The Extraordinary in the Ordinary.

 

We want our children to be extraordinary. We want them to stand out, to be outstanding. The script is to never be forgotten. Leave a mark that is forever. Be the legacy everyone will never forget.

In business, be the Schultz, Tatas or Bransons. In finances, be the Buffets and Soros. And in technology innovation, be the Gates, Zuckerbergs and Bezos. 

Our dreams for our children are boundless. We want them to excel in whatever they do, and never settle. Be at the top of their game, and always striving to be the best, the head of the line. 

But what is extraordinary then? What is the “extra” in that word? How about outstanding? How far “out” there do we expect our kids or ourselves to go? 

Everybody wants to be a billionaire. But how about the honest wage earner? Everybody wants to build empires. But how about the one who builds a home for the family? Or the one who lays a brick for the company? Or the one who live an honest life, caring and sharing regularly, even anonymously. 

And everybody wants to be famous. We all want many to know us. We covet the attention - the more the merrier. But how about a father whose kids offer the most heartfelt eulogy at his wake? He may not be well known by thousands, but to the handful his life has touched, he is well loved, never forgotten. 

The question is, what is this pursuit of the extraordinary when such pursuit often leaves us feeling that we have scrambled up a ladder that is leaning on the wrong side of the wall? In other words, a ladder leaning on a wall with just you at the top and no one else. 

This reminds me of a poem entitled “Make the ordinary come alive” that goes against the grain of all that. It keeps us marveling at an ordinary life, for the many extraordinary milesones in it. Some of you may be familiar with it. Here goes...

“Do not ask your children,

To strive for extraordinary life,

Such striving may seem admirable,

But it is a way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder,

And the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

I always thought that the “extra” in extraordinary has to be something more than just being ordinary. But I was wrong about it. My mistake was failing to distinguish the mediocrity and the extraordinary in the ordinary.

 

You can be mediocre in the ordinary or extraordinary in the ordinary. The reality that you are ordinary is not to be despised. What is to be despised is someone who despises an ordinary life, wishing to be somewhere else, hoping he is someone else, never having a mind that is contented and at peace with himself.

Such a man will never be extraordinary even if he becomes famous, rich and possesses everything he strives for. Because even in his glowing status, adored by thousands, he will not be contented. He will not be at peace. He will not settle. Even in his death bed, his fist is raised in the air. 

At this point, some may say that what I have written is nothing but a consolatory piece, that is, self soothing self. But on the contrary, I see it as a contentment piece, self overcoming self. For you can be rich or poor, and still struggle with life. Because deep inside, nothing is ever settled and right. In the end, it is about a perspective to see beyond what you have, and savour the growth in the nurturing relationships you never leave behind. 

Here are three encounters that I find most extraordinary. They are examples I can only wish for myself and my life. 

I attend church regularly and sometimes I sit in the kids’ section. Without fail, carrying their son into the room was a couple who have been attending church for decades. 

They would occupy the front row, and as the message was being preached over the big screen, the couple would take turns to play with their son. He is mentally challenged, and despite his cries and wailing, they never let up caring for him. That’s truly extraordinary for me. A lesson that is timeless about a love that is boundless. 

I have a friend whom I have known for more than 30 years, and for a period of 16 years, he had been taking care of his wife. She had been battling with lupus, and at the end stage of her life, her immune system turned around and attacked her own organs. 

He told me he had many sleepless nights and when I asked him what kept him going, he answered simply, “she’s my wife...I love her”. That can’t be anything but extraordinary. 

And finally, some years back, I brought my daughters to Tanah Merah Terminal to welcome my wife back from Batam. My youngest girl was very excited about her mom’s return. She said to me that she has been waiting for it since Friday when she left. When she saw her, she ran over and hugged her. 

The bond was deeply touching for me. It was in many ways extraordinary. It was a moment filled with the simple pleasures of life. A moment when in one’s passing matters more than anything in this world. 

They are all extraordinary in their own ways, and none of their extraordinary efforts in the most ordinariness of living can be considered as mediocre. 

One is about parental sacrifice, the other is about spousal devotion to the very end, and the other is about a mother’s love. 

And in the ordinary lives they live, what inspires me most is how extraordinary their love, faithfulness and hope for one another are. Nothing comes close. 

Let me end with what I wrote about a life of great impact. 

