03 May 2006

Self Image

The Pain of Perfectionism by Jean Lush

As difficult as it is to believe, perfectionists suffer from low self-esteem. In order to like themselves, they must be perfect. Unfortunately, they can’t be perfect, and this failing reinforces their low self-esteem. It’s a vicious circle.

She whizzed by me, walking as fast as her long legs would allow. “Good morning, Mrs. Lee,” I called. “I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

Doing an about-face, she darted toward me with a pressured stride. “I’ve been terribly busy from morning to night,” she said. “All Jack’s golf buddies and their wives are in town, and it’s my turn to entertain. Thank God I don’t have to do this very often!”

As she stopped to catch her breath, I said, “Your home and garden always look beautiful. I can’t imagine there would be much preparation for your company.”

Shocked, she retorted, “Oh my! There is so much work to be done. I’ve just finished giving the gardener precise directions on how to lay the fresh pea gravel in the paths. I’m sure I’ll have to rake the gravel just before our guests arrive.”

“But your garden always looks beautiful, with its lovely pink petunia borders.”

“It’s not perfect, by any means! You can see that all the petunias aren’t the exact same shade of pink. I wanted everything to match perfectly, but the greenhouse erred on my order this year. I would have refused to purchase these flowers, but they were the only pink petunias left in town, and I had to have something to put along the path for this weekend.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lee, your house looks beautiful, and I admire the way your whole family works with you to keep it so lovely.”

“Well, thank you, but I can’t stand here talking. The party is tomorrow, and I’m a nervous wreck. I hate the way these parties interfere with my routine.” Shaking her head she headed toward her house. “I’ve got to go. There’s laundry and ironing to do.”

“Couldn’t you hide the laundry until after the party?” I called. In total amazement, she peered at me, her eyes as big as quarters. “I could never do that! I can’t stand having soiled articles in my house. What if someone found them?”

I was just a young mother when I lived next door to Mrs. Lee, and I remember leaving that conversation feeling like a downright failure. At the time I had never heard the word perfectionist. I just thought she was a wonderful manager and housekeeper, and I wished my house looked as lovely as hers.

Mrs. Lee was meticulous about tiny details, always straining for excellence, but even her highest standards weren’t good enough. She always felt she had to be better. Not only was she worn out, but she was wearing out her husband and children, too. Whenever her sense of order was disturbed, they caught the flack.

It goes without saying that perfectionists are often angry people. They usually carry low-grade irritation inside, because nothing measures up to their expectations. They expect too much out of themselves, out of others and even out of God. It’s interesting to me that out of the ten personality types, perfectionists have the highest rate of depression.1

Sloppy people are sometimes happier. They don’t get so frustrated when things aren’t in complete order. Now I don’t advocate living in a pigpen, but perhaps we would enjoy life more if we weren’t so uptight about having everything spotless.

Deborah was a perfectionist housewife who worked part time and was involved in the women’s ministry at her church.

“I love all the things I do,” Deborah sighed, “but I’m not juggling the load well. Something is wrong with me. Plenty of my friends do more than me, and yet they’re calm and relaxed. I’m anything but calm. It’s like I have a knot in my throat all the time.”

After we explored her various responsibilities, I suggested that Deborah separate out the things that were of vital importance each day. She was to choose three areas that needed an A performance. If she listed ten priorities for the day, only the top three were to get an A performance. The other seven had to be given a B or C. I could tell she had trouble separating the urgent form the trivial.

“Make your bedroom look tidy in a few minutes, instead of fiddling around for thirty minutes doing everything perfectly,” I suggested. “Give yourself permission to do it quickly. Stop dead in your tracks when your ten minutes are up, and go on to the next thing on the list. If your bedroom gets a C for the day, don’t worry about it. It’s okay. Push your shoes and slippers into the closet and throw up the bedcovers in two full sweeps. Forget about tucking in everything. A C on your bedroom doesn’t matter when you have other important deadlines to meet. Leave the dishes in the dishwasher unwashed, and don’t vacuum before going to work. We are doing this to get you away from living to perfectionist extremes.”

