Working Hard is the Key to an Achievable Resolution!

Every year we will make our new year resolution, but ask yourself this question: Do you remember your resolutions made for the year 2012? It is by no surprise that most of us tend to conveniently forget it. Similarly for me, I am one of the victims as well. As we forget about our new year resolutions, we will forget what we want to achieve this year. So with this in mind, I will write down my New Year Resolution here so that my resolution will be a purposeful one.

1. To strive for academic excellence.
2. Gain maximum mental and emotional fulfillment 
3. Pray for a peaceful and healthy family

While everyone makes resolution for the new year, it will never be achieved if hard work and effort is not put in. So to make the upcoming year a fulfilling one, I will strive to put in my best effort to achieve my goals so that it will not be, yet another, disappointing year. So when you make your resolution, make sure effort and determination is put in. Cheers and have a Happy New Year! =D May 2013 be a fruitful year for all of you! =)

Criticism - A feat that is hard to achieve

Lets take a look at the judges of the X Factor USA 2012 (From left to right: L. A. Reid, Demi Lovato, Simon Cowell and Britney Spears) Well I guess even without me explaining who they are, you should be able to know what they do.

In case for some that are not into the English Pop sensation, here are the information about them: (Click on the respective URLs)

 L. A. Reid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Reid

Demi Lovato: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi_Lovato

Simon Cowell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Cowell

Britney Spears: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears

To summarize, each of the judges are definitely competent in the field of music and the entertainment industries. In my personal view, the Program Director have indeed exercised his choice of the judges wisely. The reason being, that the judges are capable to provide constructive criticism to the performers so that they can buff up their performance in order to win the outwin the rest of the competitors!

So what is Criticism? Criticism is the practice of judging the merits and faults of something or someone in an intelligible (or articulate) way. Do note the presence of the word intelligible in the definition provided above. This clearly shows that criticism involves the use of your knowledge and understanding to provide a detail analysis of a particular subject and therefore providing constructive feedback on how a somethings can be further improvised. Having explained so much about criticism, it all boils down to this: Personal senses/views are never are not an important recipe to cook up a good criticism.

It intrigues me a lot when people start to criticize others about a particular issue when they do not have any fundamental background knowledge on the topic of discussion. That person simply just shoot them self in the foot. Take this as an example, 

X whispered to Y saying that Z has a weird fashion sense as Z will wear combinations like yellow and blue (the earthly colours). However, Y rebutted back saying that this is the current fashion trend for this year and many have been following suit with it. In the end X was dumbfounded and went back to work.

If one provides a baseless critic, it just clearly shows that there is only this thin sheer layer of background knowledge that you have and yet despite of this you still have the audacity to voice out your comments. This kind of people are normally arrogant yet senseless. Therefore, my personal take would be that if you think that you are incapable of providing constructive criticism, then be humble and, at the same time, gain some knowledge to widen your perspective. 

To summarize it all, it takes years for one to be able to be well versed in a particular arena. So if you think that by doing last minute preparations to buff up your knowledge to provide positive feedback, then I think you are a bit naive in believing that miracles will appear out of nowhere.

Paradox of Freedom - We are Free to Express but meanwhile, we are Chained Down by Social Perceptions

Now look at this picture and try and decipher what it means:

Remember what you have deciphered for yourself. 

Now what if I tell you that the message that the photographer is trying to bring across is Self Denial as the photographer named the shot as "I honestly do not believe the world is bigger than this". Assuming that your guess is different from the actual message, let me guess what you are gonna do. You will attempt to look back at the photo and try to establish the connection between the correct message and the picture. Followed by that, you will try to correct yourself by convincing that the message you had interpreted is wrong and then accept the supposedly "flawless" answer. 

