Do’s and Don’ts on First Dates

This post is a follow-up to my previous post about making good first impressions. I’ve been on several more dates since and have a few more things to add to my previous list. Here goes (and again, not in any particular order):

• Don’t mention money at the first meeting, ever! I went on a date with this guy who sounded great on paper — Caring, smart, tall, etc. I was more than excited to meet him, but it quickly became apparent to me that he was very hung up on money. Of all the topics we discussed, 75% of them centered around money: How do you spend your money? How much do you want for retirement? How much is it to raise a family of four? He even went into details on the math. Luckily, I am well-versed in money management/investment, so I was able to keep up with him on the topics. BUT, I was still very turned-off, especially for the first meeting! Our conversation gave me the impression that money is the only subject that matters to him. Who would want to spend the rest of her life with somebody like that?
• Remember, first date = good first impression. First date is about first impression. I put effort into looking nice when I meet somebody intentionally for the first time. I expect as much from the other party…not that they need to look the best, but that they put forth the effort to make a good first impression. Now imagine meeting your date for the first time, and he has body odor! I mean, if that’s supposed to be a good impression, imagine what kind of guy he is when he’s not putting in the effort at all! No thanks!
• Don’t act like a bachelor. There are many reasons why people remain single, but the last impression you want to leave a date you’ve just met is that you like your bachelorhood. In other words, don’t talk about how you enjoy closing down the bars on the weekends, or how you like to frequent strip clubs. The first thought that crosses my mind is: If you are so content being a bachelor, why are you dating?
• Do be yourself. I recently met this guy who was trying so hard to impress upon me that he’s just like me. I know we all like people who are similar to us, but it’s kinda creepy when a guy you barely knows tries to act and think like you. Besides, that kind of behavior screams, “I have no backbone”, and that’s probably the LEAST attractive quality you can present to a date! Instead, be yourself and if you want to impress your date, be attentive and open to what she has to say. It’s perfectly fine to agree to disagree!
• Don’t brag about how little you work. No matter how hard we try to deny it, sexism exists. Just like most men prefer more feminine partners, most women prefer manly man. Before I get any grief about my generalization, I just want to note that there are exceptions. But in general, part of what makes a man “manly” is his drive, particular in his career. It is SO NOT ATTRACTIVE to tell a date you’ve just met that you pride yourself in working as little as possible! If you really aren’t ambitious but instead prefer to be a bum, don’t mention anything at all!

Fulfilling the Stockdale Paradox

If you read this blog often, you will know that I am a big fan of Jim Collin’s teaching in his New York Times Bestseller Good to Great. In fact, I’ve already written a couple of posts about what I’ve learned from the book so far (Discover Your Passion and The Hedgehog Concept). Another concept that I mull over often in the book is the concept Collins labeled “The Stockdale Paradox”.

The Stockdale Paradox is named after Adm. Jim Stockdale. He was the highest-ranking US military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp during the height of the Vietnam War. To quote the book, “Tortured over 20 times during his eight-year imprisonment, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner’s rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he could even survive to see his family again.” Yet during his capture, he never doubted that he would get out. In fact, he never lost faith that he would prevail in the end. The Paradox refers to how one could retain faith that he/she will prevail, regardless of difficulties, while at the same time confront the most brutal facts of his/her reality, whatever they might be.

On paper, it sounds easy to have faith. A natural response to having faith is to stay optimistic, right? But as the book pointed out, the optimists in the POW camp were the ones who didn’t make it out. Why? The optimists were the ones who would believe that they would be liberated by Christmas, then Easter, then Thanksgiving, then another Christmas. When their target dates came and went and they were not set free, they eventually died of a broken heart.

So if optimism isn’t the answer, what is? The answer, in my opinion, lies in the person’s view of his/her surrounding. When put in any difficult situation, people usually have two kinds of responses, depending on their mindset. One kind of response is to fix one’s attention on the outcome, while the other response pays more attention to the process. So to use Adm. Stockdale’s situation as an example, people who fixed on the outcome would plan their lives around that. They would spend their energy on looking forward to the release date, but each day that they remained captive, they would lose just a little bit of hope and gain a little bit more despair. It’s essentially what the optimists among Stockdale’s group did, and they all died in defeat.

