and hugely popular had such a profound effect has taken me by surprise."

Instead of having a conversation with the meditation teacher about this experience, Foster went on to list a whole bunch more examples of negative cases that others have experienced, including a case as extreme as having to see a therapist for the next 15 years for psychotic depression. She ended the piece by saying that "there are alternative relaxation methods that can keep you grounded: reading, carving out more time to spend with friends, and simply knowing when to take a break from the frenetic pace of life."

Hmm.. I guess this is equivalent to trying out a "ballet for workout" class without anticipating how how intensity the class could be, getting a foot cramp from all the toe pointing, goes on to interview a bunch of other beginners whose experiences of the class also deviated from their expectations, and then concluding that there are alternative methods of exercises that could provide a good workout. Except reading, spending time with friends etc. do not quite achieve the same results as meditation. I suppose she was strictly talking about methods of relaxation.

The cases where people needed to go see a therapist... my guess is that they needed to see a therapist to begin with, but they had hoped that a session of a mass meditation class would magically make their inner problems go away. I would say meditation exposed the existing problems rather than causing them. How sad would it be, if the very simple act of concentrating on observing your breathing would make you depressed and go crazy?

As for the anxiety experienced from the first sessions, well, common sense should tell us that we shouldn't be able to hurt ourselves simply by sitting and having our eyes closed. This restlessness can be experienced when we wait too long for the traffic light, when airplane delay happens and we really need to get to our destination, and other situations in our life when our mind cannot anticipate what's going to happen next, or when our mind feels like the situation is not under its control. Hopefully the teacher will be understanding enough to let the student get up or at least shift positions.

So what the journalist main legitimate concern is that the meditation teacher isn't "qualified" enough to offer the class. Perhaps before one signs up for a meditation class, one should be given a short description of what mindfulness meditation involves, what mindfulness meditation is and isn't, and one should answer a medical questionnaire and sign a waiver just like the kind of forms they give out before you sign up for a gym. Um, I guess for legal reasons meditation teachers should have such a procedure to protect themselves from people's idiocy.

I would say that the journalist underestimated how powerful mindfulness meditation practice could be, and how erratic our minds are (which is precisely why meditation was invented in the first place, to deal with all our anxiety).

Another point is that if a company is not confident that it offers a great work environment for its workers, it might not be doing itself good by offering mindfulness class to its employees. One byproduct that could happen is that the employees may realize during meditation practice that they actually hate this job and need to make major changes to their lives. On the bright side good companies may use this to weed out employees that are not a good fit with this company. The ones who are left have hopefully decided that they want to grow at this company and can use the meditation classes to help clear their minds, solve their personal relationship issues, and be more focused at work.

I guess I wouldn't say that meditation is for everyone, since I have noticed some people reeeeeeally dislike the idea of examining their inner fears, shame, past traumas, and pent up grudges. They would prefer to stay in control by doing a lot of activities, taking food and other substances, using outer senses in order to suppress the unwanted thoughts and feelings that arise out of nowhere. I personally would prefer to look at my daemons in the eye and become aware of the list of issues that haunt me, figuring out which of my poor behaviours are coping mechanisms and which behaviours come from my authentic being. I would venture to guess that for those who don't want to examine their authentic selves, they are quite comfortable with their coping mechanisms and do not want to change their ways. To each their own, I say.

New Year, new changes

Lots of things have happened recently. As you know, I have been practicing meditation for the last few months, but unfortunately it all fell apart when I went to visit family over the holidays. I could not step back and observe the situation from a third person point of view. Instead I was the grumpy youngest daughter who ruined everyone else's fun.

I think a big problem is that I am very alone here in a foreign country. I have no one to talk to, no one who is interested in listening to what I have to say. When I go home, I was hoping the family would pay some attention to my expression of myself. Instead, the way they express love is to push too much food at me, which I got scared of since I witnessed that both my sister and her daughter have gained significant amounts of weight while my mother is still "being loving" and feeding them excessively. Secondly, all they can talk about is shopping, and food. My mom also constantly complained about how bad the TV shows have become, but still has the TV turned out first thing in the morning until bed time. I am just sick and tired of a family who attempts absolutely nothing to change the (big or small) problems they have in their lives. Another thing I can't stand is that they like to talk to me as if I were 5 or 10 years old. As much as I hated it, I couldn't help regressing back to a small child since I could not reason with them logically.

I actually achieved huge step forward by getting my mother to go see a counsellor with me, hoping to get him to explain the problems going on between us. Because of my short stay we couldn't go to a lot of sessions, but I have learned that after all these years, my mother thinks the problem is 100% with me. I am too pessimistic, depressed, and unreasonable. I think the counsellor got through a little bit to her that she needs to listen to me more often (although during our session she still cuts me off and goes on and on about what she thinks I want to say and what I should do and how I should behave, for my own good, etc etc). The counsellor said that he will ask her to keep going back to him but I doubt my mom will comply.  It is very difficult to get a 70 year old woman to change her ways, of course, but at least during the rest of my stay, she stopped forcing me to accept everything that she kept offering me.

I think I have become the way I am because my upbringing emphasised too much on school grades and not at all on building inter-human relationships. My family believes that as long as we are a family, we should do stuff together and keep all negative emotions bottled up without resolving them. My mother believes that by being optimistic alone will resolve all negative feelings.

My short meditation experience have taught me that because my family has never had any interests in listening to what I have to say, I have learned to internalize my dialogue into my head. When I watch my thoughts, the dialogue goes on non-stop all day long. When I feel really strongly about something it is next to impossible to stop the mind chattering. I will keep working on it though.

I also really need more socializing in my life. Finally broke up with bf. It's been really difficult because he has been like a best friend and I really needed companionship and someone to talk to. I used to only want to hang out with him and not bother making friends. But he got jealous that I wanted to spend time with my new found friends, but at the same time was not motivated to do activities with me. We would often just stay in his house the whole weekend and watch youtube videos. That is not the kind of life style I want for long term.

