Simplicity Lesson One––Time Management

"輕．重．緩．急" the four characters form a Chinese phrase which is a very common expression¹, but there are less people who can really "deeply" understand its meaning and practice it. Especially, as the modern people living in such a stressful society, many people are pushed by things, but rather than people are conducting things.

The human beings are the kind of creature living in Time. It takes time to accomplish a mission, or to produce something. Use your time wisely. At the right time, do the right thing, and eventually, things would not screw up so easily. When we spend too much time in hesitating and making decision, time are wasted in transparent. Things will turn out to be making no progress! Since I experienced something, for these four characters, I have realized how to practice it. I rearranged this phrase's order to be "急．重．緩．輕"

"急" means things in hurry and urgent. In a way, I acknowledge it as routines that we do not need so much effort and can finish it right away. (I used to think routines are not hurry.) For those high priority things, of course they fit in this category. While for routines, because they are repeating periodically, if we do not finish them immediately, they will accumulate, and we might spend the same amount of time or even longer to accomplish them.

"重" means important in Chinese. I acknowledge it as something takes longer time to be done, yet it needs to be finished as soon as possible. More often, it is usually an inevitable procedure within a project. No matter how much time, and how much effort it takes, it is a critical must to be completed. When things like this are stalemated, except to insist on its completion, sometimes it's a good idea to step back and keep an eye on it. Have time to solve this problem for you, and we can arrange time to next important thing.

"緩" means things are not so hurry, but also less important. Indeed, they could be the affairs to step back and watch as mentioned in the previous paragraph. As time goes by, situation will change. This best solution for this sort of things are keep waiting! Lots of time, some things seem to be urgent in their appearance; however, when it is technically unable to accomplish after all, we can only use alternative solutions to solve the problem in a temporary aspect as in a way things appear to be urgent. For example, before the electronic microscope was being invented, some contagious disease virus such as yellow fever was not able to be observed with optical microscope.
Mr. Hideyo Noguchi (the discoverer of venin and syphilis treatments) mistakenly recognized Weils
disease spirochaete as the yellow fever virus. Noguchi died in yellow fever finally, while the electronic microscope was invented four years after his death (in 1932).

About "輕" I need to address more on this. What things should fit in this category as we live in the modern busy society? In Chinese it can be translated as less important relatively, even it can be done after "緩" and need not to worry too much. However, in a certain aspect, "輕" may be implied as a kind of future goals or ultimate purposes. Yet, people usually THINK the troublesome routines as unimportant things and ignore them, finally the accumulated small things would turn out to be something urgent.

In conclusion, the mentioned points above are a general sorting priority idea. As time changes, things will also usually change to a higher execution priority order, and we will see the unsorted, complicated, and stressful things have changed to a simple liner sequence. Actually, the multitask design in computer operating system is also applying this logic. When all sorts of different tasks are well managed, the CPU is able to process many things together in a certain period of time. For example, we can command computers to download file in web browser and play CD music in background, at the same time, we can type report with a word processor program in the foreground.

As I used to be aiming to high, and now realized the kind of mistakes I made in the past, smoothly I tried to alter this sort of bad habit. Although my intention was to be doing good, the final situation turned out to be a mass, and this has make me feel so much pressure, busy, and powerless. I learned to tell myself to work with a calm and clear brain with a simple heart. Things are not only finished smoothly, stresses are but also disappeared!¶

^1. The four character phrase is a common expression in Chinese. Most people acknowledge it as an idea to manage time. I knew about it, but I did not know how to do it.

The Philosophy of Simplicity, Lesson Two

Also it was yesterday. I had a chance to chat with another friend. She acknowledged how my words has impact her life. She did not realize what I am saying until she really experienced something.

That reminds me something that I told her before…

We were discussing about "simplicity" and "complication." She told me that she doesn't like "complication" at all. I replied, "Yes, simple is good, but sometimes, things might not as complicated as what you think. If you really look through it's appearance, you can find a 'simple' pattern behind the complication appearance."

