Month: October 2019

When I first studied English as a 12-year-old school boy, I fell in love with the language straight away. Even to this day, the richness and the versatility of the language continue to fascinate me. The scope of what words can do really goes beyond imagination.

There’re many types of greetings in English, a typical textbook example often goes something like this:

Person A: How are you?

Person B: I’m good. Thanks, and you?

Person A: I’m good, too. Thanks.

Well, that’s pretty much the end of a conversation.

Of course, many real life conversations don’t always follow this pattern. They flow differently depending on the situations but more or less they all work along the same lines of “How are you?”.

In the very beginning, I was only a kid trying to figure out the massive grammar rules and all that. Relatively new to the English-speaking world (or the West as you may call it), I’d always thought “How are you?” was a meaningful question. But very soon I realized that no one seemed to take the question literally or seriously. Most of us were happy to take it and leave it – we gave a quick answer, then we moved on.

It’s not an overstatement to say that “How are you?” is the all-time most frequently used and abused cliché. There’s some everyday evidence to back it up. But I don’t want it to just end there.

Where do we go from here?

I truly believe “How are you?” needs a bit more personal attention or TLC. It’s a question not to be taken too lightly. After all, we are talking about our states of mind, aren’t we?

To delve into the world of “How are you?”, it’s a greeting that has power to change someone’s day, for better. If we mean it like we should, then it deserves a few more seconds of our time. A little bit patience goes a long way. It’s not hard to just stop, listen and wait for the answer before we end a conversation and go about our business.

Of course, not all human interactions warrant a high level of attention and that’s when more causal greetings come in like “hi” “good morning/afternoon/evening” etc. It’s simple, friendly, carefree, apt and to the point.

To a further extent, a great Australian charity organisation like R U OK? has been at the forefront of advocating a suicide prevention through life-changing conversations. With a question like Are you OK? as a starting point, it aims to re-write and re-define how we respond to this age-old question and help alleviate the stigma around not feeling OK or depression. This is a movement that gives much needed weight to this simple question.

While not everyone always wants to talk about their issues, it’s nice to know that people do care to listen… So, How are you?

Passion passion passion… What is your passion? What are you passionate about? This buzzword is just about everywhere.

If you’re a job seeker, chances are you’ll come across passion-related questions at job interviews. What are you going to say about it if you’re asked?

You might’ve already heard it a lot on some popular podcasts or read it from many social media post feeds etc. Topics about passion never stop to follow us around.

Should we declare that passion is now officially a cliché?

Passion, so overly used and abused that our brain literally has become desensitised. Don’t blame ourselves if we’ve already lost our way even before we set out to discover it.

Is it about time to take a step back and re-think about our obsession with passion?

It seems that the harder we try to chase our passion, the further we push it away. Time and time again we end up feeling frustrated and defeated even more.

When desperation comes into play, what does it leave us? Or maybe I should say where does it take us? Well, It moves us further away from our goals. It backfires.

For me, the last time I was in desperate need of finding my passion was when I was made redundant in October 2011 from a company that I had been with for 11 years.

Did I find my passion? No, but fortunately I did land a few jobs here and there. Whether I decided to stay, that’s another thing.

In hindsight, now I know the reason why I didn’t find my passion. The mistake I made was I tried to turn it into a money-making machine. By doing so, I lost track of what passion is all about – it is something you volunteer to do and enjoy doing, even without getting paid for it. Great if you have opportunities to monetize it down the road, but still OK if it doesn’t give you a short-term financial reward.

So, where is a good place to start if you aren’t there yet?

Try a bookstore! Remember the last time? Which aisle did you go to first when you walked in to a bookstore (either online or a retail store)?

In my case, I found myself hovering around the art/design, writing reference, business and health sections a lot. It’s a good indication, isn’t it?

I know I’ve grown and cultivated a newfound passion and I’m willing to do it for free. The trick is how to take the pressure off. The same answer I keep coming up with is: I don’t need to be good at it but I need to be good at doing it often…

 

Australia has long been regarded as The Lucky Country – a land of opportunities and a fair-go for all. The reality is we aren’t immune to all sorts of adversities, hardships, issues and problems like the rest of the world.

At the time of facing an uncertainty, I often experience a mild form of anxiety. It’s just part of the package called life. Perhaps it’s my fighting spirit or my survival instinct, I don’t allow myself to go astray. When I’m trying to re-group myself, two questions I ask myself are:

1. Who’s got the most unrelenting quality to deal with unpredictability in life? And
2. Who can I draw an inspiration from to help me get through the rough patch?

Well, we all need to eat, don’t we?! Perhaps diving into where food comes from is a good way to start. This is how the story goes…

One Saturday morning when I was sorting out my groceries, I was very much captivated by the colourful fruit and veggies – blue berries, strawberries, apples, grapes, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, yellow squash, you name it. Nothing brightens up my weekend like the fresh produce.

As I put them away in the fridge, I started to think of those hard-working people behind the scenes – growers I’ve never met.

To me, the abundance of food is always within easy reach, readily available at supermarkets. Whatever we need, just put them in trolley, go to a checkout counter and pay, then the job is done. Whereas, to growers, their crop is at the mercy of weather conditions every day of the year. Too much rain, too little rain or no rain at all can throw their livelihood into disarray.

What do they do when the weather turns ugly? What do they do when the drought hits? What do they do when the crop is ruined by an unforeseen calamity?

Do they grin and bear it, get back up and try again? Or do they just say “tough”, “why me?” and give up?

What do growers do to stay resilient, viable and competitive?

You bet! They’ve given me plenty of food for thought…