Striving in reality

Basic & General, Issues & Debates

He told me he’s jealous of those kids whose parents can afford to let them go any school they want, including top universities in the world, the parents just need to “make some donations” and then the kids are there attending those schools.

“I worked my ass off to be here. Them? They are here because they were born into a rich family. So privileged”

Likewise, another girl told me “my roommate just flew back home last night, why? Because she misses home. That’s so rotten spoilt. I wouldn’t do that, but I’d like to have that option. But no I don’t. I miss my mum a lot, and I’m still here.”

Indeed, what we really want, is that freedom to choose, but often we don’t. It’s when we don’t have options that we work very hard, that we are always ready for any opportunities, that we fully utilise whatever we have, that we maximise our potentials, don’t we?

Maybe not having the options means we are living a fuller life, compared to those who grow up in a very well-protected environment, always have the privileges to choose, and can have a very laid-back life (should they wish)? Often they are kind of fragile, they don’t take up challenges and can’t respond to setback well. They are mostly in their comfort zone all their lives. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone born into that kind of family. But try to notice people around you, did you observe any pattern?

Yet this is reality. This means you are fully living, trying, learning, striving, maximising your ability and every cells. Isn’t this a life worth living, a lot more than a life you are given most of your needs and wants? Doesn’t it feel great when you work your ass off to achieve your goals? Doesn’t this make you a stronger and greater person too?

Who knows if you were born into that family and had all these options, you would be “spoilt rotten” and wouldn’t make any great choice and fully living like you do now?

Maybe you think I’m just trying to make you feel better. But this is observed in many places in the world, when a certain minority group is being deprived for some resources or opportunities (options), they try and strive harder, they become stronger and greater. This can be a certain ethnicity, gender identity, socio-economic class, differently-abled persons etc.. Any group of people really.

In the end he told me, “yeah! Maybe that’s true. I noticed most of the people who received the scholarships last year were those LGBTQ+, even when they don’t publicly announce it, but I guess inside, they are stronger like you said living unlike the cisgender, it’s hard, you know. But yeah they can achieve greater things”

Book: Noise (2021)

Review - books movies series

Where there is human judgement, there is noise.

When and where does human make judgments? All the time and everywhere, right? Job recruitments, insurance claims, criminal sentencing, office and meeting, essay marking and grading, radiology, medical diagnosis, psychiatry (of course!), forensic investigation (noise exists even in finger print).

Noise: A flaw in human judgement, by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein.

A lot of originality, scientific data and creativity. The interview with the authors in the end showed how much “self-criticism” they went through in order to produce such a piece of work. Noise has always exist (just like bias), but it’s never the centre of attention…

Very importantly, often people think they cancel each other out, but they don’t! Student A receives a better grade than what she should have deserved while student B receives a worse grade than what she should have deserved, does that cancel each other out? Criminal A receives higher sentencing while criminal B receives a much less sentencing that she should have deserved, does that cancel out? The more interesting thing is, the time of the day, the time of the week, whether the previous weekend the judge’s favourite football team win a game, whether the sentencing is done before or after lunch or when it’s almost time to go home etc, all these affect a judge’s decision! And the difference could be 5 years or 20 years in prison!

On top of discussing noise with many case studies and statistics, they also came up with “decision hygiene”, how we can reduce such noise and biases. Can algorithms (artificial intelligence for example) solve the problem? What other options do we have? What can we do to reduce these noise and biases? (well, read the book for answers!)

Very interesting, yet for me a very hard to read book, especially after the first few chapters. I finished listening to it on the Libby App (somehow they don’t provide the PDF file the comes with the audio book) in about 6 weeks, took me about 12 hours (I listened to it 10 to 15% faster than the normal speed).

Is being a perfectionist good/bad?

Anxiety Disorder, Clinical Case Studies,

She’s only 15, and has been doing great academically in all the subjects all her life. It’s probably not wrong to say that she is one of the top students in her country, that’s also why she received a scholarship to receive better education in a different country.

Now being in one of the top colleges in the world, she is struggling to still be the best. But she doesn’t give up. She sacrifices her sleep just so she can catch up. After all this is a very different education system from the ones she was in.

After 6 months of persistent trying, she still doesn’t see much of any results. She cries. She feels like a zombie. She wants her family to be proud of her. She needs to be the best. She wants to be perfect, in all subjects, in her writing, in her presentation, in every piece of work that she produces. But it’s not happening…

She told me “I never see perfectionism a bad thing. I always thought it’s good. Why is it bad?” She believes she’s where she is today thanks to her perfectionist trait, or she wouldn’t have worked so hard and strived so hard.

But over time she starts to see that this trait is pulling her down, is creating a lot of self-doubts and criticisms in her mind, is affecting her work, is stopping her from functioning properly, is preventing her from enjoying studying that she always loves, is making her depressed and feeling hopeless.

I guess for many of us, we were all once there, weren’t we? I remember how I was like in high school, the lucky thing is I managed, and that’s mainly because I wasn’t studying in the top school in the world. But many students who do very well but come from an underprivileged background struggle when they receive scholarship and get into a top school. It’s hard for them to see that being top in their country might not mean anything once they are here. Some people give up, some people try persistently; some people see some results, some never.

Most people are usually rewarded as a perfectionist, at least initially, like in the first one or two decades of their life. So it’s natural that we see and experience the benefits and sense of achievement being one. But it’s either now, or later in the university, or when we are in the society, that we see how academic results don’t matter, how being a perfectionist alters your worldview and reduces how you could have enjoyed life and things along the way.

