Weaknesses

While I can be She-Ra or Superwoman in the gym or in academic or health situations, I have my kryptonite. There is quite a bit of value to doing this.

My Weaknesses…

I am self-critical.

I can be easily overwhelmed.

I am very sensitive to noise, people that are noisy.

I have a really hard time with my body image.

I get caught up on details, often missing the big picture.

I get stuck in my head and generate negative thought processes.

I can convey judgment or disapproval to others.

I often feel that I have to prove myself to others.

I am very much weakened when I’m lonely or ill.

I can bring others down when I’m in a bad mood.

I can easily feel inadequate, and it stifles my progress.

I can be late, which makes people have to wait on me.

I hold myself to a very high standard and expect perfection.

Efficiency

9Dec10, 7:15am: Bodypump workout with Kelvin (it's essentially a muscular endurance work-out, and I love it!)

I caught up on emails and news before 6:45am when I left my apartment (I think I'm only allowed to call it a flat if I'm British... it's called a flat here in HK, but that's probably because of the Commonwealth and previous crown rule). I got in my work-out and was at work with a one-shot iced espresso (maybe I'll lay off the triples for a bit), sitting down at my desk for a skype chat with my previous supervisor back in Vancouver by 8:55am. It was a very intense and productive 52 minutes. Then I got in a very productive day, which even included a short lunch and chat with one of my collaborators here. I'm trying to avoid dragging tasks out so much. I get it in my head that I need so much time to do something and it tends to be an enormous exaggeration, but I end up taking the entire time I allot for myself. Today, I decided to just be happy with something that is very good, but perhaps not perfect. That's what collaborators

and colleagues are for, right? Together, we help each other turn out the great works, ideas, writings, studies, conclusions, etc. No one works alone in a vacuum... not in my world, not in any world I believe. By trusting myself and looking at tasks objectively without obsessing over an image of perfection that doesn't even exist I can get things done in a timely manner and be extremely successful.

It's not the time...

28Nov10, 11:30am Power Yoga with Michael Lau

I was in a state of bliss having seen my wife, Kim, for the first time in almost a month, as she finally arrived to Hong Kong Saturday evening about 8pm. It was like we'd never skipped a beat, like two puzzle pieces, different on our own but solidly linked when together, as always...

I left her at 7:30am Sunday morning, as she had to fly to mainland China for a few days, but I will be meeting her in Taiwan on Tuesday, for which I'm quite excited.

We had a big breakfast at the hotel, which I'm not used to unless it's a brunch/lunch on a weekend, but still... so I was quite happy to go back home and relax, go back to sleep another hour, until heading to yoga a bit later. I'm taking a lot of opportunities to sleep lately, which is interesting and a good sign I think. More on that later.

Yoga was good. I like this teacher a lot, but I don't think my body was at 100% this morning. The last few workouts I've had have been good ones, and I think collectively made my body sore. I love that soreness, but I need to realize that when I'm sore, I probably won't be able to do the full lotus or Padmāsana and the crow or Kākāsana with full extension would be difficult today. Remember Jodie, that's ok. I did look around and saw that everyone else was doing full Padmāsana except for me, and a tear welled in my eye. That leads me to touch back on the idea of "comparison" as it seems like a source of a lot of anxiety for me... my intellect, my body and weight, my athletic performance, my yoga... everything. We are taught to compare in life... this is big, that is small, this is white, that is black... and so it must be hard for us not to translate that to everything else in our lives. Especially for me, as a scientist, it is my career to make comparisons, sometimes I even employ sophisticated statistics in order to do so, as the naked eye isn't always enough to sense differences. Therefore, I'm trained to compare, I'm good at comparing, and it's instinctual for me to compare... I quickly acknowledged my feelings and moved on in my practice. Ultimately, I think it turned out really well.

My teacher today also touched on an idea that is important to me... the idea of time. He couched it within the context of his current favourite song by a French artist. The song, titled "It is not the time" touches on how time isn't the issue... it's priorities. I think about this often when I think that "I don't have time" for something. Before the words leave my mouth, I mentally rephrase that I had other priorities that were higher on my list that day, or something to that extent. I think this is a really good lesson for me and everyone else out there... next time we're feeling time-crunched, consider what priorities are occupying your time and which ones are getting excluded... we all have 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, etc. We make our own choices, however.

Indeed, "it's not the time"... it's us...