Lesson 7: Discovery of the Two Selves

Today I started to read this book called, The Inner Game of Tennis, by W. Timonthy Gallwey. It's a book that looks at the mental side to the game of tennis. In the second chapter, the book talks about the discovery of the two selves, which is about the way tennis players talk to themselves on the court. Usually there is instructor (I) telling the doer (myself) to perform the action. "I'm talking to myself" says most people.

For clarity, Gallway calls the "teller" Self 1 and the "doer" Self 2. He says that sometimes Self 1 can be very hard on Self 2. Self 1 can complain to Self 2, criticize and not trust Self 2. He is responsible for the error, but he heaps the blame on Self 2 and then, by condemning it further, undermines his one confidence in Self 2. As a result, the tennis player gets worse and frustration builds.

After thinking about this concept of the two selves, I realize that not only do I find myself criticizing and blaming myself while I'm playing tennis, but also just in my daily life. Today, a bunch of my friends, family, and family friends were going to eat at Goma Tei, a Japanese restaurant. It closed at 9:30, and I got their at 9:25. The kitchen closed at 9:30 and we needed to order. At the time, I only thought that it was just going to by my parents and friends coming to dinner, so I called all of them and ordered food for them. However, at 9:40, a bunch of my family friends come in, people who I didn't order food for. I honestly didn't know that they were coming and I felt sooo bad. "I" was blaming "myself" for something that was a miscommunication error. I think that not only in this incident, but there are several other incidences where I can be really hard on myself for something that's not my fault. I think that blaming myself and being hard on myself has resolved in my lack of confidence and self-esteem. I need to understand that I'm not perfect and I can't make things perfect. I need to know that it's okay if things don't go well. I need to stop blaming myself and to start having confidence in myself.

Lesson 6: Share your Time

I had another blog before with a bunch of friends, but the blog kind of died. While I was reading it over again, I found some interesting posts that I posted. Some of them I don't even remember posting, especially this one, the one that stook out to me the most. This is a story I heard in church more than a year ago:

A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5 year old son waiting for him at the door. “Daddy, may I ask you a question?”
“Yeah, sure, what is it?” replied the man.
“Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?
“That’s none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing?” the man said angrily.
“I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?” pleaded the little boy.
“If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour.”
“Oh,” the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, “Daddy, may I borrow $10.00 please?”

The father was furious. “If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you’re being so selfish. I work long, hard hours everyday and don’t have time for such childish games.”

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy’s questioning. How dare him ask such questions only to get some money.

After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son. Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00, and he really didn’t ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door. “Are you asleep son?” he asked.

“No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.

“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man. “It’s been a long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here’s that $10.00 you asked for.”

The little boy sat straight up, beaming. “Oh, thank you daddy!” he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man.

“Why did you want more money if you already had some?” the father grumbled.
“Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied.
“Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?”

-----

Earlier this year I read a book called Purpose Driven Life that also had some great wise quotes about time and love.

"Relationships, not achievements or acquisitions of things are what matters most in life."

"When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you will never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift anyone can give someone is your time."

"The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now."

Lesson 5: One person can't be the only one growing a garden

A couple months ago, I wrote a blog post on my Legacy Movement blog about Friendships and Relations being like a garden.

I wrote this:
Someone once told me that your heart is like a garden full of flowers. Some will walk by your garden and see nothing. Some will walk into your garden and steal flowers. And others will come into your garden and not only help you to remove the weeds, but also plant more flowers for you. These are the friends you should keep. These are the relationships that you should keep. Guard your garden, guard your heart.

However, I'd like to add something:
Sometimes you realize that you've had only one person plant flowers for you to the point of being dependent on that person and not wanting others to come in. There is only so much one person can do to grow a garden. Sometimes you need to let that person go, to allow space for other people to enter your garden and to allow your garden to grow even more.

Lesson 4: Wild at Heart

Last Christmas, I received a book called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, and this summer I finally started to get into this book. Almost every guy I know who read this book recommend it and so it became the first of my list of books to finish up this summer. In Wild at Heart , John Eldredge, who is a Christian, writes about discovering the secret of a man's soul. In this book, Eldredge writes that there are three desires in every man that are pretty universal and a clue into masculinity itself.

They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. I want you to think of the films men love, the things they do with their free time, and especially the aspirations of little boys and see if I am not right on this.

While thinking about the films that men love and also the roles that men play in these movies, I realized that men often fill at least one of these three desires. Thinking back to my childhood, I see how true these desires were when I was young. Yet today, I think I've lost the desires to fight a battle or sometimes live an adventures life. I agree with Eldredge who writes that men were created to be wild at heart. This summer I'm encouraged to be more brave, to be more adventurous, to fight (and possibly find a beauty to rescue).

