Category: Self-Improvement

Competence: A Crucial Quality of a Young Adult

 

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People get stressed when they are faced with a problem that is quite beyond their competency to solve, but which they are expected to solve. They know that they have to solve it, but they are unsure on how to go about it. As unsolved problems mount, the greater is the stress and unhappiness of the person.

Stress levels rise proportionately to the magnitude of the gap between expected competence and actual competence. A graduate of a good university is expected to perform well in a job that they applied for, while an employee who did not even finish college will not be expected to meet such standards. Farmers can live a happy life even if they did not go to school. No one expects them to know more than farming. But if even in farming, they don’t seem to do the job well, then they will feel the pressure of their wives and the criticism of their neighbors. Stress and distress begin.

There are two kinds of competency: technical competency and personal competency. It is the second one that is more important.

Technical competency means that an electrical engineer knows the job of an electrical engineer and possesses the requisite knowledge of the profession. An accountant knows how to complete financial statements and do all the ledgers, accrual basis, bank reconciliation and other things an accountant should know. When one is an accountant and has inadequate knowledge and skills about accounting, the person will feel stressed because he or she knows that the expectation is valid, but he or she is unable to deliver that which he implicitly promised to deliver.

Young people therefore must realize at a young age what it means to be professionally competent and to have the initiative to attain this regardless of the educational standard of the school they find themselves in. With Youtube, Khan Academy, Wikipedia, and a host of free resources in the internet, anyone can learn practically anything on a sufficiently high level.

But it is the second competency that is truly important — personal competency. This covers a host of qualities that are truly valuable in a person: self-confidence, self-esteem, initiative, curiosity, willingness to learn, stick-to-it-iveness, resourcefulness, perseverance, result-orientedness, emotional intelligence, leadership, unselfishness, trustworthiness, volunteerism and similar qualities. If it is overlaid with cheerfulness, optimism, and compassion, then you have someone who is destined for success in any field that they get into. A person who has these qualities can learn almost any skill or technical competency.

Personal competency is a quality that is nurtured from early childhood. When children are not put down (“idiot,” “dumb,” “useless”), frequently criticized or humiliated, then they do not develop low self-esteem, a factor that drags personal competency down to a very low level even if they are actually intelligent. On the other hand, when they feel accepted as they are, receive sincere praises when deserving, and feel that they are loved, then they are developing a personality foundation that will be solid and stable, and which can sustain them even during times of trial, adversity and setback. They will grow up not fearing failure or making mistakes. They are willing to take measured risks. They are ready to apologize when it is due. The world to them will not be a hellish or oppressive place, and life will be a positive adventure and a happy experience.

It is unfortunate that many schools do not teach this second kind of competency as systematically as they teach mathematics and grammar. Unfortunate too is the fact that many parents are the primary demolisher of such personal competency.

These then are what parents and schools should look at: the development of technical competency and personal competency, and to remember that the second one is more important than the first.

The Gateway to an Awesome Universe

Physicists speculate about a possible parallel universe beyond what we can see with our senses. But there is no need to break the barrier of time and space to look for such a universe. It is already accessible to anyone right here and now — provided one knows how to read books. Inside the pages of books lie universes that can be so awesome and fantastic. The possibilities of existence are limited only by the human imagination.

The scientist and author Carl Sagan wrote:

“Books . . . permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and not just those in power; to contemplate — with the best teachers — the insights, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history. They allow people long dead to talk inside our heads. Books can accompany us everywhere. Books are patient where we are slow to understand, allow us to go over the hard parts as many times as we wish, and are never critical of our lapses.” (The Demon-Haunted World, pp. 335-6)

One of the greatest gifts my mother gave to me was the love of reading. I can’t imagine what I would be now if I didn’t appreciate reading books. Biographies, histories, sciences, the mysteries of the mind, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, spirituality, God or gods, Big Bang, black holes — all those things that are beyond the scope of what we can personally experience or what other people can personally tell us about. All those would have been unknown to me if I did not learn how to read. How rich and wonderful life has become just because of books!

In our school, I encourage all teachers and students to read. It is the doorway not just to an interesting and abundant life, but it is also a very important key to success in life. I have interviewed countless applicants in our companies, and I invariably find that the people who have the most potential are those who love reading, particularly when they apply as teachers. They can rise up to higher responsibilities because they understand things more deeply and have wider comprehension of things. They can learn by themselves without depending on another person. They absorb the lessons of life of other people. They have insights about society, politics, history, science, or philosophy and apply in them in their life, work and mission.

Bill Gates, for a long time the richest man in the world, reads one book a week. Warren Buffett, the second or third richest man, spends 80% of his time reading.

Carl Sagan cites a survey of the US Department of Education on the difference between readers and non-readers:

“Only four per cent of those at the highest reading level are in poverty, but 43 per cent of those at the lowest reading level are. . . . In general the better you read, the more you make — an average of about $12,000 a year at the lowest of these reading levels, and about $34,000 a year at the highest.” (Ibid., p. 336)

Parents should introduce to their toddlers the wonderful world of books by telling them stories and showing them pictures in books. Bring children to bookstores and allow them to choose what they like to read.

When my children were still young, we would go out every week and our favorite place to go was National Bookstore. They were free to buy what they wanted within the limits of a certain budget. But if they bought books, then there was no limit to their budget. This nurtured in them an interest in reading.

