There is a book called "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie. I read it ages ago but I didn't understand it at the time. It was during the pandemic that I attended her live sessions and read about her four question "The Work" method that I finally appreciated what she is offering to the world.

Our lives are so full of drama. Especially mine, I hear anger and fear around me growing up. It's so easy to get sucked in and feel like you need to give a dramatic reaction to their dramatic emotions. This year I've learned to take it easy and put that emotional boundary between myself and everyone else. People can freak out and get upset, but "nothing's gonna change my world" jai guru dev.

I have learned to not fight with myself. We so easily dismiss ourselves and chastise ourselves for feeling a certain way or liking or going back to people and things that we are not supposed to, and in that process, we added more hate into the equation. Feelings come and go, and we all make mistakes and like unhealthy things and may not act in our best interest. Just let it be. We're so afraid of losing or looking stupid that we want to control the narrative, we want to make sure the next chapter puts us in the good light as if we were always this consistently smart and good person who was not influenced by any irrational emotion. We blame, ourselves and others, get ourselves all riled up for the injustice we endure. 

Byron Katie says "love what is". It means we accept and embrace reality as it is. I said something and made a fool of ourselves. Man that sucks and we move on with life with this information that we made a fool of ourselves. No lessons necessary, no need to teach ourselves new tricks to prevent our foolishness from happening again. It's okay and it was always okay. We accept reality and deal with it as best as we can. That deep pit of loneliness at the bottom of our soul, it sucks, we suffer from that hollowness and what do we do? Nothing because it's fine. So we're feeling lonely, it's not necessary to recreate our identity to get rid of this feeling, especially when it's ephemeral (someone described me with this adjective before, I didn't know you can be an "ephemeral" person). Feeling uneasy, incomplete or embarrassed? Join the club. I find comfort in accepting reality as it is. Without catastrophising, without minimising.

Making peace with reality and yourself is majority of the battle. 

Last week I received a few heartfelt thank you's. I still feel a bit weird receiving appreciation from others. My refugee client expressed how much I changed her life and how she went on to change others because of the things I've taught her. How beautiful. My boss also told me how much she appreciates me running a matter and picking up the slack that no one paid attention to. That's nice but I brushed it aside. In emotionally focused therapy, I often ask clients if they can take in what someone said. The irony is that I find it hard to take in compliments myself. It's unfamiliar.  I hear it, part of me is happy, part of me questions whether I deserve it. It means I haven't heard right. It means I didn't take it in. These people are trying to express appreciation, which is a form of love, one of the 5A's of love (Acceptance, Affection, Appreciation, Approval, and Attention) according to David Richo, and can I fully receive that love and savour in it?

I have a theory. I think we like other people loving us because it's external validation that we are worthy of love. When someone loves us, we believe them, and we treat ourselves better and learn to love ourselves from the way they treat us. When we say our partner has changed us, it's because they love us and we see that love and learn how we can love ourselves and with more love within ourselves, we are generous enough to love others more. If only we all had the self esteem, self worth and love within us from childhood, we can freely love without being afraid of getting hurt. 

There is a type of preserved rose that remains fresh for more than a year. If placed in a sealed enclosure, such roses can last up to three years. These are real roses, not dried, but using a mix of glycerin and other natural plant elements, they stay fresh and plump. This week I have been looking at the feng shui elements for the year of the tiger. There is a corner that would benefit from fresh flowers. Previously, I had bought fresh flowers every few days to maintain luck in that area. It was a lot of work. Fresh flowers don't last for more than 2 days and they start wilting. The very expensive garden roses I bought a few days ago are already drooping. Then I thought, ah what if I bought preserved roses? Preserved roses are "fresh" and do not require water. Will these preserved roses bring the same luck as traditional fresh flowers that I have to replace every 3 to 4 days? We shall see. 

My door also opens out to a direction that is prone to gossip and arguments this year. The way to mitigate these risks is to add red to this corner. I had originally bought a red flower wreath for my door, which I think is a good compromise between feng shui and aesthetic. Then I read a few more articles where they suggested using a red doormat, so I caved and bought a red doormat today as well. With red doormat plus red flower wreath, gossips and arguments be gone.  

For awhile, I had been making bone broth myself by collecting all kinds of bones and boiling them for hours plus veggies and seafood leftovers. Honestly the results have been patchy and I am really not sure how nutritious the broth is. The past few months I've been making broth from freeze dry powder instead. More precisely, I've been mixing different brands of broth into the mixture hoping it would boost the overall nutrients. I also add two scoops of collagen powder, because why not? It tastes way better than the athletic greens I was drinking everyday previously.  Actually I still have green protein powder in my fridge but I think it's only worth drinking if I were still regularly training at the gym. Unfortunately the "lockdown" situation in Hong Kong will probably last for awhile, so I bought an exercise bike and a bench. I already have a trampoline, yoga mat, abs wheel and a pull up bar. May we all stay healthy during these times.  

I have a few close friends who are from a different socio-economic background than myself. A few years ago, I asked my friend whether she is envious of the opportunities I get in life. She says no, she is not envious of me because from her perspective, I have a different starting point than her so it's not worth comparing but she is envious/jealous of people from her elementary school or others whose background is similar to hers. That was a pretty interesting perspective to me. I think I am envious of people who have a better starting point than me.  I'm envious precisely because the starting point is different whereas my friend is not envious when starting point is not the same.

