…is Prophet Ya’qoub a.s. responsible for the huge sin of his 10 sons trying to kill someone?

Remember, they didn’t just try to kill anyone! They tried to kill their own sibling!

But wait a second, before you give me your answer, let me tell you of a saying, a rumour really, that I heard.

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children

Wait, what???!!

That’s right. That’s what they said.

There’s this belief that parents are also responsible for the actions of their children, and that husbands are also responsible for the wrongdoings of their wives.

If the wife doesn’t wear the hijab, the husband gets a sin. If the wife doesn’t fast, he gets another sin. If the wife doesn’t pray, then the husband will get a sin along with her.

Hmmm….

We know that a few prophets had wives who didn’t obey the commandments of God such as Nabi Nuh a.s. (a.k.a. Noah). If the previous concept is true, then would he also have to take on the sins of his wife? If his wife deserved hellfire, would he deserve it too?

There are prophets whose sons and daughters committed grievous acts such as Nabi Ya’qoub a.s. Is he responsible for their sins too?

Justice in Islam

That belief we were discussing just now? The concept is flawed. It breaks away from the concept of justice in Islam where you can only be responsible for your own sins. Such a belief directly conflicts with what is written in the holy Qur’an:

And no soul earns (sins) but against itself, and no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another;

[Qur'an 6:164]

So where is this idea coming from? And what do you do when you hear this idea from someone? And what if that person is someone who you trust completely?

You can’t contradict the Qur’an

Here’s your answer:

It doesn’t matter how credible they are, they cannot contradict the Qur’an.

Even if you found a hadith that supported this belief, throw it away, because that hadith has to be weak. Otherwise, it would never contradict Al-Qur’an. Nothing can or should contradict the Qur’an, not even a hadith. Not even a hadith, and not anyone else, no matter what his credentials.

Remember this well, because the Qur’an is the highest source of authority in Islam. And anything that contradicts it can’t be accepted.

So… do you get off scot-free?

No, the husband/father does have a duty. But his duty is simply to educate and advise those who are under his care. But this isn’t something that’s special to his role as husband or father. You have a role to educate and advise anybody that is under your care.

If the husband/father has done his duty to educate and advise his wife and children, he is then free of blame for any actions they might take.

What kind of justice would it be if you had to carry the blame and sins for what someone else had done?

I’m sad to hear that people actually believe in something that so clearly contradicts the Qur’an. I would be sadder if I found out that people are actually spreading it to others.

If this concept was correct, then wouldn’t it be wajib (compulsory) to disown your son or divorce your wife in order to free yourself from their sins? This concept is illogical and flawed and we should not (and cannot!) believe it.

So, let’s fix that sentence. Before:

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children.

After:

Fathers and husbands are responsible to educate their wives and their children. If they (the wives and children) still do not obey Allah, that is their sin and their sin alone.

It is a different story if you are the one who tells them to commit a sin. Then of course, you are to blame. Again, this isn’t something special to the role of husband/father. You would be to blame if you told anyone to commit a sin.

When you say that someone else also “bears your burdens” and bears your sins, you are saying something more as well. You’re saying that Islam doesn’t understand that a person should only be punished for his own misdeeds. You’re saying that Islam is a religion that is unfair to its followers and can place sins on someone for something they haven’t done! You’re saying…

…you’re saying that Islam doesn’t understand justice.

Back to the question

So the question was, “would Prophet Ya’qoub be responsible?”

And the answer would be NO. He already educated them and taught them what was right. After all, what are you going to do if your wife or daughter doesn’t wear hijab? Or if your son drinks? Divorce and disown them? Ridiculous.

If they fail to follow you, you must remember that it is only Allah that gives guidance, and we can only spread His message.

It is true you will not be able to guide every one who you love; but Allah guides those who He will and He knows best those who receive guidance.

[Qur'an 28:56]

Postscript

Please do your research before spreading gossip. Because gossip is what this is. Unfounded rumors without any evidence to support it. It’s bad enough for you to believe in something that’s false. It’s many times worse when you try to drag others down with you. It is worst of all when you take down the image of Islam with you, and say that Islam is unjust.

So, from now on, when you hear that “fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children”, you know what to do! Tell them that the principle of justice, whether based on Islam or any instinctive universal value, will not place the mistakes of one person onto another.

Note: I only fully understood this after a very interesting discussion with my dad.

So it turns out that it’s not a good idea to stop everything else and work on just one problem.

That means that even when a really big event happens in life, you can’t just focus on that. The everyday things still happen. You still have to go to school/work, you still have to eat and drink, you still have to do the dishes and laundry, you still have to spend some time every day with friends and family. You can’t ignore any of these ‘tiny’ things just because something ‘big’ happened.

In TV series’, there’s usually only one big problem every episode that the hero needs to fix. He can afford to forget about his daily chores while he figures out how to solve that one thing. Life doesn’t happen like that. Everything else still goes on.

It took me a long time to realize it; that you don’t have to solve the problem before you can get back to your life. This way of thinking is one of the cores of the perfectionist mindset. This mindset was slowly destroying me.

If I don’t complete it, I can’t move on from it, and therefore, I can’t move on with life.

False.

It turns out that any problem can be ignored and life will still go on. It might not go on well, but it will still go on. You can fail exams and life will go on. You can have cancer and life will still go on. Loved ones might die and life will still go on. Your life will go on and the life of everyone around you will go on.

Right at this moment; as you’re reading this; a whole bunch of different thoughts are flying through your head. Most probably you’re disagreeing with what I just said. That’s okay; it’s what I call your ‘first reaction’ to whatever I just said. Catch as many reactions as you can, write them down before you forget. What did your mind say to counter the concepts I just mentioned? Here are some common ones (and by common, I mean what went through my own head):

1. That’s not fair.
2. I shouldn’t have to deal with other things when I’m down/vulnerable.
3. Why isn’t the universe stopping for me? I need time to deal with this heavy stuff.

Life might have its own rules, but I don’t think anyone has figured them out yet. So what makes you think that one of those rules is for life to be fair? What makes you think that when you’re down for the count, the whole boxing match should stop until you fix your life and you get back up? Why does everyone need to be “understanding” of what you went through and treat you specially?

These were the questions that I asked myself when these ideas first occurred to me. This is an example of me “taking the red pill”. Ask the questions that might make you realize that all this time you might have been living your life wrong.

I realized then that I had somehow started believing that I deserved some of these things I just mentioned. That it was somehow a right that the world was obliged to give me. That the world should ‘pause’ for me. And if I didn’t get it, I felt betrayed by… by ‘something’. And I didn’t know why…

When problems happen, we press pause and tell ourselves that we need to fix this issue before we move on.

Pressing “Pause” for the big problems

At this point, you’re probably thinking to yourself,

That’s ridiculous, people don’t try to “pause” life. And even if they do, I never do this kind of thing.

Well, let’s see then. Have you ever crammed for an exam? Crammed to the point where you didn’t bother socializing or doing your laundry or thought about your family for a few days? Then yes, you’re ignoring normal life and expecting it to “pause“. After a few days, you expect to come back to normal life and “un-pause” and just continue on your merry way.

Or have you spent a few weeks working on a big project and ignored everything else in your life during that time? It’s the same thing. You’re “pausing“. You expect to “resume” life later.

Or perhaps you have a family problem where you need to be off from work or school for a while. You expect everyone and everything to let you off, and that you can just forget everything in life while you take care of this problem. You feel that you deserve it because if not life “wouldn’t be fair”. Ok, so let me ask you again:

Do you think you might have “paused” life before?

Now, let me make it clear that I actually agree that it’s great when people make allowances when you have problems. And help you out. Or give you space. But it becomes a problem when you start to expect it and feel that the universe is obliged to pause for you and help you out when you are down.

When we start to feel like this, we start to behave as if life “pauses” for us automatically when we have a problem.