Lesson 3: Clear the Clutter and Focus on your Passion

I can't believe it, but I'm a senior now in college. Through my time at college I've had many board positions and opportunities for various organizations on campus. My sophomore year I started with being the Publicity Director for the Chinese American Student Association (CASA), Project Director for Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), a leader for Intervarsity, and I wanted to start my own clothing company. It was somewhat hectic, but manageable. Coming into Junior year, I became the Alumni Director for (CASA), Project Director and VP of Marketing for SIFE, Director of Chapter Management for Beta Alpha Psi (that I quickly dropped out of), continuing with Legacy Movement (the company I started), and I was taking on an even more challening coarse load. I felt that I needed to be involved in all these extra curricular activities so that it would look good on my resume. I was even taking classes that I didn't even enjoy for a Finance Concentration, a concentration where I knew made the most money.

The result of all of this was a pretty chaotic semester and half committing myself to the things that I was invovled with. John Ortberg, who I mentioned in the previous post mentioned that

"Life is cluttered when we are weighed down by the burden of all the things we have failed to say no to. The comes the clutter of forgetting important dates, of missing appointments, of not following through." I can definitely say that I am guilty of living a cluttered life. "

In retrospect, I found that only the activities that I was passionate about almost always produced the best result. While I was taking up all these officer positions to have a good resume so that I can be hired, almost ALL of the job offers I got came from experience from my work with Legacy Movement and the classes that really liked (Entreprenuership and Business Communication). The best fruit came from doing things that I was passionate about. So this last year of college, I'm going to truly stick to what I know best. I will be leaving the Finance concentration to concentrate on Marketing, I will continue to work on Legacy Movement, and I will continue to serve my fellowship in Intervarsity. Everything else will be dropped. I'm so relieved, and I'm also happy.

Posted via email from Brian Chung

Lesson 2: Slow Down

I recently read an article by John Ortbery called The Life You've Always Wanted, which talked about slowing your life down.  I really resonated with this article.  I've really rushed through life and I'm learning to slow things down. 

We all live in a hurried world; we buy things that will helps us hurry, we order fast food, and we try to get to places as fast as we can.  The problem with having a hurried lifestyle is that it can keep us from living well and have us rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.  Ortbery writes that "We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them."

Here are some symptops to a hurried lifestyle:

• Constantly speeding up daily activities: wanting to be in the fastes lane on the freeway, wanting to be in the shortest line in the grocery market to the point that we keep track of the person who would hav ebeen me in the other lane
• Multiple-tasking: out of the desperate need to hurry, we find ourselves doing or thinking more than one thing at time, for example, in car, we don't just drive, but we also drink, eat, talk on the phone, etc.
• Clutter:  we have a bunch of books that we say we're going to read, we buy time saving gadgets that we end up not using
• Superficiality:  the need to feel like we need to understand everything--even the smallest thing--minutely and exactly
• An Inability to Love:  Love always takes time and time is one thing hurried people don't have
• Sunset Fatigue: We're just too tired and too trained to love people whom we have made deep promises with

I am guilty of constantly speeding up daily activities, having a lot of clutter, and I find myself constantly rushing through things.  So, this summer I will try to slow things down, clean out my closet, set time in solitude (away from a hurried lifestyle), and actually live life!

Posted via email from Brian Chung

Lesson 1: The greatest trap is self-rejection

Last week, I was at a retreat where I read a excerpt of Henri Nouwen's book Life of the Beloved, where he writes that the greatest trap is the trap of self-rejection.

I think we all know what I'm talking about. I often fall in the trap of believing the negative voices that say that "I'm not good enough; I'm ugly; I'm worthless." And even though I am still give words of affirmation and receive praise from my peers, somehow all these signs of love aren't sufficient to convince me that I am the Beloved. Nouwen writes, "Aren't you like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: 'may this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.' " "As soon as someone accuses me or critcizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking: 'Well, that proves once again that I am nobody.' Instead of taking a critical look at the circumstances or trying to understand my own and others' limitations, I tend to blame myself--not just for what i did, but for who I am."

But the truth is that you and I are beloved. It is the most intimate truth of all human beings. And I am learning to reject and rebuke these negative lies that I hear. (Matt 3:17)

Posted via email from Brian Chung

Beginnings

This summer I wanted to start a blog.  So here it is!

So what is this blog about?
Now, I'm not he best writer, and I can't promise anything that revelational.  But, what I can promise is for this blog to be a place where I can record the lessons I've learned, to keep track of them myself, and a place where I can hopefully pass on those lessons to you, the readers.

So here it goes, let the journey of lessons begin.

Posted via email from Brian Chung