For the perfectionists, only the results matter. But life isn’t like that, because the ending of life is always the same, life is about the processes. Still, you can strive to be excellent, strive to become better than yourself yesterday, but not to be flawless…

But, will young students see that?

Eco-Anxiety / Climate Change Anxiety

Anxiety Disorder, Clinical Case Studies

A few years ago, I’ve heard from Mark that a colleague from the college in the UK works with people who suffer from “eco-anxiety”. It’s at least been 3 or 4 years. Back then, I was a little surprised and then I just shrugged. (Note: I don’t shrug at many things…)

I know a family member who wouldn’t have kids because they think the kids are going to suffer on this planet, again this was quite a few years back, yes they still don’t have kids today. I personally consider this aspect too whenever I think about having children.

As far as 12 or 13 years ago, I have a German friend who wouldn’t purchase the Kinder Bueno chocolate wafer bar at Tesco due to the wrapping, how each of them is wrapped, and then a pair of them is wrapped in yet another plastic. She would just get the bar of chocolate, all 100g in one wrap, even if she likes the Kinder Bueno.

I find myself being very conscious about plastics, anything that’s single use and disposable. I had my struggle when I came to live in Singapore. As a proud Selangorian, our grocery stores stopped giving out plastic bags 5 or more years ago, polystyrene has also been banned, I hardly see them in my daily life. But plastic bags and polystyrene are here everywhere in Singapore.

Fast forward one year living here, I realised that the climate and environmental related issues have crossed my mind much less than before. When I watch news of disasters, especially due to extreme weather, I still think about it, but then I consciously distract myself. Perhaps I’m denying it. I’m not sure if I will become quite anxious too if I go deeper to contemplate it.

Eco-anxiety. When is it becoming a problem? (Image from coloradu.edu)

But this post is to acknowledge the start of an era for us psychologists and therapists to learn about the matter, because I have seen two clients who came to me due to eco-anxiety in the past two months, both scored relatively high on the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale. However, it’s important to note that we shouldn’t be pathologising a normal concern or worry. At the moment eco-anxiety is not listed in the DSM-5, and I don’t think that it should. The reason people should seek help is when the anxiety gets persistent and overwhelming, and that it starts to affect their normal functioning and daily lives. The thing is, of course, if it’s affecting them in a positive way (e.g. being conscious about carbon footprint and plastic uses that the person stops flying on a plane or buying chocolate in a plastic wrap), then we would need to reconsider the person’s emotional state and perceived wellbeing when leading such a life. I remember my university international office lady that I used to work for doesn’t take flights, she would take trains to go anywhere she wants, however far it is. And I’d say she enjoys it, and it enhances her general wellbeing doing so.

However, here is some countries, it’s quite a struggle for the people who are environmentally conscious to live in a first world country who isn’t doing much, yet. Even the people and small business-owners are doing much more than the government I’d say.

Anyway, it’s a long journey. Any step is a step. I might write more about my clients when I have their permission to do so.

Documentary: The Tinder Swindler (2022)

Review - books movies series

It’s only been released less than a week ago, I don’t usually have time to watch new films but I was down with fever and headache for two days after my booster shot, so I guess it’s the best time to have movie marathons (since real marathon is prohibited after taking the Covid-19 vaccination!).

So this is what I watched:

The Tinder Swindler: Modern love is a dangerous game (2022)

Seriously, love is not a game! But it can become a game for some?

An important note to begin with, this film, or to be exact documentary, is based on real stories, depicted by very courageous real victims and you will see the real culprit in the film too.

It was a little boring in the first hour or so, yet I think the part is important telling us what kind of persons are more likely to become victims, the characters are quite clearly depicted (by the real persons!). Then it gets more and more interesting, especially as the authorities and journalists are involved and the investigations begin.

Don’t mind me spoiling it, I just want to prepare you in case you are watching it, the ending is rather depressing. But to think about it, he’s really quite skilful, a lot of things he did fell under the grey areas, it might be really immoral, yet totally legitimate.

Still, don’t give up watching thinking that the guy ran free, because one of the women did plan a revenge, and I guess that’s comforting to some extend for me to watch.

And another good news is this:

“Tinder Swindler” con artist, subject of new Netflix documentary, reportedly banned from dating app

Though I wonder how thorough they can do this, since he can have so many different passports with different names, how hard it is to be on dating apps again?

Book: Think like a Monk (2020)

Review - books movies series,

Happy 2022!! First of all I want to apologise for not writing much other than book reviews. I’ve been seeing clients still, but due to my counselling job at the boarding school and psychology teaching job at the college, my schedule has been so much overstretched! Luckily I’m still listening to book… So I can still write some review!

I thought this is a very old book, I was surprised to find that it’s a book published only two years ago after I finished reading(listening to) it.

Think like a monk: Train your mind for peace and purpose every day, by Jay Shetty.

It’s a great book, I particularly like the first part about Identity, Fear and Negativity. I guess that’s because they resonate very well with what I already know and practise. So I was listening to it a lot in the beginning, even thinking to come back to listen to these few chapters again, and then I slowly lost my interest. It somehow, to me, became like a book with a lot of advice, good advice, what you should and shouldn’t do, things that you know but haven’t been doing, things that show up in 80% of books about meditation or mindfulness or self-help or happiness or mental wellbeing etc.

Besides, the author has been heavily criticised for recycling quotes and using other people’s quotes as his. You may see this from the amazon reviews.

Nevertheless, I still enjoy and find it relevant and practical, and would recommend it.

Nevertheless, the author Jay Shetty read the book really, really well.

Nevertheless, the book is the winner of the Book of the Year 2021 from the British Book Awards.