I don’t think I gained her confidence very quickly, because she scoffed, “That’s awful. I will never stoop to such sloppy housekeeping!”

I tried to reason with her. “You have just told me that you are perpetually exhausted. You have also told me that you have important deadlines to meet at certain times of the month and on those days you have to be out of the house very early. You cannot assign A grades to every single task each day. If you do, you’re going to be a neurotic mess. You must learn to separate out the most important tasks.”

She reluctantly agreed to try the plan I offered and wrote out her schedule for the following day. At first she assigned too many B’s after her top three A tasks. Gradually she worked on accepting more C’s in the plan. When she came in the next week, I asked for every detail.

“As soon as I started sensing the knot in my throat, I talked to myself. Last night we entertained eight dinner guests, and I told myself I must not demand perfection in every part of the house. I let the basement stay as it was and told the children they had to keep the doors to their rooms closed. The kids’ toys were strewn all over the family room floor, so I closed it off, too. I vacuumed the house the day before and gave myself permission to leave the Hoover in the closet until after the party. I decided the dining room and kitchen would get the A grade for the evening, along with the meal I prepared.”

“Excellent!” I said. “But how did you feel about all the neglect?”

I smiled inside when I heard Deborah’s response.

“Jean, it was kind of weird. I really enjoyed the evening with our friends. I’ve never found entertaining pleasurable, because all the preparation wore me out. But last night was different. I actually had fun, and it was great to hear everyone rave about the stuffed chicken breasts.”

Then a strange thing happened that caught me totally off guard. With out warning, she shouted at the top of her voice, “Mother, I don’t have to be perfect anymore! I can’t please you, anyway! I refuse to feel guilty for not being what you have always pushed me to be!”

Deborah’s mother had been dead for several years

Peer Pressure

Dare to be Differentby Kevin Leman, Ph.D.

Hey, parents. Yeah, you — the ones whose kids have the most fashionable buzz haircut with a ponytail, even though they’re just 6 or 7 years old. Do you know what you’re really conveying to your kids? You’re telling them that they need to grow up to look like everybody else. Now think about what “everybody else” is like, and ask yourself if that is what you really want for your kids.

Unfortunately every generation seems to start a little earlier in the great quest to become just like everybody else. Every season brings a new “must have it” kid craze: Pokemon, Tickle-Me-Elmo, Nintendo 64, Furby, Barbie, Cabbage Patch dolls, Beanie Babies, PlayStation 2.

Apart from a single Furby, you won’t find any of the above in the Leman household for a simple reason: I think it’s good to be different. I think it’s healthy to raise kids to stand apart from the crowd.

If your son isn’t “different,” his adult life may look like this: He may marry and divorce within the first five years of his adult life. He may drift from partner to partner. If he marries or moves in with a woman who has already been divorced, he will merge his life with someone whom somebody else has already discarded.

If your daughter isn’t “different,” she may have half a dozen sexual partners before she graduates from college. She may also contract a sexually transmitted disease. Her sexual experience will actually make her less likely to have a successful marriage, leading to a number of broken relationships.

All these divorces and sexual partners will result in yet another set of stepgrandparents and a brood of kids who live in three or four different houses. Your job as a grandparent will become increasingly difficult. Not only will you probably not get to see all your grandkids, but you’ll certainly never get to see all of them in one place.

That makes life pretty ugly and very complicated.

I think it’s good for kids to be different. When the popular route leads to disaster, I want my children to choose a unique path. If I raise my kids to be exactly like everyone else — letting them watch whatever they want to watch, turning a blind eye to premarital sexual activity, running them ragged from morning to night so that the family never bonds, being too tired on Saturday or Sunday morning to take the family to synagogue or church — I should expect them to grow up to be like everyone else.

