Category: Short Form

To Those Who Carry the Burden

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

To those
who carry the burden.

The small business CEOs,
responsible for paying their employees’
salaries.

The parents,
responsible for their children’s
well-being.

The operating room doctors,
responsible for their patients’
lives.

To all those
who have experienced the weight
of responsibility on their shoulders.

You may be feeling the pressure
to meet expectations.

You may be blaming yourself
day after day
for failing to meet
expectations.

But may you never lose
the certainty
and confidence in yourself.

May you never doubt
your self-worth
or whether you’re working hard enough.

Because your life
is worthy of respect
exactly as they are.

While others may see you
challenged,
I see greatness.

Just
as the great mountains and valleys
are mere residues
of nature
under pressure and weight.

Great lives
are mere residues
of our will to sustain life
under pressure and weight.

p.s: This was inspired by my wife’s work and her comparison of nature’s work under pressure and weight and an artist’s work under pressure and weight.

p.p.s: I also made a video version of this narrated by AI.

Change

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

For our behaviors to change,
our emotions
may have to change
first.

For our emotions to change,
our thoughts
may have to change
first.

For our thoughts to change
our focus
may have to change
first.

For our focus to change
our perspective
may have to change
first.

Weight

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

When doing something
big.

To think that
we
can carry the weight
alone
is a misunderstanding.

To think that
anyone
can or will carry the weight
with us
is also a misunderstanding.

It may be that
finding people
who can and will carry the weight
with us
and learning to share that weight
with them
well
is a major part of the work
itself.

Took an LLM Tutorial

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

In the preface of my book,
I talked about the layman’s struggle
to understand
software.

10 years since then,
I find myself—
a formally trained computer scientist—
struggling
to understand
software.

Not because I don’t understand
how the software
works,
but because despite knowing
how the software
works,
what it does
is still
bewildering.

Exploration

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

Often times
what we are doing
is nothing more
than exploring.

At the heart
of an exploration
is the fact
that we don’t know.

We may try to make it seem
like it is more
than a mere exploration,
by saying we have
a question
a vision,
or a hypothesis.

But deep down,
we know
we are simply
exploring.

Fear vs Danger

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

When using
a table saw,
there is the danger
of severing
our fingers.

What’s remarkable
is that so long as we have
a clear understanding of the danger
in using the table saw
many of us find it sufficient
to work up the courage
to engage with it
despite the danger,
instead of staying stuck
in the thought
of severing our fingers
which merely gives rise
to fear.

A Difficult Case

Posted on by Seung Chan Lim 0

When someone judges us
a “difficult
case,”
it can be easy
to blame ourselves
for being
a “difficult,
case.”

While this may mean
there is something extraordinary
about us,
it also means
that someone with greater skills
will not not judge us
a “difficult
case.”

p.s: This was inspired by a meeting with a doctor who called my wife a “difficult case,” while asking her to work with another doctor with more experience and skill. An unfortunately common case of compassion without empathy, displayed by many of us, including yours truly, when we take on the role of caregiving.