There will be some changes to work, but certain situations remain the same. Many individuals complain about the same things constantly ( I guess I used to be one of them) without bothering to make much changes. I need to figure out how to not be affected by all the negativities.

I realize this post is very long-winded. If possible I would actually like to quit my job and create a more focused blog instead of this rant-style diary type blog. Alas, I will tough it out for one more year. If academia doesn't work out then I will go try something new and work on my inter-personal skills. Actually, even if it works out (if I publish well), I'm not sure if I want to stay in this field. It is too competitive and I feel like I'm just playing catch up constantly. Also I feel like I've just being exploited by all the irresponsible ego-centric bosses. It's time to take my life back in my own control again.

Meditation works -- even if you are only half trying

After the "success" last time when I managed to stay awake the entire 45 minutes using ujjayi breathing, sadly subsequent practices I went back to falling asleep or paying too much attention to my mental ramblings half way through the guided bodyscan meditation. However, even though 95% of the time I could only focus on my body in the beginning and the end of guided meditation, I still feel very refreshed when I complete the practice.

In my regular life, I notice that I am more able to "be mindful", ie. focus on what's around me rather than being lost in my thoughts. I think the weekly practice of focusing on my breath or body really helps noticeably reduce my negative thinking train of thoughts.

I think yoga is also a way to practice meditation, or at least release the tension in the body. However the meditation course helps me to practice release tension even if I cannot do a yoga sequence. It is actually harder than yoga. By exerting the muscles, or holding a balance, or performing a stretch, it gives me a strong sensation to focus on. Bodyscan while inactive makes it really difficult for me to "feel my toes".... there are no sensations going on in the inactive body parts.

Now that I have learned some skills to cope with the racing mind, I need to get back to exercising after the course finishes so I can strengthen my body too.

A nice break from my toxic life routines

A friend visited yesterday.. I haven't met him for 10 years. Was very exciting to hear that a start-up company that he co-founded with his brother is doing extremely well and will probably go public soon. As I showed him around town, he told me the steps that they took to get the company this far. This is so rarely that I almost believe that a successful start-up by ordinary people is pure fantasy. Really happy that someone I know is succeeding with entrepreneurship, especially with a product that will be beneficial to millions of people around the world.

I also had a chance to go to a more focused clinical conference (totally not in my area) where the physicians seemed genuinely interested in improving medicine and take care of patients (which is great to hear). So I was happy that they are so friendly and care about the subject. But it seemed like they didn't really invite many research expert in the area to present at this conference. So it was a lot of people (mostly clinicians) asking questions but not a lot of people explaining current state of knowledge for this research area.

But it's really nice to step out of my toxic personal bubble to be around people who care more about their work and have more wholesome lives. I'm grateful for these opportunities.. but I really hope I can be around these kind of people regularly rather than meeting them once a decade. I need to figure out how to change my life and/or my mindset to have a more (mentally) healthy life.

Too much bullshit in my life

These days I've been thinking a lot about quitting my job and going home. My boss is grossly egotistical, delusional, and manipulative (and charming like a snake). I don't share the same values as my coworkers here. I am being regarded as a tech rather than a scholar. The guy whom I so far have regarded as my best friend treats me like crap. There is just a ton of delusion and very little compassion, wisdom, spirituality, let alone equanimity or enlightenment.

They say you are the average of those who are closest to you. Basically I have been this pessimistic chronic complainer who's always negative and unhappy about everything. This is super unhealthy. I need to get out of this social environment but I don't know how. I really want to wrap up my work so I have something to show for my time here, but the bosses and collaborators are making it very difficult. I'm looking forward to the day when I can get away from all the bullshit in my life.

Loudness

I have recently realised that I find many of my family members "annoying" simply because they prefer lots of external stimulations. So at a social setting, if there is silence for a few seconds, they feel the need to start a joke or make loud small talks. Conversely, they find me annoying because they find me so frighteningly quiet. I don't need constant social interactions. Moments of silence feel like blessing to me, even when I'm among friends and family.

Such incompatibility makes my family convinced that I am difficult to be around, and that it is me who must make the adjustments to fit in with society. Being introverted in my household is as bad as being gay - no offense to gay people, but my family is racist and discriminatory towards all kinds of people who don't fit in a very narrow profile of acceptable behaviour and lifestyle. My mom has openly told me many times when I grew up that she would be very upset with me if I were gay.

On the other hand, my bf finds me too loud when I get excited and start gesturing and increase my speech volume. Basically, no matter what, I am always behaving inappropriately. My goal in life is to find someone who will roughly accept me as who I am. I am willing to do the work to improve myself, but I need time and patience from others. I am tired of being incompatible with the entire world. Looking forward to a change of relationships.

Religious organizations: critical thinking vs. sense of fulfillment

Recently, Taiwan's media is full of drama about how religious organization take advantages of massive loopholes in the Taiwanese law system to evade tax, are non-transparent about usage of public donation money, encroach on lands not meant to be developed, and perform for-profit actions even though they are registered as NGOs. 

One of the main points from all these drama is the need for the government to quickly fix the laws so they can better regulate all organized religions. However, the focus of the media seems to be that since religious organizations try to teach people to be moral, shouldn't they hold themselves with morality higher than what is required by law and provide more transparent declarations of their financial statements? So the media people acted like hounds detecting the scent of wounds and went ahead to tear apart the organizations' flaws, exposing all their amoral activities, treating major and minor flaws with equal fervour in terms of judgement.

Well, internationally, from the Catholic Church, to ISIS, we know that all large religious organizations are composed of human beings, and are therefore bound to have problems despite the moral, well-meaning teachings of all holy books. Seems to be like the only way to fix the problem *is* to pass stricter regulations, because time and time again, it has been shown that self-regulation does NOT work, whether it's the financial sector, business world, scientific field, sports, education, religious field, or the government itself.