So here comes the question, "What defines Correct?" and  "How Correct is Correct?". It is of extreme difficulty to draw the line between the black and white especially when it comes to such questions where different people have different interpretations. However, in this society, everyone will  tend to behave the same as the example that I have employed. What account for this kind of behavior exhibited by us? Well, in my opinion, one of the main reasons could be due to the fact that we are predisposed to social perception in this society. Thus we tend to seek the "definite correct" answer and gladly accept it and at the mean time we do not dare to voice out our personal take about a particular issue or discussion.

Social perception is that part of perception that allows people to understand the individuals and groups of their social world. It allows an individual to make judgement and impression about other people on their first encounter. Social perception is a primary observations made  about someone based on our pre-existing knowledge. This knowledge will influence how we perceive an objection. The presence on social perception will result in an individual to be self conscious in terms of the ways they act, talk and express their idea. As a complication of such phenomena, there will be a lack of creativity and ideas in this society if everyone tends to impose this kind of self restriction. 

Apart from social perception, I guess another factor that haunts most of us would be stereotypism, alternatively we can use the Implicit Personality Theory to account for it. What does this implicit personality theory entails? It refers to general expectations that we build after knowing the central traits of that person. For example, we tend to associate a happy person to be friendly and so on. With the constant gripping fear of such happenings, most of us will have the tendency to just follow suit with the general public as a slight deviation from the public will simply label you as strange, odd or plain weird.

In my personal opinion, such fear should be put to a stop. If such apprehensions persists, the world will no longer be what we will be viewing it as. Everything will be the same and life will be mundane. The future will be bleak. 

As such my personal take to you all will be: "Be Free to Express What YOU WANT! Heck the Social Perceptions and Judgement!" By doing what you want to do and not following what other thinks, you will definitely feel more emotionally enriched and the restriction that you used to have in your heart will be broken free. Like what most of the teens use the quote YOLO (You Only Live Once). Make full use of it and do not let the society's opinion hold you down. To those who plainly follow with the society, I guess is time for you all to go and reflect yourself and life would be better if you are not tied down to it. 

Now lets take a look back at this picture:

                                                         

Let me analysed the picture:

• The Cage: Social Perceptions/Judgement
• The Black Bird: A dull/mundane individual that takes the social perceptions and judgement too seriously
• The Coloured Bird: An emotionally enriched individual, who expresses himself/herself freely (do not care about social perceptions and judgement)

The message that the picture is trying to portray: Live to Be Yourself, Do Not Let the Others Define Who You Are!

p.s. You don't always say stupid things, eight hours of the day you sleep.

When life gives you lemons......

The already well known proverbial phrase is primarily used to encourage optimism and a can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Unfortunately, there are some differing individuals that adopt a different attitude when they are confronted by "lemons":

Not only do some respond in this manner, there are some, to a greater extent, will start to whine! In my personal opinion, such inferior response can be attributed by the individual's low AQ (Adversity Quotient). AQ is a recent development by Dr. Paul Stoltz which he define AQ as  “the capacity of the person to deal with the adversities of his life. As such, it is the science of human resilience.”  AQ, in my opinion, can also be loosely associated with EQ (emotional quotient). Generally speaking there will be a direct correlation between the two components. I guess the general link between the AQ and EQ part would be rather self explanatory. However, there is this one little part where most of us would pay little or zero attention to which, in my opinion, is a crucial element in both AQ and EQ. That's none other than acceptance.

Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit. Let us use an example to illustrate the component here:

In a group project, the team is assigned with the task to design the new model of laptops casing for the company. After all the time and effort that was put into the design, the boss decides to add their logo into the laptop casing which will tarnish the beauty of the design on the laptop casing. Then the design was produced and given to all the employees to try (all of them are enforced to use the product) and provide constructive remarks. However, one starts to slam the design for being amateurish and weird and initiated to boycott the casing even though it is a must for them to use it.

As shown above, the denial of having the unwanted stuff coming into your way will reflect badly on you for being not supportive and appreciative of the efforts that the team had put in. This clearly illustrates that the inability for one to accept the situation (Low AQ) and sympathize the other person (Low EQ) for what he and she has to go through. Eventually this will consequently result in the rising resentment that is set against you.