I dream of a life of great impact,

But what I got is my daughter's hug.

I dream of a legacy others will marvel at,

But what I have is my son's respect.

I dream of a world that will remember me,

But what I have is a night with my wife, truly free.

And I dream of fame and riches I can touch.

But I think you've guessed just as much.

For what I have is a walk with my daughter down the aisle.

My reality seems to have missed my dreams by a mile.

They are so different from the dreams I wanted so bad.

For they are the dreams that’ve kept me running mad. 

But I know now it's not my reality that has missed the mark.

It's my dreams that’ve always boxed me up. 

They have led me away from the things that matter.

And held me to a mirage wishing for something better.

In the end, I do not want to miss the forest for the trees.

I do not want to chase dreams that are just not for me. 

I will not trade my reality for a dream, chasing a myth. 

And in dreaming miss out a life waiting for me to fully live.

 

Love is the measure of all successes.

"I got my O-level results 10 years ago. Look at me now."

This was the title of the article by journalist Jose Hong. He is 26 now. He's looking back 10 years to his O level days.

No doubt, still a young, vibrant life at 26, yet what he wrote, the candor and thoughts that went into it, makes good sense for me this morning. 

Then, at 16, Jose recalled that he wanted to be a movie director. His parents however wanted him to be a lawyer.

Now, 10 years later, he is a journalist, writing about people's lives (including his own), and learning to speak Swiss as part of his degree course.

What Jose is trying to say is that the 16-yr-old him then is very different from the 26-yr-old him now. And I bet that the 26-yr-old him now will invariably be very different from the 46-yr-old or 66-yr-old him in the future. 

As such, with hindsight, what seems like a big failure in our past is often interpreted as just a derailment in our present, and possibly adapted by us as a stepping stone to our eventual maturity in our future.

The truth is that, we all face major crossroads in the different phrases of our life. And PSLE and O levels can be overwhelming when it happens to you there and then at 12 or 16. The stress and burden can come down on us like a ton of bricks.

In fact, it shouldn't come as a surprise to us here that OECD has found that "86 per cent of Singaporean students to be worried about poor grades in school, compared to global average of 66 per cent".

As such, for some of our kids under such intense pressure, it may seem like the end of a 16-yr-old road in a life that has an average of 70-yrs-or-more mileage to go. 

It is thus not unexpected, but nevertheless undeniably tragic, that a young life with so much to offer may be prematurely terminated by suicide not so much because one did not make the grade at first try, but because one judges himself too harshly as a total disappointment in the eyes of his friends, teachers, and most of all, parents.

So, these school leaving examination results can be nerve-wrecking for a child, or a teenager, when the pressures come from everywhere...yes, from peers, teachers, school, and worse of all, parents.

All this is made worse in Singapore whose meritocratic culture is another word for the only legitimate process to determine success whereby students at that tender age are sorted, selected and groomed based solely on his/her academic distinction.

Like it or not, in our meritocratic democracy, a child is differentiated not by race, language or religion, but by grades. Alas, we may have accepted multiculturalism to a large extent, yet we are still struggling to accept academic diversity (that is, the fact that every child blooms at their own pace and time).

This is sadly our unspoken culture, and trust me, a society that is premised on unchecked meritocracy will end up in an ever-widening class divide made worse by unmitigated elitism.

Lesson? One, and it is for the parents - because the child often does it for the parents. It is our approval that they strive to secure, and never cease to do so since day one.

Here, Jose's words come in strong: "If I have a message for those who just got their O-level results, it is this:

This is only the beginning of a very long journey, a journey that will twist and turn in ways that you will never be able to imagine.

All those adults who seem to know what they are doing with their lives? Their paths lying clearly ahead of them? Nothing but an illusion."

The truth is, we parents do not always know what we want for ourselves, what's more for our kids. We too are lost ourselves.

All we have is a rough idea of what we want for our kids, that is, the template answer of success that follows a worldly script. 

We want them to score well so that they can get a good, stable job and earn enough, if not above and beyond what one can earn, to support themselves and their family with a little on the side for retirement, investment and inheritance.

But a path leading to all that for our child takes on many twists and turns (that one will never be able to imagine) to arrive at.

And even if one eventually arrived at all that, namely, a good and stable job with good earning potential, what's next then?

Surely, that's not the end of it right? 