An interesting interaction I observed, was a debate between 2 cousins over the above mentioned issue. One of them, who is a member of the Taiwanese religious organization. She is angry and saddened by all the recent public criticisms over her beloved organization, which consists of a group of volunteers for whom she has high respects and with whom she enjoys working and volunteering together.

While I'm happy for her that she finds true happiness and fulfillment in life through volunteering work at the organization, along with a group of like-minded people, it also raises several questions in my mind:

1. Because this organization performs a lot of charity work worldwide, and because it provides a platform for good-hearted people like my cousin, is it okay for the members organization to ignore the acts of tax evasion, donation embezzlement, and other amoral activities, performed by higher management of the this organization in Taiwan?

2.  The volunteer activities that my cousin perform routinely (provide free dental care periodically for the poor), in a way, demonstrates the incompetence of the local government. In other words, if she lived in a country with better social care, like one of the Scandinavian country, then her act of charity would not be needed (ie. the government would pay for her service for those who can't afford it). Would she still feel fulfilled living in such a country, or would she feel at a loss? Because, realistically, the government can provide more comprehensive service coverage than a charity organization can.

I think about it because I feel the Swedes are a bit cold, since they feel that every social issue should be the government's problem, and the Swedish government does try to tackle most of the issues, but of course not with the same kind of fervour as a charity group. I never used to think this way, but recently I begin to feel like volunteering is actually a selfish act, meant to make the volunteer feel better about themselves. Having done many types of volunteer work in Vancouver, I do feel kind of hollow that I cannot easily find an organization to volunteer for in Sweden, since I don't speak the language. Shouldn't I be happy that the people here are so well taken care of? Not exactly. I think I feel happier if I have more opportunity to help out and feel useful.

3. As an outsider observing the news reports and blog articles, there is extremely like something is really wrong with the transparency of this Taiwanese religious organization, since it does not seem to want to be honest with its members or the public. Several of those who criticize the organization have done a lot of research and provide a lot of evidence to back their claims. Many of them are also highly educated and highly accomplished people in law, politics, social service, journalism, etc. Yet the members of this organization seem to repeat the same argument over and over again to defend their organization: our organization has done so much good in this world. How dare you criticize us? How does bringing down our organization serve the world? Does it bring you peace and happiness, or just a wicked sense of satisfaction? 

I'm pretty sure through constant digging of the public, the corruption and unlawful events will be continually dug up for examination by the Taiwanese society. For me, the scarier part is the apparent blindness of the members, that criticizing the unlawful aspects of an organization does not negative all the good it provides for the society, and that more transparency is good for everyone, including the public, the donors, the government, the members, and those who receive help from the organization. One thing that is really wrong is that this organization has brainwashed its members such that no one from within the group has spoken up in agreement about the need for improved transparency.

Another issue that concerns me is that its members seem to think that peace and harmony are more important than truth and transparency. This is, I guess, a central principle of Asian societies that follow Confucius teachings. The individual is not important. The prosperity of the organization, be it family, school, company, religious group, or the nation, is more important than any of the individuals. The teachings are more dogmatic and do not encourage critical thinking. I recall an earlier interaction I had with this cousin about some family issue. Her response was for me to reflect within about myself. I tried to share with her some of my reflections, but it seemed like her message was to keep reflecting; focus on what's wrong with yourself rather than what's wrong with everyone else. Don't just keep complaining about other people. While I partially agree with this type of thinking, I disagree with turning a complete blind eye on the faults of the others.  

Sorry about the super long post. I guess my question is at what point does a virtuous teaching (self-reflection) make you less aware about what's happening around you and how easily can biased teaching make you see the world through very biased lenses? I am of course, also biased by my way of living, my upbringing, my education, and by those around me. Are we all hopelessly biased or does critical thinking still has a place in this world? Why do I have trouble communicating with pretty much every member of my family with attempted reasoning? Maybe in another 10 years I'll be able to put my thoughts into writing that is a bit more digestible by readers. For now please excuse my mental garbage dumping.

Where do I fit in this world?

How does an introvert, somewhat ADD girl who works too slowly, gets distracted easily, has terrible social skills/communication skills, who tends to dislike most people fit in this world?

My contract is ending again. I feel like I'm perpetually worried about where to go next. In trying to understand myself, I have learn that I am disorganized, too idealistic and therefore not very good at putting ideas into concrete results. Hence I'm terrible at writing project proposals as well as making a manuscript. I am terrible at dealing with people. Seems like I don't get along with 90% of whoever I encounter. The 10% I do get along with are probably the most easy going and socially intelligent people in the world, which means they get along with 99.9% of the world's population.

I took up a technical job because I thought I could just hide behind my desk and just churn out good work + make a living out of it. But it turns out I am too inefficient. So far I haven't had a position where I am really good at what I do. Now I don't think I am stupid (low on EQ and Social Intelligence, but not IQ), but I probably aimed too high in terms of the type of job I think I can do.

I still think science is the right type of job for me. Unfortunately the current system does not allow people with my kind personality to stay in the field. Grad schools keep pumping out PhDs, who are eager to work for peanuts for a few years under professors as postdocs. Because of this, there is no reason to keep experienced scientist in your lab, because the salary goes up. Also, because of the funding structure, every job is temporary. I'm at an age where I want to settle down but I have no idea which country will allow me to stay for long term.

In addition, to survive in the research field, every professor is making their lab members work on 5 projects at once. I know the logical thing to do is to focus on one project at a time, but since I spent 6 years working on only one project, right now I have no idea how to juggle 5 at once. I am constantly stressed out, have no time to cook and exercise. This is really a terrible situation.