In conclusion, always remain optimistic even if you are "badly attacked by the lemons" and at the same time do not be selfless by "sharing the lemons" with those who do not deserved it! Like what all the NSFs love to say: "suck it up and you will eventually see the glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel!"

P.s. Your (her) heart is full of unwashed socks. Your (her) soul is full of gunk …The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote, “Stink, stank, stunk!”

Small actions, big complications: Delving into Social Behaviour

Social Interaction - A good platform for me to observe people on how they act and behave during this kind of social activity. I believe for every students, we are bound to have many different kind of social activities organised for us. From class outings to social dinners, such social activities has increased my exposure to the different kind of behaviors and reactions that people will react in response to a particular situation that has happened. It might not be that hard for one to realized that the action of teenagers "rolling their eyeball" has gained popularity among that particular age group. In coincidence with an article that I came upon on the internet titled "Top Annoying Teens Behaviors: Eye-Rolling", I will make use of today's blog to discuss on this social behavior and how it might have many serious consequences sociologically and psychologically.

First, before we begin, lets define the parameters of our discussion. Social behavior refers to behavior directed towards society, or taking place between, members of the same species.  Sociology refers to  the scientific study of human social behavior and its origins, development, organizations, and institutions. While psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors. Having done with the definitions, one might ask: "So, what does the rolling of eyes mean?". Well let me qualify this action into 2 major groups. For the first group, such actions are used to convey the meaning of a particular subject being boring, unpopular and outdated. As opposed to the second one, it is used to express incredulity, disgust and to show disrespect to someone. Do note the difference between the formal and latter in terms of their extremities of the words used. To further differentiate between the two, the formal is used in a more casual conversations where there is no hidden intentions such as telling of cold jokes to each other, whereas for the latter, is particularly used as a display to show some form disgust and typically, there is some form of inferred meaning implied from the execution of such action. So, in today's discussion, I will be focusing on the latter.

As my title suggests, such small actions can have a mind blowing effect on the individual personality and, at large, the society as well. But first of all let me examine the rationale for the existence of such actions psychologically. As previously mentioned, the gesture of eye rolling is used as a connotation for the expression of incredulity, disgust and to show disrespect to someone. Using the Hans Eysenck model on human personality (extraversion–introversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism), we are able to analyse the general characteristics of such person who has an affection to use such actions during social interaction. Using the model, particularly focusing on psychotism, we are able to create a generalized profile of a typical person that is aggressive, impulsive and tends to be more hostile when it comes to interpersonal interactions. One of the major complications of this group of people will be the high tendency for them to show insignificant considerations for others whether intentionally or through negligence. To illustrate this concept,  let me use this example:

During a class outing, T sensed that E does not like T. As such, whenever T make a particular comments or did some actions, E will just Roll E's Eyeball to show disgust at every single thing that T does. Sometimes, to complicate the already tensed situation, E will bluntly rebut T with the malicious intent which can be observed by almost everyone in the class. T feels emotionally hurt despite the massive amount of effort T tries to salvage the relationship.

Based on the example above, the addiction to such actions, be it consciously or sub-consciously, will derailed the teens to have a higher tendency to exhibit such "psychotic" personalities. As a result of these "psychotic" personalities, the interpersonal attractiveness of such individuals will tend to decrease and as a result of it, a decreasing social circle assuming that the social exchange theory is not taken into account.