And that thought terrifies me.

How do you raise kids who expect to be different? It begins with the parents creating a climate of love, acceptance, trust, affirmation and positive expectations. My kids know I love them, but they also know I expect the best from them. I hold them accountable and openly share my positive expectations for their behavior and attitudes. It makes a difference when parents tell their son, “Honey, we don’t expect you to be like everybody else; we expect you to be different.” This gives the son the feeling that he’s special — and that’s a very good feeling.

Instead of trying to make your teenagers “fit into” society’s artificial standards, which change with every season, why not put your effort into helping them “fit into” your family, which will always be there for them? Your kids need you to be cheerleaders for them.

15 April 2006

IF.......but PRAY

If there's no rain,
We will not be able to see rainbow;
If there's no storm,
We will not know what is peace.

If there's no wrong,
We will not know what is right;
If there's only sadness,
What is joy then?

we often complain when there's storm in our lives, we often just focus on the unhappy events or things in our lives or we just cannot let go certain things in our lives. We often forget that this life is not our own, God is in control of everything. God has been assuring us again and again,but we are just faithless.

Just don't forget to pray when things happen.

You Are My Healer

I just want to dedicate this song to a friend, hoping this friend will read this post.

I Am the God that healeth thee
I Am the God your healer
I send My word and heal your disease
I Am the God your healer

You are the God that healeth me
You are the God my healer
You send your word and heal my disease
You are the Lord my healer

Truly Lord, You are our healer, Father, i pray that you will heal the scars that are in us and help us forgive those who have hurt us O Lord! Father, there's no hurt that is greater than you being nailed onto the cross. Father, please forgive us for being self centered. Indeed, we are the one who welcome You and we are the one who push You to the cross! Father, we are sorry!!! Father, thank you for being there for us every moment, thank you too for being the pillar that has been supporting us! Lord, thank you for helping us through thus far! Father, we pray for our friends, our family and everyone out there who are still seeking Lord, please Lord reveal yourself to them and also enable them to accept You! Father, You are the only one who will not disappoint us, You are always the faithful one. Father, stop us from looking up to people instead help us look up to You. Help us learn from our mistakes Lord, help us see the reason why we always get disappointed. Father, we need You and we believe, in Your time, You will make all things possible! Thank you, Father!

02 April 2006

Kids, Confessing Their Sins

Today i taught my sunday school kids about "Is Satan Real?" A story was told about how a boy named Matt being misled by his friend. Matt was a good boy but then when his friend teased him for not daring enough to join him with the "plan"-- to destroy their new neighbour's house, he agreed to join him. Just because of pride.

So after that i asked the children whether Matt was saying yes to God or to Satan. They answered correctly. And then they stared to talk nonsense so i requested each of them to give me their personal experience of saying YES to satan instead of God. And i told them if they confess they'll get a star. By the way, our church is now having this Token System where they can sollect stars to redeem prizes.

So they all were very excited to tell me and they were actually very eager to do so. Hahaha... Kids are kids. Some of them steal, some of them fight and some of them disobey parents and teacher and some of them tell lies and some of them even scold teacher.

But they admitted that these are wrong! It's fun to know their behaviors deeper than before now. They were so honest in front of God! We shall learn from them kan?

29 March 2006

Love, Do You Really Love God and Your Neighbour?

Today a friend shared on God's Word with us. His message struck me. I fully agreed that some times we went too advanced and we forgot about the basic. I experienced this even before i became christian. In our daily life as well, we'll experience this. How? Baking cake for instance, i used to bake butter cakes during my teenage. Em..after i started to work, i met up with friends that can make cheese cake. So, i learnt to make cheese cake. I love to eat and most of my friends like to eat, so during CNY or some of my friends' birthday, i'll make it. Now, if you ask me how to make butter cake, i can tell you that i almost forget. Now, i seldom bake cakes and now i learnt to make other things like Sushi, pasta and pies, sooner or later i'll forget how to make cheese cake.

