Month: February 2019

Being There

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

Several years back,
I visited a private high school.

There,
I did a workshop
where the students sketched
a blueprint of the kind of relationship
they wished to have
with their teachers
such that the teachers could more effectively
help them learn, create, grow, and mature.

The keyword they used
to sum up their sketch
was “being there.”

The students wanted teachers
who were willing to “be there” for them.

I then asked the students
to raise their hand
if they already had this kind of relationship.

2 out of ~40 students raised their hand.

After this incident,
it become a priority for me
to form this kind of relationship,
with those whom I have committed
to help learn, create, grow, and mature.

I’m grateful for this lesson
I learned
from those students.

Time for Another Metaphor

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 1

One
of the most important concepts
in my first book
is metaphors.

Metaphors
connect two seemingly
unrelated
ideas.

In doing so,
it can help us discover
new
or unexpected insights
into something we were previously
unaware.

For example,
while I was on tour
with my book
I shared the psychological pain
and struggle
I experienced
in the artistic
creative
process..

To my surprise,
entrepreneurs
resonated more deeply with my experience
than others.​

It turns out
entrepreneurs experience
similar psychological/interpersonal pain
and struggle
in the process
of launching
and running
their business.

This experience helped me
create a metaphor
between the experience of artists
and the experience of entrepreneurs,
which lead me to do
what I do
now.

But until I created
that metaphor
I used to often say
that I don’t understand entrepreneurs.

If I said I do understand,
it was just so I could feel entitled
to say something negative
about them.

So now
whenever I say
I don’t understand someone
or say I do understand them
just so I can say something negative about them,
I tell myself
that it’s time
for another
metaphor.

Giving Up

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

It’s ok to give up.

What may be more important
is getting to the heart of what we want.

Not the thing we say or think we want,
but the thing for which our heart yearns,
floating right on the threshold
of our conscious and sub-conscious.

Once we become aware of what this is,
we tend to realize that there are many ways to attain this.

In that moment, “giving up” becomes
but a matter of giving up one of many methods of attaining this.

If so,
“giving up” can eliminate the very thing getting in the way
of making progress:
our insistence on a particular method.
Thereby helping us make greater progress
toward attaining what we want
if even if it is merely temporary.

Becoming Aware of Our Tension

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 3

One way
to sort the behaviors
that arise from too much tension
is into 5 categories.

It can be useful
to simply notice
and to acknowledge these behaviors
as natural human reactions
to our desire to relieve ourselves
of too much tension,
instead of judging them
as good/bad
or right/wrong.

This can give us
the requisite room in our mind
to not only appreciate the tension we experience,
but also the tension experienced by others
when they behave
the same way.