New Theme This Year: Be Committed And Do It NOW

Happy 2010!  How did you celebrate the New Year Eve?  Initially, Cynthia and I wanted to celebrate the countdown in a Spanish way: to eat twelve grapes, one on each chime of the clock.  Alas!  At the checkout counter of a grocery store, a few days before the New Year Eve, Cynthia asked if we should get some grapes.  I thought to myself: We have apples, we have oranges, why do we need grapes?  I said no; Cynthia did not insist; and we have no grapes.  As Gurmit Singh led the countdown broadcast through our national television channel, Cynthia, my buddy Mark, two other players, and I were locked inside a virtual dungeon ready to start our battle.  That was probably the first time I celebrated New Year Eve online.

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Traditionally, this is a time for me to reflect upon the past year and to dream up my new year’s resolutions.  Looking at last year’s theme, by and large, I have fulfilled what I set out to do.  It is often hard to follow things through and I think I have done a pretty good job last year.  On things that I have set my heart onto.

Time, is limited.  That is a common knowledge.  I have friends who ask me if I am still into photography (after merely a few months’ of break) or I still play my music (OK, an unfortunate series of hiatuses that set my music hobby back by miles).  The reality is, if I am into learning Spanish or to re-learn Chinese, something is going to give.  Because?

Time, is limited.

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Inspiration comes from everywhere.  We can find inspiration in the least expected places.  That too is a common knowledge.  “Superfreakonomics” is hardly a book of inspiration.  Buried inside countless set of interesting statistical interpretations are two sentences that hit me so hard.  And I said to myself, “Ah ha!  That is going to be part of my 2010 theme.”

Mastery arrives through deliberate practice.  Setting specific goal, obtaining immediate feedback, and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

So far, I am pretty good at setting goals.  But I have been lacking in the rest.  No wonder I am jack of all trades and master of none.

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The only consolation is that if writing is counted as a skill I can master, I do practice my craft diligently.  And because what I write is published through the Internet, I do at times receive feedback in the forms of online comments, offline comments, text messages, Facebook messages, and etc.  So, thank you for your feedback.  It helps me a great deal in understanding what works, what doesn’t.

Ironically, for this one particular skill I am attempting to master, what I lack is a specific goal.

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Inspiration can come from watching F1 too!

Last year was the first time I have watched the entire F1 season, on a television.  Commentators would at times use the term “committed driver” to describe someone who all of a sudden kicks into action, putting on a personal best performance on the track.  Such fire, such determination, and such commitment.  Last year, I have tried to experiment this spirit on things that I do.  It could be a Spanish class whereby I do my best in answering every question, in memorizing everything the teacher has said – every minute, every second of the class.  Being committed is a sustained effort, from the beginning till the end.  It is not a temporary boost of performance.  But rather a sum of all the little edges I create that makes me a different, better person.

So, is this new theme all business and no play?  Not really.  I have tried that when I play the online game with a team of players too!  Often, we are locked inside a dungeon or a series of dungeons from anywhere between 15 minutes to a few hours.  It pays off being committed.  Even more so as a team.

Whenever I think of high performance, I think of my ex-company Accenture.  Whenever I think of Accenture, I think of golf and one of their old advertisements.

“Go on, be a Tiger.”

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Are you still a vegetarian?  Why do you become a vegetarian?  And this particular question asked by my mother beats the rest: Are you switching religion again?

Yes, I am still a vegetarian.  It is a lifestyle choice.  And no, I am still a Catholic.

One day, Cynthia told me that according to her boss, once you keep eating a certain diet for a week or two – exact number of days I forgot – you will acquaint yourself with the diet and find yourself liking it.  It is true.  I have no craving for meat now and recently, after I have learned from my India vegetarian colleague that broadly speaking, it is important to consume vegetables of different colors, I have extended my food choice to salad.  There are prepackaged and triple washed organic salad of different types that  are sold in our local grocery stores.  To spice up our bowls of salad, we add mixed nuts, sunflower seeds, dried cranberry, and of course, salad dressing.  After a week or two, I am craving for that bowl of salad.  I feel hungry by thinking about it.  That is my new comfort food.

OK.  I lie a tiny bit.  There are things in life that I do miss.  Japanese raw fish is amongst the top of the list.  Today, I crave for Guilinggao jelly – a Chinese dessert made from the shell of a turtle that is supposed to have positive medical effect.  Now, you can’t possibly classify that as a meat dish.

Can you?

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The year before last year, my theme was “Do It“.  I really love that theme.  I think I can do it better this year.  With a better sense of urgency: “Do It NOW”.  There is only that much I can plan.  And I realize that planning to do something is not the same as doing it.  Why not cast the vagueness of timeline away, action today, and manage the decisions in the future if need to?

Now, where does that come from?

One day, Cynthia picked up the phone and make an appointment with the oven repairman.  Within minutes after his arrival at our home, our oven is back to operation after months if not years of breakdown.  We are S$230 poorer but at least, we can now bake cakes.

Or vegetable pies.

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One commonality between this year’s post and the last year’s one is the picture used.  Both are taken in Bandung, Indonesia.  As you can see, I still have a backlog of unprocessed photographs, overdue for more than a year.  Alas!  Backlog of this, backlog of that.  Now you know why I need to do-it-now, and do it as committed as I can be.