苦與甜 空和滿

苦與甜 空和滿

「不要叫我拿俄米（就是甜的意思），要叫我瑪拉（就是苦的意思），因為全能者使我受了大苦。我滿滿的出去，耶和華使我空空的回來。」

這句說話記載在聖經路得記第一章。一位老人家住在伯利恆，卻因本地饑荒而移民，轉眼十年，在外地失去了丈夫和兩個兒子，現在回流返國時說出心底的話。

這句說話充滿矛盾，生命也是如此，從甜到苦、 從滿滿到空空，是耶非耶? 

社會心理學鼻祖 Kurt Lewin 指出每個人有的「生活空間 life space」是由個人和環境互動而產生的行為動力。這種動力叫「場 Force Field」，Lewin 所指的環境是人的需求而在人的意念中(腦+心)而產生的影晌，不同的人會看同樣的環境不一樣，也會因時間而有所改變。需求會產生引力或斥力，這就是「場」的動力了。這個場可以令我們覺得同一件事甘甜或是苦楚，因為我們沒有一個「參照標準 reference point。」

有了參照標準，引力和斥力有新的平衡，原本看為苦的會變得甘甜或是混和了苦中有甜、甜中有苦，生活(生命)變得可以更精采和美麗了。

這個參照標準必須是 a) 不會改變; b) 遠距離的; c) 可見的; 及d) 唯一的。

容與不容

容  to tolerate 


I started this blog with the Chinese word 容.  


The Google translation of it: 1. to contain; to hold; 2. to tolerate; 3. to allow.  Chinese dictionary describes it by taking the character parts separately  : “宀”是房屋, “谷”是空虚的山洼, 都有盛受的意思。本义:容纳. 


So the word associated with : 
     容庶(宽容饶恕);
     容物(度量宽大,能够容人);
     容谅(宽容原谅);
     容借(宽容);
     容宽(宽容,宽恕);
     容覆(宽容涵纳); and
     容纵(宽容放纵)


The word ranges from passive tolerate (宽容放纵) of indulging someone or something. A more noble meaning of it is allowing and forgiving (宽容饶恕). 

乐意采纳 To Embrace  

On the same train of thought, I like the word to embrace. To embrace something is not passively tolerating something. Tolerating is viewing something undesirable but accepting it anyhow.  To embrace something especially ideas and thoughts, is to buy-in, to pay interest in and to integrate something into the system. One has to see the value of doing so. Value is a perception. So to embrace something one has to change one's perception of value.


When something that I do not feel right. Sometimes I tolerate it when I can do nothing absolutely. But if I can do something about it. I change it and myself (sometimes more of myself) to embrace it.


不容 - Tiger mother


A small piece of news recently attracted much attention.  It rides on the news of President Hu Jintao's visit of Obama.  A Chinese mother was called the tiger mother because the way she treated her daughter. 


Do we have a course in family management? If mother is the manager (supervisor, CEO, executive), what kind of manager would you prefer? Why? 


Why would a mother want a super-daughter? For what purpose? 

If a nation is full of tiger mothers and super-kids, would you live there?

A company or an organization needs to perform well, why? For what purpose?

If a city or nation is full of super-competitive firms and organizations, what would happen to this city?

Power of Knowledge

Inside-out vs Outside-in

I am reading a book by Alan Fine.  In the first chapter of the book, he talks about whether performance is P=C+K where P stands for performance, C for Capacity and K for knowledge or performance is P=C-I where P stands for performance, C for Capacity and I for interference.

(C+K) is out-side in and (C-I) is inside-out.  We would say, if we were asked which is right, both are right and it depends on situations. What are the situations? Are they mutually exclusive when applied to a situation? Are they to be balanced? Are the Cs in both formula the same C? May be they are of different dimensions, like in the former refers to our intellectual dimension and the later to our gaming and sports dimension? Do they refer to different stages, like the former refers to early developmental stage and the later refers to executions?
                                                                                
Power of knowledge

One of the biggest issue is that both formula are static in nature.  That is, they assume that C is a constant. When we do  P=C+K, C increases along with the addition of K.

Certainly, the argument is true for concerns in sports or in situations when knowledge is not an important factor. I am in management training, and I agree that mere head-knowledge K (undigested, without internalization, with no contextual insight) will not help.  However, we hope, by making K a living-knowledge, it will increase his capacity.  So, let me redo the formula by writing P=(C-I)**K where the symbol ** denoted "to the power of K" and K is usually larger than 1.