Some may say that smart and talented people may succeed without reading books. Yes, that’s possible, but quite improbable in the modern world where technology, knowledge and information have burgeoned astronomically. It has been estimated that knowledge in the world doubles every 13 months, whereas it was every 100 years in 1900. Without reading, it is impossible to catch up with essential knowledge.

IQ or intelligence quotient rises up with reading. This is not just because of additional knowledge but also because of the increase in one’s vocabulary. Every time that we learn a new concept found in a word, the brain creates new neural connections that will adapt to the new idea. An example is the term singularity when we speak about black holes. Something in the brain must adjust in order to appreciate this new concept. Another is the word “paradigm.”When we try to understand these words, we understand additional dimensions of existence, not simply things like tables and chairs. I recently finished the new novel of Dan Brown entitled Origin. It is an awesome blend of science and fiction and it widened my intellectual horizons in a direction I hardly considered before.

Read at least 30 minutes to one hour everyday, no matter how busy you are. Always bring a book or ebook with you, read it or them while you are traveling by bus or train, when you are waiting for something, or before you go to sleep. Look up every new word that you encounter. Share with other people new ideas that you have read. Let your reading help you build a productive and meaningful life.

The Kite, the Sailboat and the Salmon

In the journey of life, there will always be opposition, adversities and obstacles. These can be from people, from circumstances or from events. If we are to live a successful, fulfilled, meaningful and happy life, we must know how to face these obstructions in our journey.

How do we stay strong and remain advancing forward despite powerful opposing forces? We can learn awesome lessons from three things: the kite, the sailboat and the salmon.

1. The kite – There are really two lessons here. First, despite the strong wind, the kite stays quite steady in the sky because it is connected by the string to the ground. Once the string snaps, then it will be thrown off by the winds, and will crash somewhere in an unknown place. The string must be sturdy, otherwise a strong wind will cause it to snap. In the same manner in our life, we need to be grounded or linked to a meaningful purpose, a philosophy or a principle. It can be a family, a life goal, a life mission, a wholesome philosophy, or a spiritual life. Despite the opposing wind, we stay on course because the link to that philosophy or goal is strong and clear.

A person with a strong moral fiber will not easily be carried away by temptation, by pleasure or by gainful advantage to do an unethical or unjust act.

The second lesson is that the stronger the wind, the higher the kite flies. Try flying a kite on a weak wind, and the kite falls to the ground. Hence opposition and adversities can strengthen us and make us capable to rising higher in our life, provided the string is strong and tough. Annie Besant, one of the greatest English reformers of the 19th century, wrote that if she were to live her life again, she would forego her pleasures and joys, but not her difficulties and adversities because these were the factors that built her strength of character.

2. The sailboat – the second lesson comes from sailboat, which moves only when the wind blows and pushes its sail. If the wind is going towards south, but the sailboat wants to go to the north, can the sailboat reach such an opposite destination?

Yes, it is possible. And there is something we can learn from sailboat in facing life’s opposing forces.

The travel opposite of the wind direction, the sailboat must face the wind in a diagonal northeast direction. When the wind blows from the front, the wind pushes the boat to the side. But because the boat with its rudder is at a diagonal angle, the sideward push actually pushes the boat forward to the northeast even if the wind blow south. After traveling northeast for some distance, the sailboat changes its angle and then faces northwest, moving forward again in that direction. The sailboat then advances against the wind in a zigzag manner.

(Illustration courtesy of rebrn. com/re/eli-if-ships-with-sails-are-heading-the-opposite-direction-as-th-1092918/)

So when we are facing opposing forces that seem stronger than us, we don’t face it frontally but diagonally. We resist but we continue to move forward even if at a slower pace. It’s low-key progress. It’s analogous to judo, where one makes use of the opposing force to one’s advantage.

Suppose a powerful and moneyed political opponent is oppressing you in order to silence you. To fight him frontally may mean being crushed and annihilated. Then do not do so. Stay firm and work in a non-threatening but right direction. Strengthen the work on the flanks that will eventually support your central work when the time is ripe to do so.

3. The salmon — this is a most powerful and sublime lesson from nature.

Salmons are born in high altitudes up to about 2,000 meters high from sea level (more than the height of Mt. Wilson in California). Then they swim towards the ocean and stay there for one to four years. When the time comes for them to lay eggs, they swim back to where they came from, which means that they have to swim upstream against raging waterfalls that may be five feet high or more. It seems impossible because the torrent of the falls is so strong that the salmons are pushed downwards no matter how powerfully they swim. But they never give up. So what do they do?

They leap up the falls and go to the next level. They don’t fight against the falling water. They jump above it.

(Photo courtesy of Earthjustice. org)

This is an example that teaches us that we need make leaps whenever we face apparently insurmountable odds. It is transcending the situation. This is what happens when we discover an insight or attain enlightenment. We transcend the ordinary level of struggle. An enmity can be dissolved by transcending hatred. Then one ceases to have an enemy. In Zen meditation, one transcends rational thinking. It is a leap of intuition.

Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Aurobindo of India and Benigno Aquino of the Philippines are examples political oppositionists and activists who were imprisoned by the reigning government. From the standpoint of their political struggle, they were defeated and quashed. But they leapt beyond the political arena and rose to a higher level of struggle. Like the salmon, they no longer attempted to swim against the water falls. They jumped above and beyond, and attained a high goal than the political struggle. Mandela became an icon of peace, earning him a Nobel Prize; Aurobindo became one of the great spiritual teachers of India who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Aquino lost his life and became a national hero of the Philippines, not just a President or a another powerful politician. It was his wife and son who became Presidents after he died.