You see, our child may have secured all that in his or her early thirties, and then, what's next? 

Go for broke? Lead a breakthrough technology that sets about a revolution like Amazon or Alibaba? Become the captain of industry, lead a corporate empire, steer a conglomerate?

Well, the reality is that, for every corporate success we read in the papers, there are thousands of failures we don't read about.

People try and fail all the time. In fact, those we succeed are themselves failures many times over before they finally make it.

And then, they are many who never made it. They just didn't have the grit and determination or luck to make the cut, catch the first wave, or hold onto the coattail of a shooting star when it comes by.

Alas, we gravitate towards success stories and glorify them ceaselessly, but forget that there are other stories in society that are equally inspiring but they just don't have that kind of glam and glitz the stories of worldly successes carry.

There are unquestionably unsung heroes in the nooks and crannies of our society that most of us do not even bother to take a second look just because they are not rich or famous enough.

Mind you, living a life pursuing grade, money and fame as the only barometer of success is like driving a sports car at breakneck speed with the wind in your hair, booze in one hand and hot models behind, but no brakes to stop you from going off the cliff.

In the end, for me, what matters most is how much we (as parents) love our child, and not how much we can reap from such love. Love is an end in itself, and not a means to some ends. Love is its own rewards.

As such, there's a reason why love is unconditional, but not blind.

It expects but never condemns. It gives but never spoils. It forgives but never overlooks. It hopes but never passively. It is patient, but is never taken advantage of. It sacrifices but also count the costs. It overcomes for it is never overwhelmed. And for those reasons, this love never fails. 

Love should therefore be the first and foremost barometer of success; not grades, money or fame. And while grade, money and fame will rise and fall, come and go with the time, love is for a lifetime and lasts a lifetime.

After all's said and done, our love is our child's enduring hope. It is his assurance and his identity. It is from such parental devotion that they draw their strength to overcome their own trials; even after they leave school and start their own family.

And even if they were to never find the success that the world so desperately craves after, I trust our child will never lose his/her anchorage, resilience and identity when the same are forged by such unfailing love in his youth.

And because this love is unfailing, no success in this world can compare with it anyway, whether in depth of meaning, breadth of sacrifice or scope of satisfaction. Cheerz.

Dylan Wilk - the purpose driven life.

What does the ninth-richest man in UK, who travels by helicopter to work and owns a Ferrari 355 Spider, a Porsche 911, a BMW M3 and BMW M5, do with all his millions?

Well, he gives them away of course...isn't that expected of a mortal man who doesn't need so much in one lifetime for himself and his family? 

Dylan Wilk is the name, and in the Sunday's article by Wong Kim Hoh, Dylan said: "I realised there was a big difference between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure, whether it's a new car or nice clothes, always has a price tag. Happiness comes from your relationships and knowing there is a purpose to your life."

Dylan had a tough childhood. He was born in Bradford to a musician-cum-writer father and a housewife. 

He said that his earliest memory of his father was him kicking his mother. But his father left them and Dylan described the period after as the happy years. 

Yet, that did not last when his mother took to the drink. The years of abuse and trauma turned her into an alcoholic. 

Dylan said: "To insulate myself from the trauma at home, I stopped feeling a lot of emotions, stopped feeling a lot of things." He soon engaged in self-mutilation at 16 by "cutting his left cheek with a knife."

Thereafter, his sister was given to a foster home and he was passed around from his aunt in France (whose husband was also an alcoholic) to his maternal grandmother back in Bradford. 

One day, he was told that his father wanted to meet him and Dylan travelled all the way to California to see him. "There was anger but I also wanted to get over it and see if anything could be built from the ashes," he said.

When he met his father, he was holed up in a tiny shack in the Mojave desert, struggling to make ends meet and bitter. His father said this to him: "I don't think you'll ever amount to anything. You're ordinary, you won't go very far. You will never get rich working for someone else.

"Well, the last sentence woke Dylan up - "you will never get rich working for someone else." 

That was where he started his business selling computer games by mail. He sold it dirt cheap earning only $1 from each game sold. 

But business expanded quickly in mid-1990s.By the fourth year of business, he earned enough to buy all those luxury cars and helicopter for his personal transport to work. 

At one point, the valuation of his business was £600 million. He was only 25.

