My Lessons from the Field

The year is almost over, and most of my colleagues and clients at work are off for the year. This is the time of the year when return emails all come back with a tag of "out of office". I'm still at office because I am a slow worker. My brain cannot process on-off messages fast enough. I want to maintain the always moderately on approach.

This morning, as I was getting up for work, on Christmas eve, I did not feel reluctant, instead I felt fresh and alert. This is why I would share one of the most important lessons I learnt this year.

Take two minutes to think about this if you are reading this. It does not matter if you are reading it at work, or at night as you are unwinding or in a meeting.

Whatever you are doing, it will not change the world just because of you. The problems still remain and issues still to solve. It will not go away just because you take off on time after work or skip lunch or start scolding your colleagues. Whatever will be is already set by the actions of the things in the past. If you feel your blood rising, just think that we can do more to prevent more blood rising incidents in the future, but we can never prevent it all. The mind is very strong, it influences what we believe in as well as what we want to make out of things.

5 years ago, I had started off at a client working my way up. I used to do 1901 hotdogs every lunchtime, just because I wanted the 15 mins off but also because I never had time. Now, I never hesitate to take up a lunch offer. No matter how busy we are, we need to eat. And eating well serves to fuel me for later challenges. The world will not fall apart just because a bunch of people spent time to eat. How about that?

Thanks to you who taught me this important lesson from the field.

Take two minutes and enjoy your moment. This will help other moments in the future. Panicking or rushing will not help.