Indeed, I feel so thankful for my friends acknowledgments. I am experiencing some difficulties in my life lately. It gets very easily that I started questioning myself and raised some doubts. I look back to my experience again, while digesting again the relationships between "simplicity" and "complication." Eventually, I found my friends have showed me their proofs on my opinions to them. They have confirmed me that my insights really happened or worked in their life.

To me, at my current situation, as a pioneer to CREATE something new, I am trying to do something that nobody has done it before. Thus, I have seen the encountered obstacles as the complicated appearance. However, by deep looking into the complications, I have found a simple pattern. Since both friends have confirmed my insights are happening, these are very precious feedbacks that I received from the reality. Their acknowledgments are REAL. I need to trust my intuition this time for the projects that I am intending to do, rather than to shake my hands with the obstacles, and thus to agree with their everlasting existence. Prior to this moment, my brain was almost full with my self doubts…

Now, I have really tastes again the Confucius said, "Studying along without friends is an illiteracy."¶

P.S. I used to love reading those deep and hard-to-understand books. Afterwards, I found the even harder thing for me is to use simple words to describe those myth-like metaphysics, and now, I am practicing it with the blog!

Eliminating Mosquitos

Some other night, my living room had some unexpected visitors–mosquitos when I was watching TV with my wife. She shouted loud to show me the mosquitos. I took a look, and noticed that they did not fly around the house, but stayed on ceiling corners most of time. We both had no idea how they flew into the room; however, I believe that every window was either closed or sealed with nets.

Since the mosquitos were not flying around, I was thinking to take care of them after the TV show. Anyhow, I glanced my wife's annoyed face and learned that she wanted me to do something to fix that.

I was thinking very hard, and tried to find an easy way to make those mosquitos disappear. That was about 30 to 40 of them stayed together with about three major groups. I did not want to kill some of them while chasing others away, and to leave stains everywhere on the wall.

Bingo, "vacuum" flashed into my brain. I told my wife about this idea, but she was still the unhappy face. Anyway, I took my action right away, and sucked all mosquitos in only one to two minutes.

From my wife's displeased face, I thought that she did not like my idea. A couple days later, I found something interesting! She was telling my mother-in-law how I remove the mosquitos out of my sight and at the end she made a comment, "that was very creative!" I was hoodwinked by her appearance.

Anyway, in my opinion, I have tried not to do thing following an consistent way in my life, and to create a life that I enjoy. Sometimes, people might think of me out of mind. Yet, the key thing is that as long as I do not do something to harm others, I could be crazy and wild! I did not recognize my sucking mosquito behavior as an creative act, but people would say it to be creative. No matter it is creative or not in other people's eyes, I have to be sure that creativity exists in all aspects of our daily life, but not only in our job or work. That is why creativity is a matter of living attitude!¶

Vision

Vision, it could be physically watching with eyes, as well as sensing the outer world with the inner mind.

I've stopped blogging for couple days, it helped me to calm down and meditate. I've been busy traveling around the globe. It's a pleasure to sense an inner touching of my heart today. I told myself that I will write it down on the blog when I went home, and share it with everyone of you who is reading this article...

There is always sometime that we need to make a choice when we encounter an intersection of our career. During this time, we look forward into the fascinating future. At the same time, we anxiously hesitate, while emotionally being so complicated. Especially, when it is very hard to find an everlasting friend around. One need to give up something, in order to enlighten oneself possibly, and thus, to acquire more maturity.

A lot of time, we do not need to talk that much, as long as other people understand what we mean. Speaking too much, it is just wasting our life and killing time. That is why Chinese people says, "More talking, more losing." It's better not to do so. However, while not talking too much, we need to express ourselves clearly. This helps to reduce misunderstandings. Moreover, if we hold back and do not address the key point totally, it is every easy to accumulate emotional stress mentally, and that is no good to the health afterwards. In conclusion, the philosophy of speaking¹ less or more might only be understandable, but couldn't be told. After we experienced and learned an unfavorable lesson from something, if we confront a similar situation again, the human nature will tell us how to handle!