Everyday pausing and procrastinating

We do this on a smaller scale in our everyday life. When a small problem comes, we don’t move away until we deal with it. Then another problem comes and we rinse and repeat.

Let me tell you a story:

This is the story of a young man who wanted to get into shape. So he told himself that he would, just as soon as the time was right. After a few months, New Year’s rolled around and he finally said to himself, “This is the perfect time to kickstart my exercise with a New Year’s resolution“. But then, he has to find a good gym to join.

So he looked for one, and after many weeks, found one. Then he thought to himself that he needs the right workout clothes (because you can’t just look sweaty in any old clothes now, can you?). So he went out and got himself the right ones.

Then, of course, he wanted to make sure he was doing the right exercises, so he just HAD to spend a few weeks first researching an exercise regimen online.

That vaguely fictional story is a story that’s repeated around the world. We lie to ourself. We procrastinate. We ‘pause’ our exercising because we convince ourselves that we have to solve a problem first before the plan can go on. Just like we sometimes convince ourselves that we have to solve a problem first before life can go on.

Don’t forget the big picture

Life is killing you, one detail at a time

Okay then, here’s what I’m really trying to say from all this. Don’t forget the big picture.

Don’t get caught up in looking for a job so that you can save up money to buy exercise clothes so that you can exercise. When you worry about those details and put everything in a sequence like that, you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll waste so much time worrying about the details that in the end you forget that the whole point of this whole thing was to get some exercise…

Small problems occur all the time. This means that your time will be so filled up with handling the details that you miss the big picture. This is the humdrum of daily life. Everyday, you’re focusing on these small small things and worrying and obsessing over every single one.

Like in this xkcd comic here, sometimes we find a method to solve the problem. Then, rather than solving the original problem, we zone in on that ONE SINGLE method and spend an ungodly amount of effort trying to execute that method perfectly. We forget that we can just ‘ring the doorbell’. We forget that the original purpose is to get the guy to unlock the door, instead of trying to figure out how to remotely change the volume on a computer through the internet.

Conclusion

Let’s recap.

Life doesn’t happen in a nice sequence like a TV series.

1. Problems don’t come to you one by one and you can’t ‘pause’ everything in your life to solve this episode’s problems.
2. When you tell yourself that you HAVE to do something first before you move on to the next step… check again. Maybe you can already do the second step even if you haven’t completed the first.
3. Make sure you’re solving your original problem. If you find yourself fixated on sending out resumes when your original purpose was to exercise, then you just might have a problem…
4. Yes! Have priorities. No, don’t forget everything else.
5. It’s ok for the world to pause for you and give you space when you have big problems. Just don’t expect it and then feel betrayed when it doesn’t happen.

Well…. so far this made sense in my head. I wonder if it made sense to you?

You only feel strong emotions for something that you care about (whether good or bad).

However, it’s not always good to follow your emotions. You can’t always trust them. Sometimes, you have feelings that you misunderstand. And you start thinking that you love skydiving when, in truth, you actually love the rush it gives you. We’re pretty bad at understanding why we feel something.

Emotions can lead the way and point you toward things that make you feel alive. But then, it’s your job to use logic to figure out which part of that activity actually makes you feel that passion.

The opposite is also true. Sometimes your emotions and desires tell you that you don’t want to do something. But why don’t you want to do it?

Do you NOT want to do something because it hurts you? Or because you’re scared of it? It’s hard to figure out sometimes because our mind’s defences often just want to block out that we are weak. It’s called denial.

Have you ever said to yourself, “I didn’t really want it that much anyway“, when actually you were tearing up inside? Rather than confess that we’re weak/scared of something, we’d rather just say that we didn’t like it anyway.

There’s the problem though. Our mind has already associated fear with weakness. When you’re afraid, or scared of something, it means you’re weak, right? Wrong. When you’re afraid and give in to that fear, that is the problem; but only fears that stop you from living your life and achieving your dreams.

Don’t face your fears

People always say:

You should face your fears

However, I say that you should only face your fears when they stop you from living your dreams. That’s because some fears are fine. Some people are scared of cockroaches, or snakes or spiders. That’s fine; it’s not really a big deal.

For these people, I’d say that having fears is normal. Normal and even healthy. If you aren’t afraid of guns then there’s something wrong with you.

But sometimes… sometimes you’re scared of speaking in public when you really really want to be a good manager. Or you’re scared of publishing your writing even though you really want to share your ideas and make the world a better place. Or you’re scared of opening your own business even though you have a great service that you think will really help people.

THIS is when your fears stop you from living your life and achieving your dreams. And this is when you’ll feel internal conflict. ALL THE TIME. “Torn between two lovers” and all that. And the reason is because you yourself want to do something, and you yourself don’t want to do it.

In that case, the only solution is to change yourself to be yourself.

So what do you do when your fears and dreams conflict?

Priorities: Fears and Dreams

A lot of people have empty dreams. There’s a big discussion that’s going on about the difference between dreams, goals, resolutions, plans, etc. I was sucked into the debate for a time, but now I’ve realized I don’t really care about the definition of the words themselves. I care that people understand that when you want to achieve a goal (plan, dream, whatever), you have to have an extra step, which is to set out the way you’re going to achieve it.

But even before that, you have to know what you’re getting into, if not you’ll never have the motivation to even start. And if you push yourself to start anyway, you’ll lose that motivation before long. Haven’t you noticed how many people make New year’s resolutions and never follow through with them?

To know what you’re getting into, one of the ways is to look at your fears and dreams together, and see whether you’re willing to still chase that dream if you have to face your fears.

Take an afternoon to yourself. Sit somewhere that’s nice and lonely like your bedroom or a grassy field. Don’t do anything but let your mind wander and imagine. Imagine chasing your dream. Imagine what you would be doing on a typical day of you chasing your dream. Then imagine yourself facing your fears as you chase that dream. How would it look like?

Is it worth it? Would you be willing to go ahead with it?

I don’t know the answer to those questions. And neither do you. At least not until you sit yourself down and imagine for yourself whether you’re willing to go through 2 hours of training every day for the next year so that you can get better at basketball. Or whether you can spend 30 minutes a day, 4 times a week, to learn a new language. Or whether you can summon the courage to stand up in front of a small crowd to practice your public speaking skills.

You won’t know until you figure out how important that dream is compared to your fears. Once you figure it out and have your priorities straight, you’ll then have a good idea of which one wins. If your fears scare you more, don’t bother facing them. The dream wasn’t really that important to you anyway (or maybe that fear is just too deep). Or maybe… maybe you just have other more important things in life bigger than that dream. I can definitely respect that.

HOWEVER!, (and this is a big however), if that dream is worth it to you, it’s time to think about ways to face your fear, because that fear is what is keeping you from being a man who feels complete.

It’s not an issue of whether you achieve your dream, or even whether you’re good at it in the first place. You can chase a dream even if you know that you have a high chance of failure.  The issue is about you chasing your dream. When you don’t; when you shy away from that thing in life that calls you like a beacon; you stop believing in yourself. You stop trusting yourself.

And that is something that breaks my heart every time I see it.

Let me put it another way.

How can you be a trustworthy man if you don’t stick to your principles?

Because that is what your dream is; it’s a way to realize your principles (what you truly believe in) and make sure that they happen in the real world.

If you don’t, all you’ll do is regret your life the whole way through and you’ll be one of those people who always talk about “one day” living your dream. Don’t be one of those people. I’m in the journey of moving away from this myself.

Conclusion

So to recap, it’s fine to be afraid of something, when it has nothing to do with your dreams. Because then, it doesn’t really bother your life or affect it in any way. But when fear stops you from living your dream, it’s time for you to work it out.

You don’t owe it to me or anyone else. You owe it to YOURSELF so that you can start living life and stop regretting it.

Here’s an interesting question:

How do you make people see ONLY the parts of you that you WANT them to see? How do you make them see you as a winner?