So in order to avoid losing the basic, we need to continue practising it. Likewise, we as christians can go too advanced and forget the basic. But what is the basic? This friend of mine gave us this thought, we have eyes and we have the ability to read. So, we can read the whole bible and we can study the whole bible. How about those who do not have the ability to read?? How are we going to share with them the Good News? We can know the bible very well, but we may not really have the close relationship with God. We some times can care too much about the theology and etc. But mind we check ourselves, have we forgotten the basic.

Mark 12:28- 31 when one of the teachers of the law asked Jesus which is the most important commandment. Jesus said love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your souls and with all your mind and with all your strength. AND love your neighbour as yourself.

The teacher of law was expecting one commandment from Jesus but Jesus gave him two instead. We love people even our enemy because we love God. If we claim that we love God and we do not love people around us, do we really love God? We in a way disobey him. We can be actively serving in church, CF or we can know the bible well etc, but are we really living a life that match what we claim? Are we really doing/ serving out of love or just do for the sake of doing?

Let us reflect and change the way we live...

22 March 2006

Sushi

Yeah!!! I learnt to make Sushi already! Hahaha...i am very happy because i leanrt another thing! Hehehe...Tomorrow my lunce will be Sushi lar. Just now my sister and i went to shop for ingredients. We only buy those simple ones and not raws. Hehehe.. We don't quite like raw fish etc. We wanted to make chicken floss sushi but then, chicken floss is more expensive. Now we are so fulled.

One confession to make, kekeke, i skipped prayer meeting to do this. Just want to take a break. Next week i'll go again.

Next time if there's any potbless i'll try to make sushi. Hehehe...it's kinda easy. Another thing that i wish i will know how to make is the mango pudding that my student's mum made for me and family.

19 March 2006

what's love all about?Continue or stop?

Sometimes it's really hard to make decision to stop or to continue. Questions will arise.
Why stop and why continue? This issue struck me when my mum and my sister were having this converation just now.

My sister's boyfriend went to Singapore to find a job. Academically he's not good. He went to Singapore for about 2 weeks. He found his first job but according to him it was too hard for him. It was a dobby shop. Everyday he had to carry 12kg clothes into the machines and out of the machines per round. So he quited. Days later, he found another job. It was a factory which bake breads. He has no experience in this and he was too slow to get the breads out and in again. So he was fired.

Now that he is back in Ipoh. My family was trying to help him look for job. Then mum got to know that Oversea Restaurant has vacancy so mum asked him to go for the intertview. My sister called him and told him about it. But he refused to go. Sigh... He wants to go Singapore again. Sigh...My sister is sad that he is very immatured.

So my mum commented. She said if his attitude is still like that, might as well break with him. Em...mum said later got married then only regret will be late already.

By the way, he is a person who is lack of encouragement by his family and his mum had passed on long ago. Now that he's no job and still "job-hopping", there are alot of stress coming in. He's kinda lost his confidence in life.

Em...though i was not very happy about his attitude towards everything, a thought came to my mind. If i were my sister, should i continue this relationship or should i stop it? Thinking about love, what is love all about? If i really love this guy, i think i should help him overcome whatever problem he's facing now until he find himself again, supporting him. But being realistic, what if he can't change his attitude? I'm a Christian, i can pray for my boyfriend, but they don't have God. How are they going to think the way Christians think? What my mum worry is my sister's future. She got her point but what is love all about then? Should we just stop for our own sake or try our best to live until we are sure that we are not compatible?

Sigh...it's not easy to live a life but it depends on how you view life. Life without God is not life at all. Many people/Christians may feel that working for the Lord or walking in His way is a burden. But where does this burden come from? It's when we try to disobey Him. If we surrender ourselves unto God i think the life that we desire will come true! I'm one of them.

