Quotes (paraphrased and verbatim) for 2012

I am thankful to God for His revelations at the start of the year, received through times of prayer and reading in solitude. At first it seemed that there were 3 main themes, 2 from reading, and 1 from prayer: 1. Growth/Adulthood, 2. Calling and 3. Breakthrough.

Upon further reflection, the themes are intertwined and related. Some quotes/principles that are worth writing down…

Signs of failure to properly reach adulthood:

• Fear of failure
• Inordinate need for permission
• “You Can’t do that” syndrome – pessimistic about trying new things
• Feelings of inferiority
• Competitiveness – “I must win in order not to be inferior to anyone”
• Repeatedly give power away in relationships – give power to another person and obey him/her as a parent.
• If someone thinks differently, they are wrong; treating other’s differences in terms of right and wrong
• Black-and-white thinking
• Looking down on everybody else – failing to recognize that I am a sinner
• Anxiety attacks – reasons include: fear of disapproval from a parental conscience, or fear of being equal with a “father figure” (e.g. at work)
• Inihibition – don’t feel free to enjoy life or their feelings, as a legalist bound up with guilt
• Superiority complex
• Depression: Criticized by internal parent as “bad me”
• Dependency – always depending on others to make decisions for them, indicating lack of self-respect
• Perception that someone in authority is perfect

Distorted thinking:

• i must please others to be liked
• I am bad if i disagree
• i need someone else to manage my life. I am not capable enough

How to learn to be a mature adult:

• Practice disagreeing. e.g. “I see your point, but I look at it differently”
• Re-evaluate our ‘inherited beliefs’ – doing what others expect you to do seems like what infants do
• Make your own decisions – you are an adult, think and act for yourself; who cares if someone else disagrees with your purchase? it’s between you and God
• View parents and other authority figures realistically
• Practise being equal with parents
• Give yourself permission to fail. value PROCESS rather than result
• Adults discipline themselves
• Submit out of FREEDOM, not compliance
• Appreciate the difference in others – people who see others as not as good are still trying to be the ‘better child’

Henry Cloud, Changes that Heal

• A husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church – he is to give himself for her so that she can flourish

• Excellence is judged by whether we did our best. If we have ten talents we will be judged as one having ten talents.

• Suffering and careerism. The great danger of thinking only in terms of career is not only that we might miss our vocation but that we might fail to appreciate the significance of suffering. When we thinkin in terms of career, we can be inclined to assume that our life and our work will represent a single, rising curve as we move up the ranks. We so easily get caught thinking that we do what we are doing today only because it will position us for the next slot we hope to fill…
• Emotional Development and Resilience. The capacity to handle difficulty, suffering, disappointment and setbacks is an essential element of long-term vocational development. How we handle a major setback, failure or loss may be one of the most – if not the most-critical factors in our life-long vocational effectiveness … Fundamentally, emotional maturity and reslience are at stake.
• The issue is not so much difficulty itself as it is our capacity to be people of heart: able to respond emotionally, from the center of our being.

• For our ultimate goal is not so much to accomplish great things, as it is to be women and men who know, love and serve Jesus. Our final concern is not career or ministry or reputation but whether through the course of our lives we grow in the saving grace of Christ, living and working in such a way that others might know him.  

Gordon T. Smith, Courage and Calling

Calling has a component of mystery, and God is doing the calling (finding our calling is like a mouse looking for a cat)

Os Guinness, The Calling (referring to C.S. Lewis)

The healthy adult can tell the difference between the present conflict with a partner and a restimulation of past unfinished business 

David Richo, How to be an adult

I realised it was not the world and other people who were limited in their intellect, in their determination, in their resourcefulness; it was me and my world views which were limited. I also know full well that if I had stayed in Singapore, in my cushy job, comfortable in my Bukit Timah home, I would have remained the same – self-sufficient. I had always believed that if I put my mind to it, I could achieve anything. For example, I used to look at sick people and root: ‘Fight with all your willpower, and you will recover.’ And when they did not, I’d think they had failed themselves. I, like Ms Leong, believed ‘mental dexterity equated strength of character and virtue’.

But those years in China taught me terrible lessons on loneliness. I learnt that money (an expatriate pay package) and brains (suitcases of books) did not make me happier than my maid who cycled home to her family every night in minus 20 deg C on icy roads to a dinner of rice and vegetables. The past few years, I have known devastating loss and grief so deep I woke up in the morning and wondered how the sun could still shine and people could go on with their lives.

And so perhaps I have learnt the humility I lacked. Humility about how small I am in the whole schema of things. About how helpless I truly stand, with my intellect in my hands, with my million-dollar roof over my head. To remember, in the darkest valleys of my journey, it was not Ayn Rand or other Booker list authors who lifted me, but the phone calls, the kindness of strangers, that made each day a little less bleak.

And perhaps finally, to really see other people, and understand – not deflect, nor reflect their anger and viewpoints, but see their shyness, pain, struggles, joys. Just because I was ‘fortunate enough’ to have trawled the bottom levels. And perhaps that is the antidote to the oft unwitting elitism so many of us carry with us.

Diary of a Reformed Elitist, appearing as letter in Today newspaper in Singapore

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