Not only that such actions can actually result in a deviation in the teen's personality, the lack of considerations for others can also be due to a cause of the anti-social behavior in teens or it can also be a resulting factor that causes teens to be anti social due to their "psychotic" behaviors. Persistent anti-social behavior is part of a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder in accordance to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here are some of the signs and symptoms of anti-social behavior: 

1. Impulsivity- failure to think ahead, or of consequences. Perform actions with no regret or thought.
2. Aggression and Cruelty- onset of childhood aggression called conduct disorder is seen in children. Different types of abuse are present (Abuse spouses or others physically, substance abuse is also a symptom). A sign of aggression is also bullying, neglect, and being frequently irritable and angry. Often getting into fights with others.
3. Self-Image-those with anti-social behaviours represent an arrogant attitude. Often they are self-centered, thinking only of themselves. There is a lack of concern when hurting others.
4. Disregard for right and wrong-break rules, frequent run-ins with the law. Repeatedly violating rights of others. Constant lying, deceit, and manipulation.

An evident example would be in the case of bullying in schools such as the example I mentioned above. As a bully’s narcissistic feelings gives them a sense of superiority, thus, their aggressive drive usually enables them to go out and act on their narcissistic impulses.

So who can step in to mitigate such disastrous effects from such a minor action from the teens? Parents. In sociology, the family is the basic unit of socialization. Thus, parents are responsible for teaching their kids to differentiate what is right from wrong and as well as to cultivate good habits and behaviors in them when they are young. So one can say that the failure in the parent's ability to propagate the correct information to their kids will have a disastrous impact on their character building and as a result, the society as a whole, will suffer. 

In conclusion, while most of us assumed that this minor actions such as Eye Rolling might be of a small matter, but if such trends continue, there might be major complications that can result.

p.s. You (she) may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. She  really is an idiot.

Looking Back into the Past

It has been more than 2 years since I last blog anything. Well I guess the main reason would be obviously due to none other than NS. Well it is kind of understandable that I am obliged to reveal anything out so all I can say is .........figure it out yourself...... But apart from all the training related information, what I primarily wanted to share would be the reflections from my past 2 years as a soldier. The things I have learnt and, to a greater extent, better appreciate what I have now.

1) Better interpersonal skills
Having gone through NS has taught me how to manage and handle the different types of people that came from different walk of life. Apart from that, managing a healthy relationship between your superiors and among your peers.

2) Communication Skills
Effective communication is essential for you to express yourself clearly and completely. The two kinds of communication skills that I have been exposed to were verbal and written communication. Having the ability to present with poise to your superior will leave a good impression on them.

3) Adopt an optimistic view even during the toughest time
Needless to say this is quite self explanatory. Being optimistic makes your already arduous path seems to be mentally less challenging.

4) Do not take things that you have now for granted, Appreciate it!
Well this point came to me while I was star gazing at night during the field camp while I was lying in my "self dug grave". It might seem random but that was the thought that came to me while enjoying the night sky. We must learn to be appreciative of the effort by some people or even the tender loving care given by your parents. So cherish what you have before it is gone!

Will never forget the star gazing moment that I had

5) Leadership skills
Although I think that is almost minimal but during training days, values were inculcated to us on being an effective and good leader. So I believe that will be put into good use in the near future.

Well that sums up the different kind of skills that I have garnered but not mastered. Well evidently these are not found in some people based on my observation so I feel wasted for them. But I believe they will still get to learn all these when they step into the society to work. So for those pre-enlistees out there, this is the quote that one of my encik told me: "What matters most is the process, not the outcome".

Life Lessons Learnt through Self Reflection

Recently, I have just tweeted 2 debatable questions that is imminent in this society that we are living in. The 2 tweets are:

1. Does privacy in technology promotes politics (office politics to be exact) ?
2. Sensitivity - A determinant of one's success in life?

So today I came up with another question:

     3.  Being Judgmental - Something good or bad?

So you might think how come I came up with these posts. Well, I think that's something I have observed for being a resident in this planet Earth for 21 years. Some might be deeply affected by these issues with the current situation that they might be encountering. My words of advice to you: "Do what you think that will make you feel better off". 

In today's post I shall try and answer the all 3 questions and therefore providing a better perspective to those that are sitting on the fence and empowering you guys to make a decision that you think that best suit you with the current "whatever" situation that you are stuck in.