I really think I could use a retreat, but right now I'm using my vacation to visit family, which is more stressful than relaxing. My mother still doesn't get that I don't like her planning my life. It's her thing to force her offerings (presents, food, money, planning activities) on other people, regardless of whether they want it or not. You might think that, what's wrong with free things? Why would anyone decline free stuff? Well, nothing in life is ever free, even if it's offered by your own mom. Basically she wants you to be her slave if you dare to accept her presents. She would tell everybody how much she has given you. She would expect you to do favors for her at a time that's totally inconvenient for you. Sometimes she offers you something that is more a burden for you than a present. But she still counts it as that you owe her a favour. I'd much rather have my freedom than take her offerings.

Anyways, I need to find myself another job that would not make me want to pull out all my hair and cry about not being able to deliver. And I'm tired of moving around. Question is where should I go next. I'm too busy to do any serious job hunting. Perhaps over Christmas time.

Recent ramblings about opportunities, uncertainties, and social media

I attended a career building workshop recently. I must say that I do not remember ever being in the same room among such vast majority of individuals with so much self-doubt, self-criticism, skepticism towards alternative ideas, and fear of making mistakes.

If you wonder who are these people: these are a group of PhD students. Sometimes I think the purpose of graduate school is to strip students free of all shreds of self-confidence, instill hyper-tunnel-vision into students, and make them forget they are actually highly intelligent individuals capable of doing so many things.

For me, it was very refreshing to hear so many alternative perspectives from people who are not in traditional careers (kudos to the organizers). A lot of the ideas that I took for granted from observing how yoga teachers make a living (using Twitter/Instagram/Facebook marketing to get clients and to sell merchandise) were unheard of for most people in the classroom, who likely had been following nothing but scientific literatures and news websites, and maybe their own personal interests that did not involve social media marketing. Many were highly against/scared of the idea of "branding" themselves on internet. I guess I already went through that mental struggle myself back when Kino first started posting daily selfies in short shorts and yoga instruction Youtube videos online. It's been a few years now and she's been hugely successful, in terms of increasing visibility among the public worldwide, promoting her reputation, as well as pushing her merchandises (books, clothing, jewelry, yoga mats, retreats, workshops). Without a doubt, social media marketing is ridiculously effective if used in the right way.

To be honest, what I took from the workshop for me wasn't to learn how to use Twitter, but how different I felt from everyone else in the room. I guess my own grad school experience, however negative it was, still gave me space to pull myself away from my project mentally and pay attention to what's out there, while many others have been so focused on getting their experiments to work without having any mental space left to ponder about alternatives. Ironically, I am the one who is currently more interested in continuing research while >50% of the room have had enough and are ready to quit academia.

Life is full of ironies. I've been thinking about ending it with my bf for quite some time now. However, because of my emotional detachment from him, he feels less pressure from me and seems happier about the current status of our relationship.  However he still plans his life separately from mine. I'm not entirely sure what to do. I guess I will have to plan my life independently of him too.

It's good to know I have a lot of opportunities but at the same time it is also quite unsettling that I have not established a good support network nor have I convinced someone to go through the journey of life together.

Absurdity of life

In my previous post, a reader pointed out that my emotional mood swings sounds like the definition of 'Borderline'. I have observed other people to be of borderline personality, but never consider myself to have borderline tendencies. In my "defense", I blame my education to cause me to become this way.

The thing is, after realizing the world has always been a hugely unfair place, that hard work does not always get rewarded, that people who are the most eager to give you advice on life lessons tend to know less than the people who keep their silence, that successful people seem to possess a truckload of tricks and strategies that I have never come across in my life before (since these skills are not taught in school or written in textbooks), that it's my own fault that I buried my head in books for decades and didn't bother to lift my head and take a good look at the rest of the world, I am still buried under my strict expectations my minimal definition of how life should be for a hardworking woman in her 30s.

At this point I should just admit that I got the rules of the game of life all wrong. I wagered all my attention, brain resources, and youth on studying; I put little effort into interpersonal relationships, not with friends, family, or the opposite sex. This blinder approach got me tremendously off track.

So now that I am completely off the expected track (due to a lifetime of hardcore studying and many weekends put to unpaid work and a good amount of volunteer work): mid-30s, no marriageable partner, no stable job, shitty career path, few friends in the city where I live, no family around, pretty much nothing to show for my hard work because none of my friends and family understand or care about what it is I work on, of course I am feeling quite desperate and borderline.

The alternative, which I hadn't considered lately, as mentioned in Zee's blog, is that life is empty and meaningless anyways. I should stop taking myself so seriously and just laugh at the whole absurdity of it all. Look at the situation in Crimea. Look at climate change. Economic booms and busts. Entertainment, processed food, and pharmaceutical industries being super dominant in the world. Hedge funds. Banking crisis. Anusara yoga (lol). WhatsApp worth 19 billion US dollars. Priorities all f***ed up. Yet we teach our children to be honest, moral, diligent and they shall succeed?

I should just be happy I have enough money to feed myself today. Marriage? Forget about it. Friends? Most are not dependable anyways (as I have learned over the years). Family? Their absurdities make funny party stories I guess.

Maybe I should stop worrying about how to get back on track (I'm too far off the mainstream path to get back on it anyways) and just appreciate the funny parts of life more from now on.

Relationship kerfuffle

I was chatting with a friend today online and I was complaining about my bf's bad behaviors recently. I was expecting some consolations or advice on how to deal with it, but instead she said, "He's not treating you very well. Why do you put up with this?"

I was quite shocked when I heard this (or saw the words on my screen). Coming from a family of aunts, female cousins and mom, who sometimes act like total bitches towards their significant others, I went from naïvely thinking that's how women are supposed to/entitled to act, to vowing not to act like them when I'm in a relationship. Now it's becoming really difficult to judge myself if I've gone too far in the other direction or if my friend is over-exaggerating (She has a very strong personality).