But he came to a defining crossroad when he held his dying grandmother in his arms. He recalled that "it was a very powerful moment because I remembered everything she had taught me, which I had forgotten as an adult."

This was Dylan's turning point - that is, his grandmother's simple yet honourable life. 

"She was an orphan and a refugee from Poland and started working as a household helper when she was four. She had a really tough life but was the most giving person I knew, and when she died, I suddenly realised what a selfish person I had become."

That led him to set up Human Nature in 2008, it is a company "with its own team of scientists who have developed nearly 250 products - from shampoo to laundry detergent - which are sold in the region, the Middle East and North America."

Human Nature employs workers from the poorest in the country (that is, Philippines where Dylan settled down, and married with six children) and pays them above-average wages with no firing policy. 

On his past, Dylan has this to say: "I went home and looked at the brand new BMW I had bought and started to feel sick, because the car was worth about 80 houses in the Philippines."

Lesson? Just one. 

Wong, the article writer, asked Dylan in the interview whether he misses his cars. He laughed and said:-

"Sometimes, so when I'm overseas, I'll rent a nice BMW for a few days just to reminisce. But I will never buy one again, because one Ferrari is 200 houses where I live. And I just can't do the maths in my head anymore and come out on the side of the Ferrari."

Mm...I realise that not everyone does their maths the way Dylan does his. Some of us do it by addition, that is, to add more material things to our life. And as the appetite grows, it progresses to multiplication, that is, happiness equals wealth times possession. 

Still others do it in similar fashion but by square root, that is, happiness equals the square root of wealth, fame or power. 

Dylan has done all that mathematical pursuits in a bid to find meaning, and it ultimately led him to the maths of simple division whereby he made the life-turning decision to divide his wealth and possession to all who needs them more. 

His mental calculation led him to sell off his sports cars and "shares (in the business) and started travelling the world to find meaningful things he could do with his money."

He said: "I've realised money can be a path to happiness by enabling other people to have it, more than me getting it myself. And I have enough."

Dylan's life made me realise that the pursuit of money is not the nurturance of love, contentment and hope. These are virtues that money can never satisfy. 

For you can buy companionship, but never relationship. You can buy a good time, but not a lifetime. You can buy friends, attract them, tempt them and bend them to your will, but never developing any depth, loyalty and authenticity along the way. 

So, money, when used for self, to grow self and enrich self, only alienates self from others. But, as Dylan's life has shown, when money is given away for others, invested to grow and develop the lives of others, the wealth one gets from such sacrifices far outweigh the riches one gets from endless hoarding, possessing and striving.

What worse is that the blind pursuit of money infantilises her beholder. And when a society gets consumed by it, we turn it into a society that fantasises total immediate gratification at the expense of personal growth, maturity and integrity. 

It is a superficial society that is kept busy at the surface, but is empty at its roots. 

Victor Hugo once said that "the mind is enriched by what it receives, the heart by what it gives."

Alas, we need a society of more heart and soul, and less greed, envy and extravagance just for show. We need more of the freshwaters of generosity, and the less of the parch lands of avarice. We need a river that flows out to nurture the land and not one that flows into a private oasis no different from the Dead Sea.

And it starts with us, wherever we are, in our home, workplace and society at large, to transform ourselves so that we can make a difference in the lives of others. We may see ourselves as just a drop in the ocean, but every drop counts because it raises awareness that collectively empowers society for enduring change. 

As falling dominoes have shown, it takes just one to start a chain reaction. And when the last domino falls, it reveals a complete picture of how a society of heart can overcome one of greed and self.

On this, the life of Dylan and many others, like a drop and a domino, have led the way for others to join them in our own unique place and time. Cheerz.

Einstein's theory of happiness.

Ever wonder what advice the smartest man on earth would give to the world about happiness?

Well, wonder no more. Einstein gave the advice on two ex tempore hand scribbled notes. And there is a background to them. Here it is as reported.

In November 1922, Einstein was informed that he had won the coveted Nobel Prize in physics. At that time, he was travelling from Europe to Japan for a speaking tour.

In Japan, the crowd thronged to see him and he was impressed by their enthusiasm and passion. Inspired, Einstein then penned down his thoughts and feelings from his hotel room. 

It was at this time that a messenger arrived with a delivery and Einstein wanted to tip the messenger. But he found out that he did not have money with him. 