On the other hand, if instead of paying all their attention on the outcome they attended to what was happening to them, then they would do everything they could to survive the day, including coming up with all the reasons and tactics to exist despite all the suffering, tortures and punishment. By focusing their attention on beating the enemy one day at a time, they would accomplished two things: they would have confronted the most brutal facts of reality, and they would have built the faith necessarily to prevail at the end. In essence, they would fulfill the Stockdale Paradox.

What kind of response one makes towards any situation depends on the kind of mindset he/she has. If you are interested in learning more about the successful mindset, Carol Dweck has an excellent book with the said title, Mindset - The New Psychology of Success. But if you are interested in the immediately actionable recommendation, I found the following to be helpful (from the blog Dumb Little Man):

Programming creates beliefs.
Beliefs create attitudes.
Attitudes create feelings.
Feelings determine actions.
Actions create results.

Programming refers to creating and reinforcing what you believe. If your belief is not yet one that fulfills the Stockdale Paradox, then create appreciation in your mind for processes over results in your everyday life, starting now! Reprogram yourself to believe that process counts more than the results. If you do it often enough, it will soon change your attitude and your entire mindset.

Thoughts on “Emptiness” (in Buddhism)

I’ve been on a quest recently to understand a bit more about the concept of emptiness. I wrote about it previously (you can read it here) where I argued that perhaps only those who have no desire to be human (as in their purposes in life are greater than living out their human lives) are prepared to conquer and defeat the human need for attachment and practice emptiness in their lives.

If you are interested in the definition of Buddhism’s emptiness, you can read it here. As with many publications, the definition is too ethereal and abstract to be practical for me, so I sought to understand how to practice emptiness. At first this may seem to counter my original post where I mentioned that it may be impossible for one to be empty and not attached if one also wants to live as a human. Well, what if you make the conscious decision to live more monk-like, there are still practical steps one needs to take to reach the state of emptiness. That’s what this post is all about - a practical guide to being empty, if you will.

First, being empty is not about being nothing. Being nothing (as in nihilism) is believing that existence is without meaning or purpose. In other words, if you believe in nihilism, you believe that everything is non-existing and a non-reality. Rather, being empty is, first and foremost, being objective about your surrounding. Everything is real, and everything around you exists. To be empty means to be able to see everything that exists and is real around you with an objective mindset. The more objective you are in assessing the situation around you, the closer you are to being empty.

Psychoanalysis of My Ex, Part I

I know, the title sounds as if I am still hung up on him. Perhaps I am, perhaps I am not, but I am treating this as a case study. As a result, I vow to be as objective as possible with my analysis. The reason I chose to psychoanalyze him is I know so much about him, his personality, and his thinking, and those knowledge make this a relatively easy case study to put together. But before I jump to my analysis, I thought I would give you some background on him and our relationship:

We dated on and off for two years and befriended each other for another two. Our relationship was dysfunctional towards the end of the first two years, but our friendship really flourished during the latter two years. We became each other’s best friends and confided in each other on some of our deepest and darkest secrets. To say I know him well is a bit of an understatement; he told me things that he probably wouldn’t feel comfortable confiding in anybody else except maybe a spiritual leader.

The first thing I wanted to understand is, why did our relationship fail. Our culture, values, belief systems, family background, and even educational levels were comparable to each other. In theory and on paper, we were the perfect couple, yet that wasn’t the case. We fought a lot, and they were almost always about the same issue. You would think the solution to the problem is to resolve the issue, right? Well, the issue we contested so much about is actually rooted in a deeper problem. For the longest time, I was not aware of that deeper problem. But I am starting to have a clue now.

The deeper problem is our mindsets. In particular, his mindset was of a “fixed” mindset while mine was more of a “growth” one. To be fair though, he was starting to change from a fixed to a growth mindset the last time we communicated, but it was not enough to salvage our friendship. Also, I should say that I am not making any kind of judgment as to which mindset is better. Each is unique and has its own merit.