The answer given by the social magician is… social misdirection.

Misdirection

Magicians use misdirection.

There’s a classic trick (I’m revealing secrets here!!) where a magician throws a bright red ball into the air and catches it. While doing this, his eyes and your eyes naturally follow the ball all the way up and back down. Then he does it again. Up and down. And again. And again.

Then as he throws it up the next time, his gaze and your gaze move up following the… Hey wait, why isn’t the ball coming down? As you frantically search the air for the bright red ball, you realize it’s gone. You look back down to the magician’s hands, and they’re empty too. What happened?

On that last “throw”, the magician only pretends to throw the ball up while he actually still keeps it in his hand. As we look up (and we’re not looking at his hand), he takes advantage of that moment and hides the ball elsewhere. But if he didn’t throw the ball, why did we look up? Misdirection.

Misdirection is all about expectations. When we have expectations of what we’re going to see, our minds indulge us and let us see only what we want to. When this magic trick was done as a study, scientists found out that the people who watched the trick said that they actually saw the ball leaving the had of the magician! What’s more, they even came forward and pointed how high they saw the ball go before it vanished into thin air. Our minds are easily tricked into focusing on and believing something.

The magician here planted a few expectations into our brain to make sure that most of us are tricked:

1. Throwing the ball up multiple times allows us to expect the path of the ball in the air. We know where it will go so we look there on the last throw.
2. His gaze following the ball means that our eyes look in that direction too. Visual cues are strong ways to tell someone what is important to look at. We always look at what’s important.

With all those expectations running through our minds (subconsciously), we just have to look up.

Here are two  magician’s rules:

1. Never show a trick until you’ve mastered it.
2. Never repeat the same trick.

When you haven’t mastered the trick, you won’t be fluent with it, and your eyes will naturally slide over to where the action is happening. This means that you’ll look to the ball in your hand instead of the imaginary ball that’s supposed to be moving upwards. Guess what happens then? Your audience looks there too.

And kablam! The jig is up. They’ve seen your trick.

So how does this apply to social situations?

Social Misdirection

When people look at your personality, they follow your “visual cues” or in this case, they follow your social cues. What you think is important is what people will focus on. Do you make a big deal about your hair? Then even someone who didn’t even notice anything wrong with it will start to wonder. Do you focus on the pimples on your face every time? Then other people will too.

Ok, let’s bring this to the next level. Do you always focus on the problems in yourself, or the good things? Whichever you focus on, you can bet that the people around you will pick it up from what you do and say. If you focus on problems, they will also focus on the flaws and problems you have. They will always see you for the person you are. A person full of problems.  person who complains day in and day out about how life is not fair. And the most they can do is to pity you.

On the other hand, I’m sure you’ve heard of inspiring stories like Hellen Keller, (who was blind deaf and mute) but still went on to live their lives well. When you see these people who don’t focus on their problems, but rather on how life could be amazing, it naturally shines through from what they do and say.

It’s not like they don’t have problems. They have more than their share. But the fact that they don’t focus on them makes it hard for us to focus on them too. They seem to breeze through life, overcoming one obstacle over another. We don’t pity them, we admire them. There’s a huge difference there.

When you repress yourself and refuse to see how awesome you are, at the same time you’re usually focusing on how un-awesome you are. That is, all the flaws that you have and how they’re “holding you back”. And if you’re focusing there, and putting all your effort into noticing those parts of yourself, how do you think others will notice you? Exactly, they’ll notice you the same way.

When you have a “victim mentality” and always act like a victim, others will treat you like a victim too. A person who complains tirelessly, even when it’s just a tiny problem.

Or to put it another way:

It IS a big deal if you MAKE it a big deal.

They’ll look at you and notice where your “eyes” are looking. Are you always complaining about your looks? Your money? Your laziness? If that’s the only thing you notice about yourself, you can bet that it’s the only thing that others notice about you too.

This is what I call social misdirection. You set up expectations for your audience; expectations for how to feel, how to react, and what to focus on. And your audience follows that expectation. They see what you want them to see.

This means that no matter how many flaws you have, you can always minimize its impact by not focusing on it.

But like in normal magic tricks, social misdirection also needs you to be “fluent” in feeling good about yourself. It’s something that needs to always be “on”. It’s something that you have to believe yourself. But how?!!

The answer lies in magic once again. To perfect a trick, practice it. Practice a hundred times. Practice a thousand times. Practice 3 hours a day for 6 months. Practice looking at yourself and remembering times and ways that you’ve succeeded and done well. Practice it until you do it unconsciously in your sleep.

And then you’ll be ready.

But there’s more that the social magician can do. If he does it right, he won’t just make others see him as a winner, people will also treat him like a winner. I’m going to call this social leading.

Social Leading

We influence how people feel about us and treat us.

Have you ever adjusted yourself to somebody else during a conversation? Of course you have. Sometimes it’s just about adjusting the speed that you talk. They talk slower, you’ll go slower too. They talk faster? You too.

At other times, it’s also about the mood they carry. Meeting up with a person who’s all smiles? You’ll natural make your conversation all happy too. Don’t want to ruin his day, right? And if the person you meet is all sad? The way you speak starts to reflect that too.

Now, if others can affect us in that way, isn’t it only logical to think that we affect others in the same way too?

We DO affect others. So if the people around you aren’t treating you the way you like, check your own attitude first. Are people bossing you around? Maybe you’re letting them. Do they always make jokes at your expense? You probably have strong reactions to the joke. Does no one compliment you? Perhaps you’re bad at accepting compliments.

So this begs the question, what happens when 2 opposites meet who then try to affect each other? Who wins when a sad person and happy person meet?

The simple answer is: the one whose reality is stronger.

When you have the stronger “reality“, you don’t back off. You force people to adapt to your style rather than adapting yourself to them. It can also be considered a form of assertiveness. “This is how I feel and I refuse to change it or feel guilty for it. If others want to feel differently that’s fine and it’s up to them.”

The person with the stronger reality stays in his reality. If he’s optimistic, he doesn’t adapt to the pessimistic person he just met. He’ll go on having that optimistic, winning tone in his voice and in his actions.

Again, you can only have this strong reality when you’re “fluent” with feeling good about yourself. And again, it only comes with practice.

The social magician

So, the social magician is the person who plays with how people see him, changing their perceptions and their realities, casting magic on their senses. He practices being the person that he wants others to see him as, and he practices until he is fluent with the character. Then he uses social misdirection to make people look where he wants them to look, only at the parts of himself that he is proud of. With that, he gets people to follow his lead and treat him how he wants to be treated.

This… is the social magician.

Let me first tell you about my experience in teaching classes, then explore how not making mistakes affects us even after school is over.

Whenever I teach a class or teach a student one-on-one, my biggest obstacle is always to get them to start answering questions. And I know why. Normal school has taught us that if we can’t answer a question correctly, we shouldn’t answer at all!

Every once in a while, I’ll even have a student who has it so bad that I’m forced to reveal to them an amazing truth (it’s actually not that amazing):

You’re coming to this class because you don’t know the answer

It’s fairly obvious but it seems to have been forgotten by the students (and teachers alike). We come to the class and for some reason expect the students to give the correct answer straight away. Ridiculous. They should be expected to get it wrong at first.

However, it’s not entirely the teacher’s fault. If you’re a teacher, you’ll start off loving the job. It’s rewarding, it gives you freedom to choose the way you teach, you get feedback almost instantly… basically it has almost all the characteristics of an excellent job (except for the pay). What’s not to love?

Then after a year of having students who never put in any effort to study, you start to lose interest in trying to teach people who don’t want to learn. After 2 years, you start getting frustrated. As the years go on, you lose patience with those students who keep on giving wrong answers. That’s when you just start lumping them all together with the students who never want to study.

