Category: Short Form

Beyond Responsibility

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

“I want to achieve
peace in my family.”

“I want my team members
to be happy.”

“I want …”

While these can be goals,
aspirations,
or expectations,
they cannot be
our responsibility.

Not because we don’t care
or because we have no influence,
but because
responsibility
does not equal
outcome.

What is within our responsibility
is to do our best.

Sometimes our best
does not yield
an outcome
we find satisfying.

Our responsibility lies
is what response we choose
in relation to the outcome
we do not find satisfying.

Having vs Being

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

We have
a past,
but we are not
our past.

We have
a future,
but we are not
our future.

We are
who we are

This may sound
obvious.

Yet,
I invite you to monitor what you say
and count the times
you ignore the obvious
and how that impacts the quality
of your life,
the quality
of your decision making,
and the quality
of your relationships.

3 Layers

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

Our consciousness
can have trouble empathizing
with our thoughts, emotions, or behaviors.

Our consciousness
can have trouble empathizing
with the thoughts, emotions, or behaviors
of others,
be it animate or inanimate.

Our consciousness
can have trouble empathizing
with the thoughts, emotions, or behaviors
of our larger system,
be it our family,
society,
nation,
or ecosystem.

Aligning Intention with Impact

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

May we
start
with the intention
to help
others.

But before helping,
may we put down
some of the weight we’re carrying
—even if temporarily—
especially the one,
where we feel responsible
for the other’s
happiness,
to affords us the ability
to share
the other person’s weight
by supporting them
instead of taking their weight
away
from them.

After helping,
appreciate their gratitude
instead of ignoring
or trivializing them.

Rejection

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

What cold outreach taught me
was that what people are doing
is not rejecting me.

What they are doing
is saying things to me.

It is I who choose
to interpret their words
as rejection
or as something else.

From their perspective,
they may be feeling misunderstood
take advantage of, etc…

Listening

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

Some psychologists
claim they know
how to listen.

Perhaps.

But I learned to listen
not from psychologists,
but from artists.

Craftsmen
listening to their materials
Actors
listening to
Musicians.

If one thinks
they know how to listen
as psychologists do,
we are missing so much of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn1f5bx5dAY

Need vs Form

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

If we do
or say things
to fulfill a need,
then we form our objects,
organizations,
and rituals
to fulfill that need.

Yet,
the words,
the behaviors,
and the forms of our objects
and organizations
can mislead us,
if we fail to comprehend
and appreciate
the underlying needs
that shaped it.

Tis
how easily
dogma
is born.