I know I have a general tendency to rant about the problems rather than the positive aspects of my relationships and my work life with my friends and family. So, knowing that they get a biased picture of my life, I cannot totally trust their advice. On the other hand, I also know that the bf has serious commitment phobia, complain directly to me about the smallest bad habits that I have, and cannot seem to make future plans with me more than 1 month ahead (hello vacations?)

If I were a super charming, popular girl with a flock of pursuers, I wouldn't think twice about instantly dumping any guy who dares to show a single sign of inattentiveness towards me. However, the reality is that I'm a neurotic, somewhat emotionally unstable, disagreeable, eccentric nerd who's spent more time living in her own head and burying her face in books/scientific papers than interacting with people her entire life.  99.9% of my male friends (and I had a lot of male acquaintances) over the years have expressed mostly sympathy towards me rather than romantic admirations. I don't feel like I can afford to be super choosy. Even though I know he won't relocate with me should I get a job in another country, I enjoy the times that we do spend together, however long (or short) remaining time that would be.

However, my friend's words kind of shook my thinking quite a bit. Perhaps I can afford to stand up for myself a bit more and then see what happens. I can't really worsen a relationship that has no long term potential anyways.

A world ruled by money

I watched the Olympic Gold medal men's hockey game on Sunday -- Sweden vs. Canada (Canada won the gold). I cheered for Canada but the way Sweden played it really seemed like they gave up half way through the game. As my Canadian friends all cheered all over Facebook at 5:30am Pacific time, and the Swedes sulked in disappointment (not a single bad word or criticism mind you), I couldn't help but feel something was off.

The broadcast of this hockey game in Sweden would be equivalent to the Superbowl in the US... 70% of the entire nation probably had their eyes glued to the TV.  I was therefore interested in the types of commercials they would play. I was expecting usual brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, maybe something Swedish like Volvo or IKEA or H&M commercials? Nope. Instead, there were endless commercials from online betting websites.. I counted at least four of them in total, shown repeatedly at almost every commercial break. I think it says something about today's sports.

Next, I found out one of Sweden's major players was disallowed from playing the gold medal game a few hours before the game started because he was tested positive for pseudoephedrine usage. Um, that's what I used when I have a stuffy nose. I think losing a key player right before a game can certainly significantly affect morale. I was chatting with a friend about it and she said the IOC, FIFA and all the major sports organization committees have always been corrupt, so what else is new?

I think what's new is how much MORE money is involved in the sports games compared to before. With online gambling, new riches in Russia, China and Latin America, there are even more cash at stake associated with the outcome of each game.

I guess many people just accept the fact that the big players in the world shove money around and control almost all aspects of our lives -- our food choice availabilities, our entertainment options, the news shown to us (and the biased angles), our shopping habits, our relationships. I guess most of my life I've been kind of avoiding the entertainment giants.  I barely purchase any music; I rarely watch Hollywood blockbuster movies (I prefer artsy indies); I don't often watch much sports, nor do I play video games (an industry that is surpassing movie industry in terms of size and amount of money to be made as I've been told).  In other words, I've been a total loner for most of my life. With my new relationships (friendship and romance), I learned that most people demand entertainment to be as available as tap water, heating system and electricity. They want it cheap, they want lots and lots of it, they want high quality, and no-hassle total convenience. These as-a-matter-of-fact desires fill the pockets of corporations with billions and billions of dollars, at the expense and negligence of so many other things in the world that I think are more important.

People think rich is rich, doesn't matter if you are a millionaire or a billionaire, since most people cannot imagine themselves ever to be in that position, having so much cash lying around. I've even heard people say that they wish they could become a millionaire so they can give most of the money away, because being a philanthropist makes them feel good. Um, if you give most of your money away, you can do it once and then you're back to where you started, ie. not rich any more. As to the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire, well, if you are a millionaire, you can live comfortably and have nice things around in your house (or, if you live in Vancouver, you can't even afford a house, LOL). If you are a billionaire, you can start influencing the stock market, business deals, the media, and politicians. So there IS a huge difference in terms of how much money you have at the super rich level. Money = Power  = Influence when you have enough of it.

Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong time period or I just don't belong in this world. I'm sure there are similar minded people out there but they sure are hard to find since they are such minorities. If they weren't, then this world would look very different from what it is right now.

I act like such a mouse most of the time because most people dismiss my opinions so easily, which makes me think I'm always wrong, or at least my opinions do not matter. It's tough to have the whole world against you every single day. My mother would say I should just stop having opinions and agree with everyone else all the time. That should make people like me better. But it's the worst advice to give to your child. Then people say you're a push-over and have no personality. The only way to survive being the oddball is to be quirky and charismatic I guess, so that at least you're somewhat entertaining and fun to have around even if people never agree with you.

Bachelor's degree = marriage material?

The other day I read on Facebook a problem statement from a relative, describing her friend who asked her for advice: Given her daughter has failed grades in almost every course, with the lowest scores in English and math, which university she should attend. The friend mentioned that her daughter wants to study management.  Given the current education system in Taiwan, many crappy universities in Taiwan will still accept her daughter. The obvious thing is that the daughter will probably have trouble finding anything but minimum wage jobs after getting her degree.

Another relative commented that instead of going to university, this girl should probably learn a trade instead. However, if she wants a university degree for the purpose of increasing her chance of finding a suitable husband, then the problem of career prospect does not exist and she should just attend any university that she thinks is suitable for her.