It reminds me of the time a friend had cited that viral video where someone dressed like a homeless person and pretended to faint at a metro but no one tried to help him but when that person dressed smartly and pretended to faint, many people came to help. The video narrator, and my friend, concluded that this is evidence that people are biased and discriminate based on people's socio-economic status. I don't agree, at least not intentionally. As a pedestrian, I might not help someone who dressed like a homeless person because his problem is more than what I can handle. A homeless person's problem is not merely of sending him on a cab to go back home or to the hospital or calling loved ones.  It's a lot more complicated. In order to "save" a homeless person who is fainting, you would have to take full responsibility for another adult's livelihood. Thus, I don't think it's fair to judge random pedestrians for only trying to help someone who's well dressed verses someone who dressed like a homeless person. The difference is not just in the appearance, it is the connotation of what it involves. We want to be productive and impactful and know that our efforts matter. The complications in helping a stranger whose needs are more than a cab ride somewhere is too much to expect from a random pedestrian. 

Applying this sentiment further, some people are upset that the same people that are so keen on helping refugees of Ukraine were unhelpful towards to refugees of Syria or Yemen. Is it racism? Is it just due to colour of the skin? I don't think it is that simple. Location obviously matters. Do you get mad at people for volunteering to help homeless people in their cities instead of homeless people in other countries? We obviously try to help those in closer proximity to us because it is easier for us. It is easier for us to take a few metro stops to volunteer at a homeless shelter versus taking a plane to a foreign country to volunteer to save the homeless people there. To be sure, it is obviously important for some of us to make that leap and be generous to those outside of our comfort zone but I am sympathetic to volunteers who are more comfortable in trying to help those who are in closer proximity. One might argue that it is our job to learn more about other people's suffering. I draw parallels where some LGBTQIA activists have high expectations of the public to understand their sufferings. Unless you have a friend who's part of that community, it is difficult to expect someone to learn all about it, in the same way how most people wouldn't suddenly learn all about down syndrome unless they know someone who has that condition.

I would also love to live in a society where people are treated equal and we can demand that of random strangers but our life in 21st century is obviously becoming a lot more sophisticated and complicated. How much knowledge does a person have to consume and how many people's feelings do they need to consider in every decision they make? Certain words we can no longer use because it is politically incorrect or emotionally triggering for some. People are 'cancelled' for using these words or taking actions that cause harm to others. It's as if people are guilty of being a bad person even when everyone agrees that this person probably did not appreciate the potential harm it can caused. It is like intention does not matter anymore. We expect people to know better, if they made a mistake because they did not have the right information, they are guilty because they should have known. It is a crime to be ignorant. I guess ignorance is no longer bliss. Were we always not tolerant of people's ignorance? Is our ability to be compassionate reduced over time? 

This year Netflix released The Apprentice: One Championship Edition and it was amazing. Half of the contestants are from Asia, passionate about mixed martial arts or fitness in general and more importantly, the products and presentations were very high quality, at least compared with the UK counterpart. The Apprentice UK restarted this year with its season 16 and the contestants were failing on every task. There are no star contestants and they bicker and blame each other and any "win" is marginal. It is as if the contestants are trying not to lose rather than trying to win, unlike Asian counterparts. In the most recent episode 10, the final six contestants made obviously fatal errors and neither team got any orders. It is just so disappointing. The entrepreneurship or desire to win is just not there. 

On this reflection, I am wondering during this pandemic, have we been miserable because we have been focusing on trying not to die? For many people, living connotes trying new experiences, eating at new restaurants, travelling, building a business, making progress on life goals, etc., many of which have been non-existent or scaled back. I have watched previous seasons of The Apprentice UK and there have been star contestants who were charming with leadership qualities. I wonder, if the miserable bickering dynamic of the latest season is reflective of our mental health from the last 2 years of COVID. If I can see this obvious deterioration in these contestants, I wonder if we have generally become more pessimistic and low energy compared to the version of us two years ago?

Did past decisions culminate into the present where you are reading this paper now? You may have the freedom to not read this but since I am living in the same reality as you, and in a linear fashion, I will never know for sure if you actually had the freedom to choose otherwise.

Sometimes I wish I don’t have freewill, then I get to blame my parents and other forces for the way I am. To what extent are my actions determined by my genetic makeup, upbringing, trauma and other limitations that I have no power over? I think we are dealt a set of cards and it is up to us how we play with them such that I am partially the source of my actions. Thus, I agree with compatibilism. Freewill means the freedom to choose, not whether we actually exercised our right to choose. If we are lazy and did nothing with our cards, we still have freewill because we freely chose to be lazy, so we are morally responsible for all our mindless actions where we let the law of nature guide us instead of intervening with our conscious decisions. There is a reality that is completely determined by the past which is the status quo if we do nothing of consequence but we have the power to intervene and change the course of our future. Thus, I believe we should hold ourselves morally responsible if we are absent-minded when we should have been more intentional, and where we should have known the difference between right and wrong.

While physicists have their theories about why our actions are causally determined, and we may never have actual proof that the neurons in our brains behave in certain ways that create our random thoughts and dreams, my anecdotal experience is that there are many moments when we are conflicted about our choices and have made mistakes that we tried to correct afterwards. These moments for me are evidence that we have agency over our lives because we are literally making life-changing decisions. Hard determinists may say these conflicting moments themselves are causally determined but then to me that is equivalent to saying freewill itself is causally determined, which is an unhelpful, circular explanation. To be sure, there are only so many choices I can make. For example, I cannot choose to be a chimpanzee. Within the scope of possible choices, I do have the agency to make specific choices in that scope that changes the outcome of other events.

​Contrast this with a computer, which is an absolutely deterministic machine that computes data and has no organic conscience to be conflicted like human beings. All possible outcomes from the computer can be determined based on the codes and dataset we feed it. We are not merely a complex version of computers because we have the freewill to intervene with laws of nature. Thus, my belief is that we generally have freewill and that freewill is compatible with determinism.