1. Does privacy in technology promotes politics (office politics to be exact)?

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. Whereas office politics is "the use of one's individual or assigned power within an employing organization for the purpose of obtaining advantages beyond one's legitimate authority. So how does privacy encourages office politics? Well let's take a look in the example below:

In the Accounting department of XYZ company, there are a group of Accountants (A, B, C, D & E). A, B, C and D have established a good co-worker relationship. However, they bear a certain grudge with E as E's character irks A, B, C and D negatively. As such, the majority decided to drive E out of the office by using underhand means. (e.g. sabotage E's assignment etc.)

The advances in technology allows a further segregation between the group and E. For example, establishing a private conversation between the majority group allows sabotage work to be carried out without any haste. Furthermore, leveraging on such technology allows the majority group to share their thoughts and ideas through the private conversation about E, and meanwhile, E is living in the oblivion. Not only that, privacy allows one to actually sow discord or to sweet talk to the superior just from their own work space by just using mobile phones or any other electronic devices. To further encourage such behavior, security enhancement that are found in the electronic devices will increase the privacy of their messages by using passwords and others.  Using so much example to illustrate over here, one can actually do see how privacy acts as a catalyst for office politics to be carried out in a swift manner without anyone realizing it. 

But does privacy in technology has any correlation to privacy? Some might disagree to it. The reasons are very simple, even without technology, there will still be office politics as there's another method that is through the use of mind games that do not really need any form of such technology in order for it to be carried out.

So to summarize, the point brought forwarded here is that privacy in technology do indeed promotes office politics. However,  it is definitely impossible to remove privacy in this context. Even working on the basic assumption that  privacy is removed, office politics will still continue to happen with the use of interpersonal relationship and manipulations in the office. Thus we can conclude that the presence of technology is an added enhancement that serves as a hotbed to encourage office politics, but the success of office politics is not primarily determined by the presence of privacy in technology.

2. Sensitivity - A determinant of one's success in life?

Sensitivity, in my definition, is similar to Emotional Quotient which is defined as the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. In my opinion, being sensitive is definitely a crucial factor that will determine their success in life. In this case success in life can be referred in terms of their career progression and personal life.  To save the trouble, I will organize my arguments into point form.

Yes, it is a determining factor:

• interpersonal skills are needed to establish positive co-worker relationship and within their social circle
• a charismatic individual has a better potential to be a good leader
• situation awareness is key in maintaining a good rapport with friends and co-workers
• an effective control of your own emotions is essential to avoid "major explosions" in the relationship

No, there are other factor that are important too:

• Professionalism in work is equally important in the working environment
• Commitment is quintessential in maintaining a positive relationship be it at work or in the social circle

Rebuttal:

• Professionalism in your work will only bring you up to a certain level in the organisation, the rest of it will largely depends on your EQ.
• One might be committed to maintain a relationship, but commitment will not bring you anywhere if you are insensitive to what you said and your actions.

So in conclusion, sensitivity is definitely a key success in life but that must be accompanied by other factors such as commitment and professionalism.

3. Being Judgmental -  Something good or bad?
Judgmental is defined as having or displaying an excessively critical point of view. For a normal human being like us, we tend to judge someone based on first impression. In my opinion, this is undesirable. While some might say that making a judgement of someone is totally unacceptable, my personal take would be that judging one based in first opinion might be wrong but making a judgement of someone after a few rounds of interaction is definitely acceptable. As usual to save my trouble, I will put into point form to summarize my argument.

Good:

• Provide constructive criticism
• To be able to effectively deal with this kind of person if you ever come in contact with them
• To be able to decide what is good for them between the both of you

Bad: 

• Lower people's self esteem
• Incorrect judgement might be made
• impartial treatment

It might seems that both pro and cons are equally important. However, to pass a judgement about someone, it is the best to make it after interacting with them for a few times instead of initial judgment. Thus this will make the effects of judgment to be more beneficial than detrimental.

p.s. if you know this is intended to you, you ought to know what to do ;)