I can't begin to describe how many problems I see with the above statement. It is precisely because of the above mentality (University degree = a better person/more suitable marriage), that the Taiwan government approved the conversion of hundreds of trade schools into universities. I can't blame them though as Canada does the same thing with many of its colleges, NOT for the reason of producing more marriageable people though, but for being able to claim that Canada has more college grads than any other countries in the world. Is that a better reason for creating more universities? Probably not, but at least the reasoning is less convoluted. How the hell does a B.A. make you better marriage material anyways, unless the school offers cooking courses and relationship guidance? (which are probably good ideas by the way)

The above conversation helped me understand something about my mom's logic. Because I didn't pursue a medical degree, then my education was garbage in terms of career building. The main function of a Bachelors degree, as far as she was concerned, was to signal to other Chinese parents with sons that I am a piece of suitable marriage material. This explains a lot of the strange actions that she performed over the past decade that were extremely puzzling to me for the longest time.

As for that girl and her parents, somehow I would say that at that age, "management" just sounds like a good career. Who knows what it actually involves? I can only say that before asking around, they really should have an honest conversation with her daughter first, gently informing her that people in management positions often have to outcompete other people in some way, either in terms of grades at school, performance at the work place, work/life experience, or exceptional skills at convincing the boss they are somehow the best candidate for management. I mean, I think she can pursue the path if she really wants to, but maybe, she should pay more attention in classes, and start working summer jobs to observe how managers do their jobs. But I am not surprised or upbeat about her situation, because my parents also prefer to discuss with anybody and everybody in the world except with me about my personal future. Go figure.

Emotional maturity, Impostor syndrome, "Lean in" movement

My work and my relationship challenge me left, right and center every day. I read up on "emotional maturity" and find out (unsurprisingly) that I am pretty juvenile when it comes to EQ.

It seems to be a big topic that women are less likely to stay on track in their careers because they're more likely to feel like impostors. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, started a movement called "Lean In", asking women to stay confident, stay ambitious, keep moving up the ladder in the organization, even if they think they want to put more focus on family and children some day.

While I did often feel like an impostor (not good enough for my job), lately it's the other way around. I feel like I am not enough of an impostor to play the game of "fake it 'til you make it", and worse, "fake it after you make it, for the rest of your life".

Lately I get this strong feeling that my PhD supervisor (a woman), my current bosses and I suspect most leaders in all organization are all impostors. Even when they don't fully understand something they will behave and speak in a manner that make it seem like they are the expert on that subject. Basically whoever's the most ambitious and can act like they know things better than other people make it to the top. The actual knowledge matters less. The appearance matters more than the essence.

So, if I also direly wish to become a professor or a group leader, instead of improving my scientific knowledge, I should actually put more efforts into improving my self confidence, learning to speak and act like a leader. I should be more emotionally mature and not blow the cover of other impostor leaders, acknowledging that their "expert advice" sound totally helpful and I should give it a try, instead of pointing out that they have no idea what they are talking about and are just throwing out some random buzz words to show they are not completely oblivious to the topic at hand.

Except that's not what I want at all. I dislike being an impostor working closely among other impostors. I want to be in a position where I am actually good at what I do, and working among other inspiring people. I don't care if I "downshift" my career as long as I'm among the right people, but I don't know if there's such a community out there for me, or if the whole world is just full of impostors at high positions in governments, banks, businesses, and scientific institutions.

Maybe I'll think differently if I become more "emotionally mature", and right now I'm just ranting like a juvenile. Who knows.

The Tai Chi of dealing with people

Last week I observed my boss and his more senior/established/famed collaborator undergo the "Tai Chi" of negotiation. On the surface it appeared that the two of them were joking around a lot during the meeting, but in reality it was a power struggle, where the collaborator was trying to entice the junior professor to take up a whole bunch of technical work by painting a verbal picture of the medical importance of these projects and how doing these work could put us in the forefront of the research field in terms of those specific subject areas. My boss was indeed intrigued by the medical potentials; however he was also aware that the senior guy wants to dump a huge amount of workload on him, so he made plenty of stupid jokes while trying to assert that these technical tasks are more time-consuming than people seem to think. The senior guy jokes that there are 24 hours a day and that should be enough time to work on multiple projects. He did this because my boss was over-claiming the amount of time required to perform some of the tasks. 

To me this discussion could have been 1000 times more straightforward. The senior guy could have just described all the interesting research ideas he has which our group could potentially work on. My boss could have just made a conservative estimate of how many of these ideas he can get his staff to put into implementation and make a rough estimate of the amount of time required. But I guess that would be too boring. For them it made more sense to just joke around to keep the atmosphere "light". My super boring linear mind was confused: why all these jokes and dance and over-exaggeration of potentials and difficulty level of the work? I thought this kind of stuff are reserved for politicians and are "beneath" science? 

Sadly I think this type of negotiation is not restricted to the world of business and politics. If we are too straightforward, the "truth" can hurt our relationship with others and our career potentials. To get ahead in the world we must all have the skill to sell ourselves, to joke around to establish friendliness, but also to work in our assertions and basic values without offending the other party.

Unfortunately I am totally unequipped with this type of skills to be witty and funny and manipulate/maneuver my way out of sticky situations. I don't know how to keep the people I am obliged to deal with happy even if I don't like the situation (or the people); I take everything people tell me at the face value and rarely ponder about the meanings in between the lines. To me it seems like it doesn't matter what field they're in (even if it's NGO or social or charity work), successful people in the world are people who are masters at playing the diplomacy game - people who can convince other people to do what they want them to do wins, which means diplomacy, persuasion, manipulation,  ie. marketing and sales skills trump all other technical skills. Even if I want to quit my job and go volunteer the the poorest village in the world or something, I still need to possess the above-mentioned skill set, or at the very least recognized others are manipulating me or selling me ideas that are not as straightforwards as they sound; otherwise I will be taken advantage of, being stepped all over, and become frustrated no matter what I choose to do with my life.

Another thing: I'm used to jokes back home that are light hearted and to some degree politically correct. I'm really tired of jokes being made around my social/work circles here that sound potentially offensive in a personal way, overly sarcastic, sometimes racist/discriminatory, and then they are like "oh I'm just  joking".  Back home people most likely wouldn't laugh at these jokes. But here I feel like I've been bombarded by this kind of "jokes" (you could argue that some of these are "socially awkward people"). I need to figure out some way to deal with this; otherwise I feel like I'm going crazy. 