But there’s a fundamental truth about school. School is where you go to learn. Which, by definition, means that you don’t know yet. You can’t be angry at someone for answering a question wrong about something he’s not supposed to know yet.

Obviously, I’m talking about classes here, and not exams. Be as wrong as you like in class, and quizzes, and homework. At that point, the more important fact should be that you’re putting in the effort and learning to do things. You should be angry at someone for not putting in effort, not for getting an answer wrong.

But over the past few years, I’ve heard more and more people saying:

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

That’s all fine and well, but it starts giving people an excuse to make mistakes and screw up their life. Hey there! Wait a second… am I supporting mistakes or saying that they can screw up your life?

It turns out that there are 3 different kinds of mistakes that we can do (oh, did the title imply only 2? Oops). We should only really be allowing ourselves to make mistakes in 2. The last mistake is the one that leads us to regret.

The honest mistake

This mistake is the most basic. It’s the kind of mistake you do for trivial things, often because you simply forgot.

Mistakes like forgetting to buy the milk, or being late for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic.

These mistakes aren’t a big deal. They should be worked on though. Notice these mistakes and keep track of them. If you start noticing that you’re doing some of these mistakes over and over again, you’ll have to find a workaround that will fix it.

If you’re always forgetting appointments, get a calendar. If you’re always forgetting where you put your keys, have a designated place to put them and never put them anywhere else. If you’re always 15 minutes late to appointments, go out 15 minutes early.

But the honest mistake is the least of your worries. These mistakes aren’t usually the reason that you start to sit around with your friends wondering what you’re doing with your life.

The mistake that you can learn from

One mistake is the variety of a mistake that happens because you don’t have the skills, or you haven’t learned enough yet. These are fine and this is what is meant when they say,

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

OR my favourite way of saying it:

Fail fast and fail often

Failing in this way is an important part of learning. You don’t learn anything from the field until you get into the field. To put it another way, you don’t know what’s important to your project until you actually start the project. If  you do know, it’s because you’ve done it before (and failed and learned from your mistakes before) or you’re smart enough to learn from someone else, whether it be a person or books.

It’s linked very strongly with perfectionist paralysis and making a fast decision. Whenever I notice myself researching too long before making a decision, I know that part of it is the fear of making a mistake. The fear of failure.

To avoid making a mistake, we spend waaayyyy too much time researching and gathering enough information rather than acting and gaining feedback about the choice on the way. Whenever I do this, it’s because I want to do the thing right. And for some reason, that means to me that if I can’t do it right, I shouldn’t do it at all.

And so I go on this endless search for more and more information. Does this sound familiar to you?

But this search can only really be satisfied once I’ve found someone who’s gone through the exact same experience that I can learn from. So what’s actually happening here is that i’m learning from their feedback from the project. Sometimes this is feasible.

At other times, the project is just too new or there’s no one that I know who’s gone through the same thing. What do you do then?

This is when you start the project anyway and learn about the project as it’s going on. Because the truth is that the only way you’ll learn about what is important in a project and what’s needed to make it successful is to go through it, whether through someone else’s experience or your own.

This is when you should make mistakes. And this is when you should learn from them.

The mistake you should never do

So what is this other mistake that you can’t learn from? This other mistake that you should never do?

The mistake that I mean here is the mistake that you make with your life choices. I lied a little. You might actually learn from a mistake made with your life choices, but more often than not, it results in regret that eats away at the soul.

In the skills mistake, no matter how many times you fail, you won’t regret it because it’s all effort being put in the right direction. You’re trying to learn a new skill and failing while learning that is fine, because the goal you have is worth it. Failing in the right direction is a good thing.

But this mistake, this mistake about your life choices, it makes you look back on it, trying to see if you could have done something about it, blaming yourself that your current life is like this due to that ONE mistake.

Here’s the thing, it’s not actually true. People like imagining that if only they were rich, or thinner, or had a job, their life would be perfect just like those people they admire (and envy and hate) because their life is oh-so-perfect. It’s not actually true since having just that one thing probably WON’T solve all their problems. But our human minds will still obsess over that one thing, that one mistake, again and again and again.

So what kind of mistake do I mean when I say mistakes about life choices?

It’s the mistakes you make when you forget your principles and go against them.

It’s the mistakes you make when you go against your core values. If you felt strongly about the environment, how would you feel if you threw trash by the side of the road because you couldn’t find a trash can nearby? I know I know, you wouldn’t. But if you did, you would remember it, the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Or if you thought you were a gentleman, but you made a girl cry. That would pretty much haunt you forever. What if you wanted to be a great parent, but you missed your daughter’s school show?

These are the kinds of mistakes that can go against your core values, whatever they are, and cause regret for a long long time to come.

But the truth is that this 3rd mistake is easy to avoid. You can either set a goal and know what you want or set your parameters and know how to guide your life. Have core values. Avoid regret.

Knowing what you regret BEFORE you regret it

At this point, my words might not seem feasible. To not have regret, you have to avoid the things that would make you regret. To do that, you would first have to make a “mistake” and experience it first. That’s the only way to know what you would regret. Right?

If you’re guessing that I said wrong, then congratulations. You’re starting to figure me out.

You can figure out what you’ll regret in the same way that you can figure out what will make you passionate. Notice what you feel strongly about. When you do something, or when you hear about somebody else doing something, notice what you feel strongly about.

For example, if you feel strongly about children, then it might be best to stay away from abortions. And if you feel strongly about your religion, perhaps it’s best to stay away from the sins your religion has. Do you feel strongly about honesty? Don’t lie to friends and family (lying on surveys is usually considered ok. I’ll forgive you for that).

Here are some ways to figure out what you feel strongly about:

1. Go out and experience life. Notice how you feel about things.
2. Talk to friends. Hear their stories. Notice what you feel as you hear them.
3. When meeting people, ask them their stories. People love to tell you their stories. Most of the time they’re quite interesting.  Ask why they did what they did. Ask them if they ever regretted doing [fill in the blanks here]. Again, notice if you felt strongly about any part of their stories.
4. Read books.

I’ve honestly learnt the most about myself from listening to stories of others. It doesn’t hurt that I love stories and that I love learning about people. Especially when a senior speaks, they have so much to tell from their lives that it’s always a joy to sit and listen to what they have to say. You can’t just let them talk though.

I’ve learnt to ask the questions I want so that they tell me about what their life was like, and why they chose what they chose. I don’t know why friends of my age (25-ish) are bored listening to their elders. I love it.

By listening to them tell their tales, I can then notice the times when I have the urge to stop them and say,“No! You should have done this instead.” But you see, that was their life. That was how they wanted to live it. And now I know that if the same situation ever happened to me, I’d know which choice would feel right to me. Which choice would fit in with my core values.

Over time the picture of your core values, of your principles, becomes clearer and clearer.

Once you figure it out, making a choice becomes much easier. If a decision ever goes against any of your core values, reject that decision immediately. It’s that simple. No more thought required. The moment you go against your core values is the moment you start to regret your choices.

And when you regret that choice, you’ll learn a little something about yourself, but it’ll just be too little too late.

Don’t screw up your life. Don’t make mistakes that you’ll have no time to learn from (and even if you did, would be useless because it’s too late). Learn what would make you regret.

Then…

…DON’T make that mistake.

• Reasonable speed. Dual core i5-2430M processor.
• Large display in a small body. 14″ 300-nit display in a 13.3″ laptop body.
• Light. 4.3 pounds which is about 1.95kg. Easy enough to carry all day, especially in a backpack.
• Large and fast storage. 1 TB hard drive with the 8GB ExpressCache technology that speeds things up in terms of starting up Windows and other programs.
• Backlit Keyboard!!! I wonder why it’s so hard to find laptops with backlighting? It’s sooooo useful.
• Outputs are ok. VGA output (with a cable) and HDMI output.
• Decent graphics. You can play most games at medium setting with the 1GB DDR5 HD6490M.
• Price is expensive… RM3599

So it’s all pretty good except for the price. Now, I wouldn’t mind it that much if the display were good but all the reviews so far (for overseas models though) say that the display is horrible. If I’m going to be spending half my day looking at that screen, it better be something worth looking at.