It's hard to surrender to a God that we can't see. FAITHLESS is the word.

18 March 2006

God's faithful and God's good ALL THE Time

today is the most occupied day of my life. Hahaha... This morning i went for a haircut. After that i went for youth meeting with my sister. Hehehe... I went to the barber with her as well. When we were on the way back i invited her to the youth meeting but she refused to go. So i went to take a nap. Before i nap, i prayed to God. I prayed that God'll change her mind.

After 2 hours which was 3.20pm, wanli called me. She asked me if my sister if going. So i told her lo. Then i thought of something. I sms wanli i asked her to cal my sister to invite her. Surprisingly, this worked!!! My sister said yes. hahaha... Off we went to church then.

After the topic, we played Captain's ball. We had Fun!!! This is the second time i played Captain's ball. After so many years! Haha... i don't have skill one. I just simply lar.

Right after Captain's ball, we went swimming. Hahaha...hebat leh??

Sigh... Stadium always no water supply one. Except those water in the pools lar. Sigh...some more the toilets and bathrooms are SO dirty!!! Sigh... Why they don't sustain the quality of this building one? Sigh...I really tak faham lar! Almost every night and even day time also don't have water for us to bath. Know what? The colour of the toilet bowl is...... B-L-A-C-K! Goodness...how can? It's a waste!

I'm very happy today because i got to exercise alot alot. And some more God answered my prayer for my sister! Hmm.. I actually purposely cancelled my tuition at night so that i can stay with her at the youth meeting even games!

She was not really happy last night and today because she is thinking what subject she should take. i undertand the stress it may cause. So it's good for her to go out to relax abit. And i can see her feels better now!!! Tomorrow we may join the Captain's ball again. Hopefully i can get time out to go with her. Without my accompany she won't go.

I'll pray hard for her! Yeah, the friend who borke up with his girl friend is better now. Last night he called me and he said he wants to start a new life now! I am so happy for him. When we let go, we will be able to move on,kan? Yeah!!! God answered another prayer!

16 March 2006

This is life

Today time passed very fast. i'm so happy that time passed that fast. Phew...today i've completed a number of tasks. I felt so occupied. Hmm...a friedn of mine just broke up with his girl friend. He called me and we chatted for 5 hours. Woooo... I never talk on the phone for so long. But it was ok. I listened to him and i can't help also. Erm...maybe my ears helped him released.

He has disappeared for few years and i lost his contact number as well, for years. Suddenly he called me to talk about such thing. I felt sad for him as well and i felt lost also as i can't help much. But i prayed for him. I prayed that he will be able to overcome the sadness as soon as possible and i prayed too that he will be able to let go.

hopefully he'll be fine soon!

15 March 2006

I've never thought that i can do it

I really never thought that i'll be able to fill up the HTML thing. When i first saw my boyfriend did it, all i said was "ma fan". Hmm... as i'd said, i'm very lazy to do all these thing. Hmm...it was jus too complicated to me but now i Did it!!!


After all i'm not that dumb as i thought i do, huh?



14 March 2006

Finally :)

hmmm....Finally i created a blog here. The reason i did not create a blog here is plain lazy. Hmm...i was too bored today so might as well check this blogger thing out. After work i did not feel like going home. Just don't know why. Tonight i don't have things to do also except choosing songs for tomorrow's song leading. Hmmm... i wonder how is my blog look like because everything also i simply filled up and simply chose.

School breaks for a week so i have a week to rest. i still have to work but i don't need to teach. So this is rest to me already. Sigh...i am looking forward to something but i'm not sure what i'm looking forward to. Funny huh? I've been visiting Jusco very often lately. Ipoh, except Jusco, where else. Yeah i wanted to go Pakson but i dare not because i'm not familiar with the way yet. Sigh... i'm "roadblind" ma!!!! I just got my licence anyway. Frankly i love driving and i love staying in the car alone especially when i'm sad.