Energy management

I lose energy so easily it's pathetic. At work I can only truly focus for a few hours of productiveness. When I come home I am usually feel drained and exhausted. On Saturdays I sleep in, but sometimes even when I get up I don't feel fully awake. Coffee does not wake me up. Deep breathing helps a bit but I feel like I need more. I can't practice breath of fire when I'm at work because it looks to weird. The cold also really gets to me. I eat fatty food and drink a ton of warm drinks to try to warm myself up from the inside. If I could manage my energy, time and mood better I think I would try to exercise every day, practice pranayama, and socialize more. Instead I struggle to get out of bed every morning, end up being late for work, struggle to focus at work, get distracted and check other websites instead of concentrating on figuring out how to solve my project problems. It's so difficult to get "into the zone". When I succeed, my colleagues call for coffee break and the concentration is broken. I check email 50 times a day, complain about everything, feel anxious about my troubled relationship with my family back home, worry about not forming close friendships in this foreign city, doubt about my abilities to succeed in my job, worry about my career outcome in the future, and go home exhausted. This is for sure not the ideal way to live life.

But right now I feel good though. It's 11pm; I just had a glass of wine , I am breathing deeply and regularly. Actually, 11pm is always one of the more alert hours of the day. I treasure my rare moments of alertness which is why I don't want to go to bed, which is why I am so tired the next day. I really should be an artist instead and work during my alert hours instead of following this 9-5 work hour patterns which does not work for me.

I gotta make more changes in life to find something that works for me.

Negative thought monitoring

I think this winter coldness is really getting to me.

I love spending time alone. However, I'm noticing that if I spend too much time on my own, my thoughts go down a negative spiral. My brain picks out all the negative past memories and I starting mourning over my life. It's kind of scary actually that my brain DJ hand picks the unhappy memories rather than the happy ones. I reminisce about what could have been and if I had changed x,y and z in the past, my life would be so much better today (or, it could be completely different but not necessarily better). I went through my photos on my computer and was reminded by surprise of all the pleasant experiences that I have had the fortune to go through in the past. I really have lived quite a colourful life. I don't know why I only focus on the crappy moments in life and can't instead focus on the happy moments. I feel like I need to post all the happy photos on my walls to remind myself how fricking fortunate I am and stop dwelling on all the negativities because where I am today isn't exactly how I dreamed I would be 10 years ago.

I wonder if I would be in a better mood more often if I were living in somewhere warmer, or am I just horribly homesick and wish I were surrounded by familiar friends who tend to shower me with encouraging, supportive and flattering words. Today my roommate is actually more positive and more encouraging than I am. I'm thankful that she managed to cheer me up a little, but today's one of those days where I wonder what the heck I'm doing in a cold foreign country all by myself. The city is still as gorgeous as ever but I'm having trouble fully appreciating its beauty right now. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Introvertedness

I'm half way through the book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain, and I feel like she describes the profile of a typical introvert like she's been following me around and observing me my whole life. No wonder the sale of this book has gone through the roof. There must be millions of introverts out there must have been feeling like me, as misunderstood and as oppressed all of our lives as misfits in modern society. Our parents apologize to other people about our shyness since we were little kids, as if being soft-spoken is a poor behavior that needs to be corrected/rehabilitated. She also talked about stimulation levels, that extroverts need a certain level of external stimulations (sights, sounds, novelty) to be energized and stimulated to work and get through the day, while us introverts are the opposite - too much sensory stimulation drains us and we need a quieter environment to be able to concentrate and focus on work that require a lot of thoughts.

In a way this book helps me understand my mother (very extroverted) better. It drives me nuts that the TV is always on at home and that she's almost always on the phone. According to this book, extroverts need this type of stimulation or else they feel agitated and/or bored. My preference to sit quietly and read or spend hours in front of the internet must drive her nuts too. Environmental settings that calm me down agitate her and ambiences that energize her give me headaches. No wonder we can never get along with each other.

I'm having the same problem with my current flatmate. She talks too loudly for my amygdala's liking (apparently for introverts, our amygdala cannot take too much perception stimulation). She gets bored easily, enjoys verbalizing all her thoughts, including the circular ones and acts that she knows have failed her in the past. I don't understand why someone would declare she's are going to do activity x, and that it's going to suck, and then still goes ahead and does it. Then as a self-fulfilling prophecy, she comes back and tell me she didn't enjoy activity x. If you are going to be stupid about your life, please keep it in your head. I don't need to hear about it. Having grown up in blessed Canada, I realize we can be annoyingly positive about everything, but it's also way too annoying to live with someone who is negative about everything. If something is good, she never admits the positivity and says instead, "It's no SO bad", but most things are either crap or sh*t.  She complains a ton, and talks too much, but she also proudly states the two facts to everyone she first meets. I really don't know how to deal with this. I don't know how to tell her to stop complaining so much and stop being so negative in an assertive tone (I usually sound like a very uncertain mouse). I mean she's actually a really nice person.. it's just her attitudes and her habit of stating things majorly depress me.

I think things may have been better if I told her off the first day we starting sharing a flat together, but now I just dread going home every day. Normally my home is a quiet haven for me to relax, de-stress,
and re-energize. Now it is a place of negativity and too much sound stimulation. Both my flatmate and I signed a one-year contract and it is extremely difficult to find rentals in this city. I think she can sense a little bit that I prefer quiet, but I think she needs to vent about her day and she needs the stimulation of lots of activities and the TV. Introverts and extroverts may complement each other in work situations, but they don't do too well sharing one small living space.

In a positive way I guess this situation will motivate me to go out more rather than spending every evening at home, like I've been doing most of my life I guess.