Even then, I might forgive the display if the price were accordingly lower. At RM3599, I’d be better off spending my money on a Sony Vaio at the same size and similar specs with a slightly lighter body. Even though people say that Vaios are overpriced (and I tend to agree), at least their displays are awesome. And their keyboards are backlit too.

Oh well, I guess the search for a good laptop goes on.

You would think that people want to make the best choice. Turns out that’s not true. We don’t want to make the best choice, we want to make OUR choice.

Why we love buying but hate to be sold to

We love to buy. We love to feel the rush of power and the rush of satisfaction as you get the next big item that’s supposed to fix your life and make things better. After all, that’s why we buy stuff, right? We only buy something if we believe that it can make our lives easier or improve it in some way.

We buy when we believe that the things we buy can add value to our lives, whether it be a laptop or pillow or chair (yes, i’m naming random things that are around me right now). It’s supposed to make your problem go away, whether that problem is smelling bad, or thinning hair or not being able to speak in public. We buy to make ourselves feel better.

So we love to buy.

But we hate being sold to.

The moment you sense a salesperson is selling to you just because he wants to make a sale, you immediately back off. You start saying NO. It’s because when you feel “sold to”, it feels like he “won” and you “lost”. It feels like the salesperson manipulated you and tricked you into buying something that you didn’t want or need.

It feels icky. It feels like you can’t trust the person. Now, if you can’t trust the person, how can you trust the product he’s selling?

We often and we always associate things. We look at an object and feel like it’s important to us, not because it actually has value, but because it has an emotion that we associated with it.

It’s like in The Little Prince when he says that his rose is special, not because it is special in itself, but because caring for it all these years and being close to it has made it special. When you attach emotion to your teddy bear, it becomes valuable to you, but only because you gave it value.

“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on.

“One couldn’t die for you. Of course an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than you altogether, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except for two or three for butterflies). Since’s she the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.”

– “The Little Prince” By Antoine De Saint-Exupe’ry

So these products you buy from Mr. Person-you-can’t-trust will also just leave you hanging because you attach the idea of distrust to his products. You don’t trust his product to solve your problems either.

So here’s the thing; even if that product actually was the best product to solve your needs, you still might not buy it anyway.

We hate being sold to.

But there are other examples of when we’ll make bad decisions just because we don’t want to follow someone’s orders.

Why we’ll stop when someone tells us to do what we’re already doing

Has this ever happened to you? You were just about to do something when someone suddenly told you to do exactly what you were about to do anyway. Don’t you feel a sudden urge to just stop? It’s just like being a teenager all over again when your parent told you to do something and you’d go against them just because you didn’t want to do what they said.

It’s honestly a little ridiculous. You were about to do it anyway. You were going to do it for your own reasons to benefit yourself. But then they told you to do it and now you JUST… CANT… DO IT!

You can’t show them that they own you and that you’ll do what they say. It’s worse when it’s someone you hate. Then you’ll just start doing the exact opposite of whatever it is they say.

Sometimes, you’ll even go out of your way and do something that’s bad for yourself just to prove them wrong. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Unfortunately, it’s normal. It’s the basis behind the whole idea of reverse psychology.

The story goes that Winston Churchill would convince others that an idea he had given them had actually been an idea they had come up with in the first place, in order to make sure that it was implemented.

A man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.

– Father Strickland, 1863

Would you prefer to make people believe that it was your idea at the risk of not having people implement such a great idea? Or would you rather go Churchill’s route and make people believe it was their own decision so that they would freely implement it? The truly great ideas need to be spread out so that people buy into the idea and make it their own. One of the greatest winning movements of this generation is the environmental movement.

People have joined this movement not because it was someone else’s good idea, but because they felt it was their own idea to go out and help save the world. But we still might stop if someone told us to do what we wanted to do anyway.

So the question that pops up is why do we stop?

We stop because when we make a choice… we want to be sincere.

Let’s deal with the idea of sincerity later on. Before that, let’s look at teenagers.

Why teenagers rebel

When we’re children, we’re at a stage where we fully trust our parents and trust them to make all our decisions. In fact, we usually feel so strongly attached to our mom or dad that we define ourselves through them. We don’t really have a strong self-identity yet.

But as we grow, parents, peers and society tell us and teach us that we need to make our own decisions and that we need to be responsible for our own life. So we tentatively try it out. We try to make our own decisions.

However, we’re still young at the time, and still not fully able to make decisions properly, so our parents always try to guide us and tell us what to do. At that point, a choice appears; do you follow the decision of your parents or do you make your own decision? Also, what happens when you both decide the same thing? Unfortunately, there’s no option there that says you can both come to the same decision because the very definition of it being your parents’ choice means that it’s not yours.

So we rebel.

Oh, not always, but we rebel. Whenever our parents tell us to do something, we feel like it limits our ability to grow into adults and make our own choices. The only way to feel like we are living our own lives instead of someone else’s is to rebel against our parents’ decisions.

So we have a dilemma. People tell us that teenagers should start to “grow up” and be more responsible. The meaning of responsible means that we should be responsible for our own decisions. And how can that happen when adults keep telling teenagers what to do?

Teenagers rebel because they don’t know their own identity. Yet.

Identity is the reason

Identity is the reason for all these things we do. Or, more accurately, the idea that we want to have a solid understanding of who we are and what our choices are.

When you make a choice, something happens. You start believing that you own that choice. That it’s part of you. That it’s part of your identity.

Yes, our minds are pretty easy to trick. In fact, we deceive ourselves all the time. In this particular case, because we’ve made the choice ourselves, we cling to it as part of us. If somebody tries telling you that you shouldn’t buy something that you want, or that something you bought isn’t good, you’ll feel at least a little bit insulted. WHY?

You feel like they insulted your choice and taste in products. You’ve actually attached your emotions onto this choice. In fact, you’ve attached yourself to that choice. That choice now defines part of who you are. And so, you want to make that choice yourself, because you want to define your identity by yourself.

What happens when you do what someone tells you? It’s as if someone is choosing your identity for you. Someone is deciding who you are for you. And that’s just wrong. Or at least, that’s how you feel.

So when you’re still at the stage where your self-image is fuzzy, like most of us are, you can’t take any chances with your identity. When you haven’t figured out who you are, you don’t want someone else to decide for you. When you haven’t found yourself or chosen who to be, you can’t let someone else decide for you.

Let’s get back to the teenagers we were talking about before.

When teenagers are entering their teenage years, they’re still testing the waters of their own identity. They’re still figuring out how to make a decision and whether they will actually like that decision; that is, whether that decision fits in with who they want to be. And normally, they won’t know if they like it until after they make the decision.

But what happens when your parents tell you what to do (even if it’s the best decision), is that even if you like it, it’s still not your own decision, so it’s not really part of you yet. Because of that, the only way to make sure that it’s your own personal decision is to do the exact opposite of what your parents tell you to do.

I know, it’s weird and twisted. But us humans are built that way.

Let’s move on to the idea of sincerity.

It’s also about Sincerity

As humans with relationships, we really really feel that sincerity is important. We always want to be ourselves. And when our self-image is fuzzy, it’s always best to remove all doubt. It’s that moment when you want to do something for a noble reason like love or gratitude, then one second later, your doubt kicks in and you start wondering whether you’re doing this because YOU want to or because someone ELSE told you to.

To remove that doubt, we immediately say no.

Imagine a country that was still in a time of war, where its borders were fluid and changed every day, to the point where even the leaders of the country are fuzzy about where the line is on the map. That country is you and the border is the border between your own self-image of your own choices and the influence of other people in your life.