I've already on my thirty something years. Though I walk on the path of my life following the flow, I'm still floating on my luck. A stranger can only tell my appearance, while a closed friend recognizes what I have been doing. It's so true that a confidant is not easy to meet in our life. Tonight, I had a wonderful conversation with my friend. He asked me a critical question, which touched deeply inside my heart. He helped me to really SEE something that I have never thought about, while indeed I realized something, a desired future hidden behind the inmost subconscious...

A man can die for a confidant. Noble men support each other. It may just like Mr. Yasuyoshi Tokuma to the popular Japanese animation director Mr. Hayao Miyazaki in the modern history².

Thank you, dear my friend, Mr. D.T.¶

1. This article might a little bit none sense in English. I feel that the native English speaker would ask why "vision" can relate to the "philosophy of speaking" in any sense. In the original Chinese, it is a kind of "emotional expressing" essay. In this kind of essay, the writer just write down how he feels about something. If you read this article a couple times carefully, you might be able to figure out the relation in between. I mentioned at the end that my friend is able to point out something which I did not aware. If we can not communicate to each other, my friend would not be able to point out that critical point. That is why I said, "we do not need to talk that much, as long as other people understand what we mean."

2. In the original Chinese text, the example I used are people in the Chinese history. If you are not a Chinese, it must be hard for you to imagine what is addressed here. Therefore, in the English translation, I found the story between Mr. Yasuyoshi Tokuma and Mr. Hayao Miyazaki. Because Tokuma's help, Miyazaki is possible to have his film glow around the world, such as the latest "Howl's Moving Castle" or the earlier "Princess Mononoke."

Writing in English versus in Chinese

If you are learning English writing, but your native language is not English. This is my English writing tip for you.

I grew up in Taiwan where people speak Mandarin, which is the official dialect in Taiwan and China. I had my B.F.A. degree in America where people speak English. In California State system, many schools require students to pass WPE (Writing Proficiency Exam) in order to graduate, no matter the native students or international. I had no problem to write in Chinese, since in Taiwan students need to pass the high school entry exam, which includes writing in Chinese.

I had no former experience of writing in English before I went to the States. The worse thing was that I failed the junior-level English writing classes twice. That was really frustrating! However, how did I pass my writing class afterwards? Here is my story.

In a formal Chinese essay, the most important thing is to follow the four-step-style writing. The four steps are “start,” “follow,” “transition,” and “conclusion.” In comparison with writing in English, I was taught to write the major points of the outlines in the first paragraph. Yet, when I received my essay from my instructor, she always asked me, “In this sentence, you stated this, but in the later sentence, you addressed that. Why?”

I had been wondering its answer for those semesters. Eventually, after times of homework challenging, I finally dug it out! Indeed, the answer is quite simple: “I was missing the transitions between two different statements.”

What are these transitions, such as however, thus, indeed, nontheless? I realized that when writing in Chinese, there are many details could be omitted, since the Chinese grammar is not as exactitude. When writing in Chinese, we can leave these transitions there, or just omit them. For example, if I state the question that my instructors asked me again in Chinese thinking, you can compare its difference. "In this sentence, you stated this. In the later sentence, you addressed that. Why?”

I actually learned the grammar of using transition in my grammar class, but I was not sure how to apply them in an essay. It took me three semesters to learn this great lesson, and I wish someone could benefit from my sharing today.¶

Post Script: Since e-mail gets so popular nowadays, I write e-mails frequently in either English or Chinese. I think writing is a way of communication. The key thing about communication is to communicate. No matter the Chinese four-step-style writing, or the Western hit-the-point style at the beginning, they are some kind of template for writing. This is how I feel that it supposes to be. Does this make sense to you or not? I'd like to hear some comments from you!