So what do I mean by “fixed” v. “growth” mindset? In general, people with the fixed mindset said the ideal mate would: put them on a pedestal, make them feel perfect, worship them. In other words, the perfect mate would enshrine the person’s fixed qualities. On the other hand, people with the growth mindset hoped for a different kind of partner. They said their ideal mate was someone who would: see their faults and help them to work on them, challenge them to be a better person, encourage them to learn new things.

In the two years we dated, I saw every failure as an opportunity from which to learn and grow, but he saw them as a statement of our relationship. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I saw each time we had a disagreement as an opportunity to learn more about him (and myself), but he saw the disagreement as our character flaws and incompatibility. When the relationship ended, he concluded that we were simply not good for each other, whereas I saw it as a chance to learn from our mistakes. That’s why when I approached him as recently as a month ago and asked him to give the relationship another try, he shied away from my suggestion and told me he wants to date others instead.

I’ll admit I am partly to blame for our failed relationship, but not because I constantly challenged him, but because I never put him on a pedestal, made him feel perfect, or worshiped him. Sure, I saw him as somebody very special, but I readily pointed out his flaws as often as I told him how much he meant to me. In other words, he wasn’t getting the validation from me of which he needed to believe he is good and worthy. I think that was what drove him to date a college student who is 15 years his junior. I don’t know the girl, but I can imagine her looking up to him and treating him as the god of her religion. He needs that, and I simply wasn’t giving it to him.

So my conclusion is this: More than anything else, a sustainable relationship requires two people with the same mindset. Both can be of either fixed or growth mindset, but not one of each. In the case of both having fixed mindset, each person would seek and (hopefully) get the validation of their worth from their partners. In the case of growth mindset, each partner should challenge the other and grow together. In both cases, the relationship is much more sustainable.

A Practical Guide to Living in the Present

I think the culture we live in often forces us to either reminisce and/or regret about the past or plan profusely for the future. That kind of attitude leaves very little room for us to enjoy the present. Yet being in the present is what life is all about. Living is all about the present because you can’t change the past, and you certainly can’t predict the future. But most people have problems living in the present, myself included.

I’ve actually been on a quest to find out how can I live more in the present and less in the past or the future. I’ve found lots of philosophical discussions on how to live in the present, but none of them was all that practical. But after searching for the past year or so, I think I may have found my answer in Randy Pausch.

Randy Pausch, for those of you who don’t yet know him, was the inspiration for many (including myself) when his “Last Lecture” was shared with the world via YouTube. Randy was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he decided to share with the world the lessons he had learned about life before he passed away. While Randy had always been a phenomenal person, the cancer death sentence dealt to him forced him to condense many of his living into the numbered days ahead of him. What do you do when you are told your days on this earth is numbered? You live your life, NOW, IN THE PRESENT!

Living in the present isn’t about not planning or caring for the future. In fact, Randy did just that. He spent his last few days on earth planning for his wife’s and children’s future without him. His “Last Lecture” was actually prepared so that his children would grow up knowing who their father was. He made recordings of himself and wrote letters to them so that they would have have something of him they could hold on to. Yet while he was preparing for their future, he continued to live everyday as fully as he could. He spent time with his children so that they could create memories together; he reached out and spent time with those who meant the most to him.

Living in the present isn’t about not looking back at the past either. Randy did plenty of that as well. He recounted his childhood dreams and aspiration and how he set out to fulfill all that he had planned. He looked to his past to remember the lessons he had learned throughout his life. He relived some of his most cherished memories of his childhood, his adulthood, and his encounters with those he had developed close friendship. Yet while he reminisced about the past, he continued to live in the present by continuing to learn from those around him and cherishing their presence in his life.

So how do you live in the present? Think like Randy. Better yet, live like Randy. Living in the present is all about enjoying the moment for what it’s worth to you. Living in the present means making the effort to create memories that will last you a life time. Living in the present means showing and telling people around you how much you love and care about them. Living in the present means making the most of your time now. How do you do that? Imagine you have terminal cancer and only six months to live. How do you make your remaining days count? How do you make your days count in the eyes of those who love you? What would you do to create memories with those you love? Your answers to those questions are the answers to living in the present.