When your border is fuzzy, the moment an influence (invasion) comes anywhere near your borders, you HAVE to push it back. You can’t accept anything nearby because you don’t know where your border is either. To be on the safe side, and to make sure that the influence didn’t cross your borders and get into your mind, it’s easier to reject all possible action that might come of it.

But what if the country were at peace? What if the border was clearly defined on a map? Then, wouldn’t you be able to place a proper immigration control at the borders? Any time an influence came near the borders, it would be fine. You could watch it from your side of the fence as it came closer. And closer and closer.

When it reaches your border fence, you can calmly allow it entrance to your country, but only under your conditions.

When you know exactly what entered your mind from outside, then you know exactly which thoughts are yours and which are from others. That way, you can always be sure that you are sincere when it’s your own thoughts that lead you to a decision.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

– Aristotle

This is when you can take peoples’ influence, advice, peer pressure, social hype, etc, and stop it at the borders of your mind, extracting from it only the information that you find useful.

Did you know that right now I’m influencing you too? I’m trying to get you to see my perspective. If you can allow my words into your mind, and still feel calm and assured that YOU are still in control, then congrats; that’s exactly the feeling I’m trying to explain. It’s the same feeling I want you to have every time you feel pressured to do something. You are in control and you can reject or accept my words however you like.

Now, this might be easier to do in a low-pressure situation where I’m not actively or rudely pushing myself on you. The question is, could you cultivate yourself so that even if somebody is rudely or aggressively trying to convince or pressure you into something; you could still calmly choose with your own mind instead of automatically pushing back (or giving in)?

You can.

But it means you have to define the borders of your self first. You have to define who you are. This is slightly different from finding yourself or finding your life purpose. You often can’t do that until you stumble upon that one thing you can do that really makes you passionate. Defining yourself is more of defining the ground rules for what you feel are important in life and what you would most regret.

Don’t give yourself reasons to regret.

(I’ll deal with avoiding regret later in a post called [The mistake you can learn from and the mistake you can't] which I’ll post by the end of next week. This post seems to be long enough.)

Conclusion

The idea here, is that you want to be able to accept ideas from others and integrate them into yourself without feeling that you compromised your borders. We hate being sold to, and that includes selling us ideas, but that only makes sense if you forget that ultimately you have the power to decide to buy.

Remember that you always have the power to buy into any idea that comes your way no matter how much someone tries to sell you on it.

Nowadays, every time someone advises me or tells me what to do, I take it as just that; advice. If I follow it, it’s because I chose to do so.

If you can always choose to buy (or not buy) no matter how much pressure is pushed on you, then you will always make your own decision. And I hope that at that time, you can also freely make the best decision.

Make the best decision for yourself, no matter if it comes from you… or from someone else.

This happens when we start believing that the reason we are good at something is because of natural talent. Unfortunately, I had that mindset for years and years throughout school. When people tell you you’re smart, you start believing it. You also start shying away from areas where you’re not smart. I carefully and methodically avoided languages, history and woodwork because it didn’t come to me easily and because I had a “bad memory”.

If I wasn’t smart at it, it wasn’t worth putting effort into especially when I might fail. At least if I failed without trying, I had an excuse that I hadn’t given it my all.

But having a hobby, an obsession, a martial art, an anything really; it gives you an example of how your skills can change and can grow. For me, in Form 4 (something like grade 10) I started playing basketball.

Basketball taught me that I can grow

Before this, I’d always defined myself as the smart kid. Why? Because I didn’t really have anything else. It sounds a bit nerdy now, but it really was true at the time. I’m not saying this for pity, that part of my life is done and over with now and I have very little, if any, regret about it. I embrace it as part of my past.

My parents are awesome. They never said they wanted results. Rather, they continually stressed that they wanted effort. “If you work hard and do badly, it’s fine. It’s not about the result, it’s about the effort. Remember that.”, my mom repeated again and again. But I just never really got it, not least because other people kept piling on the “praise”.

So in Form 4, the apartments that I stayed in built a basketball court. Afterwards, it was only natural for all the kids in the area to go down and test out the court. We had no experience mind you. None of us knew anything about basketball. My dribbling (bouncing the ball to move it around), my shots, my knowledge of basketball rules, they were all zero. I vaguely knew who Michael Jordan was but had never watched even a single NBA game.

But we learned. It was just a bunch of kids playing around without much skill involved, but I stuck to it. 6 pm, the kids would usually come down. I was usually there every day from 5pm to 7pm. I’d practice throwing shots in, over and over again. Then somebody told me something that hurt. He said that I should just stay near the ring and wait for the ball, because my shooting was alright but my dribbling was horrible. I was hurt, but it made me think that I wanted to show him up. I did. And my dribbling improved. (P.S. It was stupid of me to feel hurt because he told the truth, but there you go)

An odd thing about basketball was that there were no real metrics for me to keep track of. It wasn’t as if my goal was to be able to dribble the ball 80 times a minute and if I was below that count then I had failed. No, it was much more subjective, and that subjectivity meant that I could feel myself improving, but without the existence of numbers that would distract me from the game itself. I couldn’t fail.

This was completely different from my normal “intelligence” and being “smart”. We had tests and exams, and every time there was a grade that went along with it. When I did well, it was just because of my “natural (and fixed)” intelligence, while low grades just proved that I wasn’t “naturally talented” at that subject. I was fixated on those grades.

I would look at them and keep looking at them to reassure myself that I was “smart”. I wasn’t proud of my effort. I was proud of skills that I had never had to work on. It’s like being proud to be a guy. Or proud to have fingers. Yes, they were (and still are) integral parts of me, but the pride I had in them was extreme and distracted me from the skills I was weak in and needed to work on.

I’ll be honest, I played basketball because I wanted to play with friends. But then I got good at it. I don’t mean tournament-worthy good, but good enough that I wasn’t embarrassed to play any more.

After 2 years of this, I finally realized that I’d slowly adopted a growth mindset.

The growth mindset

I suddenly noticed that I believed I could change. It wasn’t on a conscious level mind you. I just suddenly wanted to do things to break out of my shell. After 2 years of basketball, I graduated from high school and went to pre-university. Matriculation, they call it here. And crazy me, I volunteered when they asked for names to be the student representative.

Here’s why it’s so crazy. I was a guy who was timid. No, that doesn’t even begin to describe me. Timidity, shyness, social anxiety; I had those in bucket loads and more. I barely knew all the people in my classroom and I couldn’t begin to even look at girls or talk in front of  a room of people. My voice was so low that you couldn’t hear me if you were 3 feet away. And the worst part here is that I’m not exaggerating… not even a little.

And the job of the student representative was to stand in front of nearly a thousand students (if my memory serves me) and recite the student oath loudly for them to repeat. Needless to say, I didn’t get the part. (The person who did get it though, Aiman,  is an awesome person who ended up being my classmate and a good friend.)

But playing basketball, having that hobby; it drilled into me that I can change, that I can improve, and that natural talent isn’t the only thing I have.

I made it into a goal for myself to be able to speak, and speak well dammit!

I changed myself and I’m pretty proud of it

4 years later, I found myself in the ESL championships of the World Universities Debate Tournament, speaking in front of around 2 thousand people from all corners of the world, while being recorded.

And guess what? I was fine with it. I was worrying more over whether our case would win than I was over the huge number of people watching us. Unfortunately, me and Danial didn’t manage to take the prize. But it still goes to show,

People don’t DO change

We can change. The only downside is that not enough people have the growth mindset, and so they treat you through that filter and treat you as if you can’t change either.

Believing the world is constant

I believe that most people who feel like they are “failing” at one thing or another are operating out of a fixed mindset. We start believing that our skills are constant because that’s what we’re born with, or maybe even because we believe that it’s wrong to change who we are.

