The mystery of life
It’s that time of the year for self reflections again. Since 2013, year end reflections took on a whole new dimension for me with the passing on of Dad. It is strange that when he was alive, I never realized my love for him and that he was so important to me.
Dad had been an influential figure in my life and his abrupt death in early 2013 had a profound impact on me. Perhaps the mystery of life is that you would only cherish something after you lost it. Human beings tend to take things for granted, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships.
On looking back, one of Dad’s important words of advice to me was to manage and improve my temper. When I was young, I didn’t enjoy a good relationship with my mother and often argued with her over trivial matters. Because of this, Dad always chastened me over my foul temper. Indeed, since young, emotion management had always been a challenge for me. Sometimes when I see red, I would lose my head, much to my regrets later. Apparently, this Achilles Heel has spilled over to my job and thus affected my progression.
This year, I achieved quite a lot in my job and had collected a few awards along the way. But I felt that all the good works would go down the drain and nullified by my head-on clashes with several colleagues from other departments. I was involved in several unpleasant arguments due to pressing deadlines and these incidents caught the attention of my big bosses. On several times, my big boss had to do damage control for me and behind closed door, he expressed concern on my emotion management. He urged me to improve my emotions before it spirals out of control. He noted that I am a reliable and hardworking worker but all these count for nothing if I am seen as a difficult colleague by other department heads.
Indeed, I glanced at the checklist of achievements I had accomplished in my job this year and was quite impressed by myself. But just a couple of bad incidents ruined everything. Sometimes I think I really shoot myself in the foot. Perhaps the stress of handling too many projects had gotten into my head and all it took was a couple of nasty emails from fellow colleagues to make enter into code red mood. Maybe on hindsight, I should have politely declined several projects assigned to me by my boss. After all, some of my colleagues have done so and pushed the assignments to me. Whatever the case, the way I had handled the situations were less than desirable and I knew something must be done to arrest this problem.
But I guess what had happened cannot be undone and what is more important is to learn from mistake. The lesson learned for me is to strive to speak more diplomatically and avoid confrontations at all cost. Learning to speak is form of art and requires one to use the right choice of words to convey the right message. At times, you may be angry, but if you use the correct words, the other party will sense it without you losing control. The loser will always be the first party that lose his/her temper.
In addition, I am also practicing several techniques to curb my workplace emotions, such as taking “time-out” and avoiding sending out long toxic emails. In the past, I realized that I have this stupid tendency to send out angry long emails and made myself silly without achieving anything at all. Henceforth, nowadays, I only send out short emails with curt remarks. After all, nobody actually read long emails and bother with the details.
But most importantly, my family has always been an important pillar throughout my career, especially my wife. I always share with her my problems and troubles at office and she would point out my flaws. I guess besides my Dad, my wife is the only person in this world who truly knows and understands me well. On this note, I am truly heartened to find my soul-mate. Without her support, I don’t know how long I can last in my job journey.
Hopefully next year, I would have better updates and that readers would not make the same mistakes as I did. Enjoy the ride.
Magically yours,
SG Wealth Builder
