Thursday, October 21, 2010

Quit whining and start going

The wedding is seriously stressing me up. There's so many things to be done and suddenly I felt that I was the only one handling things. I wasn't the one who wanted to have it and now it feels that I'm being pushed to do the bulk of the adminstration and left to pay the bills too. It's a show that I am forced to do and nobody seems to enjoy it. Still, I must step up to the challenge and soon it'll be just another notch in my belt.



In view of the stress building up, I started doing my "things to do" list, broken up into different priorities and mentally dividing them into things that I can control and things that I cannot control. I realised that the most frustrating ones are those items in my checklist that I cannot control and have to wait for others to catch up with me. This is something that I realised about myself - I don't like to wait for people to catch up and I like to determine the direction and pace of things. As such, being a lone ranger will be easiest for me and least stressful while being a team player I will have to play the role of leader or the leader will have to move faster than I can do. I think this is an important realisation for me because I'm so used to doing things my way, so I definitely need to learn how to relax and let things flow their way.



Drink some wine and whine, then have a hangover and cry


I think the ups and downs of the stock market made me more 'zen', in the sense that I can just snap my fingers and get on to business (okay, not as easy as I make it to be, but it's much better than say, 5 years ago). Very good training ground for stress management and basically training to divorce yourself from emotions.



I also realised that complaining gives a limited release from the pressure. It's like treating the symptoms of the illness but not really the problem that causes the symptoms. The better thing to do is to treat the cause of the problem and remove that source, and that's what my "to-do" list is for. You can whine and whine and people will understanding and say good things to you to make you feel better, but at the end of the day, you still have to pick up the pieces yourself. So I say save the energy to complain and get to the business straight. About the only use of complaining is to release that pressure lid slightly so that the stress buildup will not cause an explosion within you.

9 comments :

AK71 said...

Hey LP,

As the English would say, "Stiff upper lip and soldier on, my boy!"

Soon, it would be all over and you would look back and laugh. :)

Jeremy said...

Dear LP,
Yes. I agree with you that complaining does nothing more than just upsetting yourself and others who hear one's complains.

The positive side is to always confront a stressful problem boldly and find solutions that can solve or mitigate the problem. Channel one's energy into solving problems and not lamenting about the problem or blaming others for creating the problem which does not help at all.

To that, I agree with you that teamwork is very important. Sometimes, we cannot handle all problems by ourselves. We need to ask for help from others and trust in them to be able to do their best to help us. Of course, we will not try to take advantage of people as we will ask for help in good manner, that we may return the favour in future to the people who have helped us before.

Helping others and getting help from others is a very natural thing as we are all relational creatures created by God to relate to one another.

My two cents worth......:-)

Anonymous said...

LP,

Get a bunch of your good buddies to help out. You cannot do everything yourself. I am sure many of them would be more than willing. Same thing for your wife-to-be.

In my case circumstances was such that I had the ceremony on one day and the dinner on the next. Looking back, it was better as there was no rush.

Done that

la papillion said...

Hi AK,

Never heard of that one before...I'll remember that :)

Hi Jeremy,

I've learnt not to complain so much. Your views are certainly not 2 cts :)

Hi done that,

Thanks for your advice. I've outsourced all that I can to others and the rest I'll have to carry myself.

Oh, I'm doing everything on one day, ROM and dinner. Too late to change anything now, just soldier on :)

Sanye ◎ 三页 said...

Hi LP,

Getting married soon? Congratulation!

Sanye

Anonymous said...

Huh? Got so difficult meh? I planned my wedding dinner for 3000 people and I don't remember getting stressed. Your planning skill must be quite cui. Engage a wedding planner loh.

Actually, you are lucky that you are a private tutor. Planning so cui sure cannot survive in any company.

No offense, just giving my 2 cents.

la papillion said...

Hi sanye,

Thanks :)

la papillion said...

To anonymous,

Since this is a public blog you can say anything you want. The good thing is that I do not have to explain it anyone if I don't want to.

I'm glad that I'm a private tutor too. I didn't know people working in companies have such horrid attitude and ill-manners.

Of cos, no offense too, just my 2 cents.

PanzerGrenadier said...

TO: Anonymous Friday, October 22, 2010 7:24:00 PM

I am constantly amazed by the number of people who profess this love of being a troll on other people's blogs.

I think one of the Disney character (a rabbit) told her little bunny this insightful nugget,

"If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all".

Peace.

Be well and prosper.