Change is the only constant

I’m sure you’ve heard this many times, but I don’t know if you’ve ever really thought about it and internalized it.

If you have, then not only does it start applying to you, it also starts changing your worldview. You’ll now start viewing other people as having the ability to change too.

In a fixed mindset, people won’t believe that you can change and in fact they’ll want you to stay the same. Imagine you were about to make a huge change in your life now. How many of your friends do you think would tell you:

Don’t change, just be yourself

or if you’ve already made a change, how many would say:

I don’t know you any more. You’ve changed.

And they say it as if it’s an insult.

Here’s the thing. To them, it is an insult. You’ve insulted their entire reality and worldview. You’ve just told them to their faces that what they believe in is not true, that people DO change and that their talents and skills are not fixed.

There’s a crazy consequence to this as well. If your talents and skills can be changed by your effort, then your failures are your responsibility. And most of us just can’t handle that fact.

I need to clarify something here very quickly. I didn’t say that your failures are your “fault”. I said that your failures are your “responsibility”. I honestly didn’t notice the language I used until I noticed how it could be misunderstood. This is a great example of how your beliefs determine the word choice you use. Anyway, what I mean by your failures being your responsibility is that even when your failures are caused by something or someone else, it is still your responsibility to make sure that you fix it and get it back on track.

After all, when you have a growth mindset, it also means that you are in control and that even when it’s his fault, you can still do something about it.

So yes, you’ve just insulted your friend because you’re saying that you’re changing to become better, so if your friend isn’t changing, he must be bad and at fault for his life problems.

On a deep subconscious level, I believe this is why we don’t want to change. By having a fixed mindset, we can easily pass off our problems as not being our fault. After all, even if you tried really hard and did your best, your limits are already set. So it’s not your fault if you can’t succeed at life or whatever project you have, because it was just too much for you.

A growth mindset, however, would make you try really hard and when you failed, you’d just try again. Like they say:

It’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get back up

Without a growth mindset, you’ll just never get back up. After all, if you’ve failed once, that’s already showed you your limits right?

Conclusion

Ok. So that fixed mindset you have might not completely destroy your life, but it will keep you from changing it. In fact, it won’t just keep you from succeeding at changing; on a deeper level, it will tell you that change is bad.

Planning to make a change in your life but you’re not sure if you should change or be yourself? Here’s a question (and I want you to think deeply about the answer to this): Why is that change bad? When you get your answer, using a growth mindset, figure out a way around that problem, even if it’s not your fault.

A growth mindset means that you believe you have control over your future, and also that you are just a little bit responsible.

Guess what? I don’t believe I have a “bad memory” any more.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

– Walt Whitman

I spoke in my previous post about how I tried to be consistent and changed myself to be so. It’s not the full story.

The thing is that we have, in each of us, a multitude of selves. Psychology refers to this as multiple selves. It’s easier to understand that there are different sides to ourselves. There are many sides to us,  and it’s impossible for me to document them all, especially because each of us is unique.

Combinations of self

And this is where I believe we are unique. It’s the combination of these selves that are different for each and every one of us. Perhaps in you, your shy side is stronger. Perhaps in another, their assertive side is stronger.

Rather than having a single part of us define who we are, I believe we need to embrace the fact that there are multiple sides to us. Multiple selves.

Have you ever felt like you were the person who didn’t belong to any single group, that instead, you were part of many groups? And that you couldn’t define yourself or feel that you truly belonged to either group? At least, not the way other people did?

Guess what? We all feel that way.

This realization was mind-blowing for me.

It opened doors that I didn’t think possible before. It meant that I wasn’t an outcast and that I wasn’t weird for not feeling like I didn’t belong. It was normal. It meant that it was ok for me to be a multitude.

The network that makes the “self”

So who am I? Who is my “self”?

I was watching the latest episode of Castle recently (because crime-fighting writers are just an awesome fantasy to have) and the lead female Kate Beckett said some really powerful words.

I’ve let my mother’s death define me for too long. And it’s not that I want to stop that. I don’t want to stop being me. It’s just that… I want to be more than who I am.

Sometimes we let only one part of us define who we are. Often, I see this in people defining themselves through just their job, or just their hobby, or even just their relationship. By defining ourselves through a single lens, we set ourselves up for trouble.

First, it unbalances your life. Defining yourself through one thing means that you naturally pay a lot more attention to it. This results in you paying less attention to the other sides of your life. Think of those people who obsess over their careers and imagine how they are. You see what I mean, right? It therefore makes the other parts of your life slowly rot away, until one day, when you finally notice, it’s too late.

Second, it means you have no other parts of yourself to rely on. The moment you lose that thing that defines you, you’re gone. Your whole psyche has a nervous breakdown because when you lose that thing, you lose your “self”. You are no one! It’s a horrible feeling to have.

Third, you can never be the best. When looking at only a single skill, you’ll always find someone else out there who’s better than you. Always.  You are never the best. Defining yourself by that one skill, you’ll never feel that you’re ever truly worth something. How can you when you’re number 2? Or number 2000?

So I think that we should embrace all the different roles and people that we can be, and understand that each of these define only a small part of us, and that your “self” is a total sum of all these parts. In my “about me” page, I wrote that I’m a brother, son, student, teacher, engineer, debater, basketballer, geek, reader, writer, recluse, public speaker, and so on.

I wrote all that before this concept of the networked self was ever in my mind. Or at least, before it was ever this clear in my mind. This idea that we are a network of our inner selves. So, I think that I had a subconscious idea of it even since then. When one of these parts is abruptly taken away, it doesn’t phase me.

I stopped playing basketball? Oh well. Who I am is much more than that.

I stopped debating (because, well, I graduated)? No big. I’m more than just this. I still had other parts of myself to rely on.

Imagine a person defined by his career who was fired? They could (and they have) committed suicide over it. They are just their job and nothing more. Which is extremely sad to me.

Imagine a person who breaks up with their boyfriend/girlfriend ? They could (and they have) committed suicide over it. They are just their relationship and nothing more. Which is again, extremely sad to me.

So we embrace our different, multiple sides. We embrace all these different people who we can be. We embrace all these different people who we ARE. And thus is born, a network of selves. Thus is born, the networked self.

This self isn’t just a combination of different personalities in one body. I’m pretty sure that’s a recognized mental disease (Multiple Personality Disorder). It’s about having all these different selves networking between them, arguing, compromising, negotiating with each of your other selves and finally coming to a conclusion on how all your selves can work together to do the best for your total “self”.

This network of your different selves is what makes you unique. Even if someone else had some of your “selves”, the combination they had would be different. Even if they had  the same “selves” that you had, the way you networked it would be different.

This network of selves is who I am.

But more, I believe we can take the idea of the unique network even higher. Mind you, what comes after this is a little abstract.

The network that makes “new ideas”

There is nothing new under the sun

It’s true. There are no truly new ideas. But then what of all these new ideas that we keep getting all the time? I believe that it’s merely a result of applying old concepts in new situations.

We now have student-centred learning? It just means that the student says and does stuff and applies skills instead of just listening to the teacher all the time. Guess what? A long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, students had to apply skills to learn things such as fishing, farming, blacksmithing, etcetera. Doesn’t sound so new anymore, does it?

But this doesn’t reduce the usefulness and strength of the idea. It’s still worth it, because not everyone can make that connection. It needs you to fully understand that idea, and to apply it in that new situation that is unique to you. Therefore, a “new idea” comes about only as a result of this network of ideas that exist in your mind. When your mind connects and analyzes these different concepts, it becomes a completely “new idea” that works for you in your situation.

Law students would get me I think. Judges make new laws all the time. The situation surrounding every case is always different, so a judge always has to make new rulings based on old laws and fits them into the present situation. It’s not a new law, but it is.

It’s not a new idea, but it is; because you’ve applied it in a new way.