So, the Nobel laureate was heard to have said this to the messenger: "If you are lucky, the note themselves will some day be worth more than some spare change." He then handed those two historical notes on happiness to the messenger. 

Those thoughts about happiness would go on to benefit the lucky holder richly. 

The first note was sold for S$2.1m and the second note was sold at US$240,000. The seller who received the lucky windfall was a relative of the messenger. 

Lesson? Two, and it is about what was written or scribbled on those two notes. I am sure you are dying to know. 

Those words like his famed E=mc(square) equation must be time and space bending for us. It may even hold the key to the universe of happiness. 

First note reads: "A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness." (note that it is a constant restless success that makes an unhappy soul).

I guess that was with reference to the tsunamis of attention he was getting and how it had thrown his life into a dizzy tailspin. 

And the second note reads: "When there's a will, there's a way." 

I guess that was with reference to his perseverance to break the code of the universe and beyond with his general and special theories of relativity. It has practically transformed our understanding of the law of nature here and beyond. 

Mind you, this is a man who once challenged God, that is, the God that he understood to be (the Spinoza's God). 

He once said that: "When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way."

And when he couldn't understand quantum physics to the extent that it did not fit into his theory of scientific predictability, he said these famed words:- 

"God does not play dice with the universe." 

To which, Neils Bohr would reply: "Einstein, stop telling God what to do!"

The reality is, just as in the quantum world, the world we live in, the circumstances we operate in, is such that things are arranged in a way that defies simple equations and formula. 

Each of us is trekking on our own uncharted journey both inside of us and out (as in how we sort our feelings within to respond to the changing circumstances without). 

No notes, wise sayings or aphorisms can capture the essence, struggles, victories and stumbles of a life just like scientists can never know for sure both the momentum and location of a subatomic particle at any given time in any given experiment (referring to the vexing Heisenberg uncertainty principle).

The truth is, Einstein had many happy moments in his life - his courtship with first wife Maric, his discovery of the greatest equation on earth, the Nobel Prize and the attention and fame, and birth of his first legitimate son, Hans Albert. 

But he also had many unhappy moments like the time he gave away his first child (Elizabeth) for adoption, his failed marriages, his extramarital indiscretion, and at the end of his life, he was isolated, treated somewhat like a pariah, because he refused to embrace that dastardly theory of quantum mechanics. 

In fact, Einstein once wrote this to his close friend's adult children when their father died:-

"What I admired most in him (Besso) as a person was the fact that he managed for many years to live with his wife not only in peace but in continuing harmony - something in which I have rather shamefully failed twice."

The grim fact is that the love of his life (his two wives and beloved sister, Maja) all died way before him. And ironically, he died alone on 18 April 1955 due to an aneurysm burst. The brilliant mind of his just gave up. 

And as he bled to death, he called out to a nurse. When she arrived, he whispered to her. But he spoke in German, so the nurse never knew what was said by the greatest mind of the last century. 

If I'd to hazard a guess, his last words may just be his last request to gather all his children to be by his side. 

I presume this because no one I know or read about who is heaving his last breath is ever interested in how much money, estate and fame he has achieved in life. He never asked to see his balance books or investment portfolios for the last time before the final breath. 

It is unfailingly the touch of family, the embrace of love, and the exchanges of tears that occupy the heart of the dying.

So, to his first note of happiness where he advised one to strive for a "calm and modest life," I can't say that his life is anything but calm and modest. 

A great scientist like him was swept away by fame and fortune beyond his wildest imagination. And when it comes to power, fame and fortune, we are all like children playing with dangerous industrial tools and radioactive materials. 

His pursuit of success has led him to a different garden-path of so-called happiness. It is one where he died alone, by the side of a panicky stranger, and leaving behind an utterance that the nurse could not understand. 

But having said that, when asked whether he wanted to undergo an operation to slow down the process of a possible aneurysm tear, Einstein said: "It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share."

Indeed he has, and the world will forever be grateful. He had transformed the world of science but the world within him like quantum mechanics was still very much uncharted territory for him. 

Lastly, his second note talks about a will and a way. This refers to a determined spirit to never give up in all your pursuit of what endears to your heart and soul. 

Indeed, there is always a way when there is a will. 

But as we embark upon our journey to pursue our dreams, we should never forget to return home because home is where the heart is, and where true, enduring success lies. Cheerz.