War on "The Science of Yoga"

William J. Broad, author of the book "The Science of Yoga", recently wrote a follow-up to the book, citing new evidence of how yoga can potentially hurt people including national statistics from hospitals, personal letters he received those who have injured themselves badly from yoga, and example of serious strokes and death resulted of several individuals during of after taking a yoga class. The comments section attacked him on obfuscation and exaggeration and other things. There were a couple of follow-up articles discussing people's strong responses to Broad's claim about yoga's potential to cause serious injuries, and heated discussions followed those articles too.

It seems like yoga has become a religion for some people, with no room for suggestions that it could potentially cause harm to some people when done incorrectly and when hard postures are performed by bodies with certain pre-existing medical conditions. The defenders of yoga say that, "Well then, it's the carelessness of these people and the medical conditions that caused harm to them, NOT YOGA!" Um, could you have some compassion for beginners and people who are naturally less body-aware, dear yoga-defenders? Yoga has been heavily advertised to be safe and suitable for stiff people, obese people, those who are totally unfit, pregnant women, toddlers, seniors and cancer patients. So for people who don't have full awareness/understanding of their body parts, when they do a headstand and can't tell if it's their neck bearing all the weight or if their back muscles and arms participate in the posture, and then they seriously hurt themselves, are you going to tell them how dare they muck up yoga's low injury rate statistics?

Yoga is really not that mythical. Basically, it includes exercising, stretches, deep breathing, and self awareness (including body and thought patterns). The first 3 components de-stress and rejuvenates us. By being more self-aware, we are less like auto-pilots and can make more healthy conscious choices about our lives, despite all the societal conditioning in the world. Problem is that the image of yoga is such an idealized system that we again shut off part of our thinking brain and say, "Yoga is perfect, why criticize it at all? Just follow the system and we're all set to live our lives correctly." Well, since  humans are not perfect beings, we are bound to muck up any system that seems "perfect", by not engaging the proper muscles, over-squeezing the bandhas, dumping into our most flexible joints, stand on our heads without realizing we have ultra-high blood pressure/glaucoma etc. On the spiritual side I also found it difficult to be able to tell teachers who were preaching wise messages vs. those who were preaching bullsh*t for the longest time.

But it's the mysticism that keeps us so fervent about yoga, maybe. The fierce criticizers are worried the discussion will turn people away from yoga. For me, I enjoy "dangerous" sports like snowboarding and rock climbing, so it's not a problem for me to be aware of the potential dangers of yoga. I learned it the hard way that I personally can't take most anusara classes because the over-emphasis of hip opening and "heart opening" instructions are horrible for my body. It's possible for me to take it easy, but I have a tendency to try to do every pose to the fullest, and my hips feel totally unstable afterwards. It wasn't until I understood the anatomy and goals of yoga asanas a few years later that I understood that I cannot just take any yoga classes and follow all teachers' instructions blindly. Luckily I haven't had any serious injuries, but for me it's easy to see how injuries could potentially happen with misunderstanding of instructions and not knowing one's own limits in the body.

And it all goes down the drain

Every time I go to a brand new place or meet brand new types of people, I learn something new about myself. I've been doing that for the past 4 months, so it's been a wild and rewarding ride for me. In addition, I've been obsessing with self-help books (not a good sign.. seems like ones just ends up reading more and  more of this type of material rather than getting better and moving on to a more positive way of life), and I learned a lot about how non-assertive people (ie. me) typically behave and how typical (ie. assertive) people have firmer stances in terms of things like not feeling bad if they don't understand something, not feeling obligated to answer every question that anyone throws at them, and not getting offended at anything that people say that might resemble criticisms of them.

Sadly, one phone call with mom and all the growth goes down the drain. I fell back to old, self destructive patterns, as if I have never done any yoga or psychological deep work. I guess deep down I want my mother to acknowledge that the way she raised me was totally wrong, that she accepts me as who I am, and that she supports me no matter what. Of course this is way too much to ask of anyone (and I didn't consciously understand this was what I was looking for). What she said instead was what she always says, "Just forget anything bad that has ever happened to you. Be happy and everything in the world will be all right. Look at me! I'm so happy right now!" This type of saying always triggers me and we end up in a horrible fight.

I think it comes down to the realization that she tells me to call her once every week to say I am okay, and I do it because she says so not because I want to do it. On the phone I told her I don't want to go back home any more (the bratty kid in me talking) and she told me that she was all right with it if that makes me happy. She feels like she's such a good mom that she gives me freedom to do whatever I want. After I hung up on her half way through our arguments, I realized what I really meant was that I feel really lonely in a foreign country and I want to resolve our relationship problems so I can go home. By saying "Just be happy! Everything's all good! You get all the freedom you want!", it had the exact opposite effect of resolving our long term deep-seeded problems and instead was putting a big distance between us.

I no longer think it's her "fault" that I turned out the way I am today, but that we have such different way of thinking that we probably will never fully get along. My mom had issues with her mother too, but she never wanted to resolve it; she just want the problems to go away, to start fresh, to erase anything bad from her memories (and she succeeds in forgetting a lot of these things too). Me on the other hand, being raised in the west and being an introvert, want to talk through all the things that have gone wrong, analyze them to death, explain them in terms of both cognitive psychobabble as well as spiritual chakra/energy woo-woo stuff. My mother seems to be able to let the negative go easily (or at least bury them so deep down she's not easily aware of them). I want to dig up all the negative memories and examine them to death while reliving all the pain. I have no idea if things between us will ever get resolved.

Well, at least I realized I'm automatically choosing to do an action that I didn't want to do just because others told me to do so (ie. calling mom). It is so hard to reprogram myself to take active control of certain aspects of myself that are on auto-pilot and to let go of the negative toxic junk that could be thrown away a long time ago. It's a life long journey I guess.