The network that makes “society”

In the same vein, society is not just a bunch of individuals standing around in the same place, just like who you are isn’t just a bunch of personalities in the same body. It’s rather about how those parts interact with each other.

The Western concept of  society is that to make a good society, you make sure that every single individual is good. Guess what? It’s not enough. It’s not enough in the same way that it’s not enough in martial arts to improve single aspects to perfection. Improving just your kick, just your punch and just your balance doesn’t give you anything unless you learn to make it all work together. It’s the networking and interaction of all those skills that make your art better.

This means to me that society isn’t just made up of individuals, but rather of the ties and interactions between those individuals. A society truly begins to grow once you allow those connections to take place and evolve it.

The network that makes “uniquely marketable workers”

If you go into the market looking for a job and you’re only advertising one skill, it’ll be tough for you. You’ll have competition. There are 60,000 engineers in the market. If I define myself only using my Engineering degree, I’ll have to battle 60,000 engineers for a job. But what if I throw in my experience in debating? Perhaps even my interest in codes and programming? All of a sudden, the field gets a lot narrower. What about my interest in poetry? And all that time I’ve spent teaching?

An intersection of all these skills that make me unique, also make me unique in the job market.

Example? Randall made xkcd (an awesome webcomic) because he linked his interest in geeky things with his interest in drawing and expression through art. He now gets to draw geeky things. Awesome right? Did I mention I love stick figures?

Another example? The last I heard, there were like maybe 2 biotechnology lawyers in the whole of Malaysia. Only TWO! Maybe only one. I forget. That person took their degree in biotech, then did a second degree in law. Guess who’s earning big bucks now? This person can’t be replaced because of that unique spot they made for themselves using a networked skill-set.

So to recap, build skills so that you’re unique in the job market. There’s actually a name to this strategy, even though it’s such an obvious strategy. (Refer “There is nothing new under the sun”). Business type people call it the “Blue Ocean” Strategy. Look it up. Buy the book if you’d like. Then tell me about it. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.

Your inner networks make you unique

I’m sure you’ve caught on to the theme here now. You are unique not because of a particular part of you, but because of you as a whole. Therefore, it’s fine to add more to yourself as you grow. In fact, becoming “more than who you are” makes you even more unique.

Do you feel that temptation?

I feel it too. That temptation to define myself using only a single side of me. After all, it’s soooo much more simple and gives much less headaches than having to be a well-rounded person.

But I won’t. Not anymore. Nowadays, I give myself permission:

1. to be a multitude
2. to change parts of me without having to feel that I’m betraying me
3. to feel ok when I’m not the best in any single thing, because I don’t need to be the best to feel I’m worthwhile
4. or to feel I’m worthy
5. to add more and become more than who I currently am

So a quick recap. Your “self” isn’t just a single side of you. Be careful when you limit the way you define yourself. Then you’re limiting yourself too.

Ideas are never completely new. But take the great ideas that you’ve heard and try to apply them around you. You might be surprised what you come up with.

Society and groups of people are defined not just by how they individually are, but are rather defined by the connections and networks they form.

If you’re looking for a job, don’t chase the same job everyone else is. “Blue Ocean” yourself and put together your specialized different skills.

Who am I?

I am large, I contain multitudes.

Oh no. I’m doing it again. I’m all over the place. I can’t keep watching myself! Every time I turn around, I mess up again. Then I regret it later. I’m a liability to myself.

Do you know that feeling? That feeling like you’re contradicting yourself. Like you can’t be trusted. Like there are multiple parts of you and each one is going in a different direction and you feel lost, not knowing which part of you to follow.

I’ve found that it happens the most when you can’t keep your word. When you start keeping your word, and being true to your own promises, then you start trusting yourself, more and more.

Trusting yourself

A few things happened in my life recently. Both to me and the people around me. These events made me realize how far I’ve come from 7 years ago when I first started my journey of self-discovery and self-improvement. I took the red pill. I looked at myself and how I was. I mean really looked at myself. All my flaws and what I hated about myself as well as all the things that I thought were good.

There was a point in my life where I said to myself, “I’m going to do this“. Then I didn’t. I said it again, “I’m going to finish this“. Again I didn’t. Every time I felt like I’d failed myself. When I said things, I didn’t do them. After doing this a few times, I couldn’t trust myself any more.

And when I couldn’t trust myself, of course, I projected it onto others around me. Unconsciously, I was pulling myself away from the world around me, because I thought that what I did was wrong. And I felt that everyone around me also thought that what I did was wrong. I felt like I was lying to myself and the world around me. Have you felt like this before?

The thing was, I didn’t actually know at the time why I felt so unhappy with myself. So I took the red pill. I sat down and thought for a long time about things. And I realized that I wasn’t consistent.

Being consistent

Being consistent could mean a lot of different things, but for me, it was about having my internal voice and my external actions coming together. When I questioned myself, I started noticing problems:

I said I loved family. Then why was all my time being spent away from them? I said religion comes first. Then why was I forgetting it in my daily life? I said I wanted to be strong in any situation. Then why was I scared of talking in front of people? I said I wanted to be smart. Then why had I stopped reading as many books as before?

Even though to anyone outside, it looked like my life was actually pretty fine, inside I was carefully disassembling the idea that I was living my life in a way that was good for me. I was realizing that I was probably being self-destructive and that my current attitude would give me some major problems in a few years.

What were my core values?

I had to sit down and really think about how I would live my life if those really were the values I thought were important to me.

That internal conversation evolved into questions of whether those really were my core values in the first place.

What was important to me? I mean really important to me?

It took me time to figure them out. But it was worth it. After that, it was easier to see when I went off track in my life. I just had to look back at whether it fit in with my core values. Honestly though, it’s still evolving even now. Not the values themselves, I have those down I think. Rather, my understanding of how those values fit in with my life are evolving every day.

Be myself? Or change myself?

I struggled with this for a while. It’s not my fault, society made me that way. I was bombarded for years with messages of, “You’re unique” and “You should be yourself”. The problem was, nobody ever explained it to me.

So I thought that it meant I could never change a single thing about myself, even the parts that were horrible, and wrong, and self-destructive.

It took me a long time to realize that being myself should mean following through with the core values that I thought were important. In short, my ideal self. Everyone has their own vision of how they would like themselves to be. That was the truly unique self that I needed to become.

To be myself, I had to change myself.

That realization was mind-blowing for me. I had to change myself to become consistent with my ideal. I had to change myself to be the person I wanted to be. I had to change myself to be myself.

In the end, I’m happier now after changing myself to become more consistent.

Some side effects of being consistent

You’ll:

1. Be true to your word. Promising something means you have to follow through. If not you’re not being consistent with yourself, this is when you start having multiple selves. The part of you who really wants to do it and promised to do it. And then there’s the part of you who is against it and in the end decided to skip doing it. Every time you don’t follow through, you not only divide yourself in two and more, you also start giving your negative side more power. The person who goes through with his word is the person who is fully in control of both sides of himself.
2. Have a much stronger sense of who you are. It’s the you that believes in these things and ACTS on them, not just says the words. You’re consistent, your life flows, and when questions and decisions come your way, you can be consistent and easily decide what you want to do as long as it doesn’t go against your core values. At the end of the day, it’s much easier for you to look back and say, “Here. This is the kind of person I am. Everything I did today reflects that.”
3. Have a clearer direction in life. All those choices which are useless to you (and aren’t consistent with you and what you want) are simply ignored. This doesn’t limit your life. It frees up your time for you to do much more meaningful things rather than wasting time worrying and regretting. When you don’t know what to do, you have to spend so much time experimenting new things to see if you might like it. Odd thing is, you’ll even try things that are bad for you even when you know it. Be strong. Be principled. Be consistent with how much you want yourself to succeed. Forget all those petty side issues that aren’t in the direction you want to go in your life.

So the question is, would you change yourself to become a better version of yourself? Are you doing it now?