In Search of Wisdom
So, why 21 Dragons?
Plainly, because I love to write.
Sure, I write at work, but that’s tech stuff, full of CMOS sensors, battery lifespans and printing speeds.
Yes, I write at Life Coaches Blog, but I’m no longer a life coach, so how true is that?
Sometimes, I still write in my pen-and-paper journal, but that’s a private affair just for myself.
So, 21 Dragons is the place for the words in-between, for the things I want to say, if only to hear myself say it in the world.
My colleague got approached at Borders with conversational openers from the Mystery Method!
It was the old classic “can I get a female opinion on…” opener. I wonder if this is a result of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists book becoming more popular, or more self-proclaimed Singaporean master PUA (pick-up artist) trainers hitting the market.
The Zen Buddhists have a concept they call the Beginner’s Mind; shoshin in Japanese. It means to approach something with no preconceptions, with a mind as open as a beginner’s, even if you’ve already spent years on the subject.
When I first read about it as a teenager, I thought it was a great idea. Approach everything with the mind of a beginner! Of course! That’s so totally Zen!
But as I found out over the years, the Beginner’s Mind doesn’t always feel very Zen. In fact, it can feel like a humbling, pride-swallowing knee to the stomach (sometimes literally in my case). It can be Teh Suck.
Can you handle it when you do something for the last 10 years and see someone else do it so mind-bendingly great that you feel like you’re back on Day One?
Can you deal when an absolute beginner takes you down because you were careless and/or complacent?
Can you handle realizing that everything you so painstakingly learned for years and years has only been the first few baby steps?
That’s the Beginner’s Mind, in your face. It ain’t no pretty metaphor like I thought as a teenager. It’s a real, concrete state of mind and body. And depending on how you take the Beginner’s Mind, it can either bring you down or make you great.
Four years ago, I started a rock & roll approach to work, but without the fame, money, sex and drugs – just the hours. I’d work intensely for days, doing overnights in the office, sleeping two to four hours a day, working weekends, drowning in coffee, my mornings dawning in the evenings and my nights setting in the afternoon.
It was intense, but it bought its own kind of freedom. After projects, I’d get days full of freedom before the next burst. The unusual hours brought a level of uncertainty and freshness to my life, I never knew what to expect and I became addicted to that last-minute adrenal rush all workaholics know.
Until I started counting the dinners I had to cancel because of my last-minute schedules. Until I noticed the deep, dark shadows below my eyes weren’t going away. The stomach pains that I never had before. My ability to stay awake without sleep, and thus work, dwindling, shorter and shorter. How I could never plan my life with certainty because I never knew when a client needed something at the last moment (and needing it yesterday). And the dismal amounts of money in my bank account that could only keep me from project to project.
I needed a change. I needed regularity. I needed my life back.
And for the last two years, I’ve had that. I’ve had the rare (in Singapore, at least) chance to knock off almost everyday at work, at the time that everyone knocks off on.
Just back from Taiwan.
I spent only six days there, but I think I can quickly sum it up in one sentence:
With its great food, Taiwan is the place to go to get fat.