There’s this scene in the Bible where the prophet Jeremiah is complaining to God about some injustice or another. What God says back is interesting:
“If you get tired while racing against people, how can you race against horses? If you stumble in a country that is safe, what will you do in the thick thornbushes along the Jordan River?”
It is the opposite of a backhanded compliment. On the surface, God is rebuking Jeremiah, but if you read closely, He’s really telling him who he is or will be – someone truly strong.
In teaching, the rule of thumb is that for every hour of lecture, you spend 3 hours of preparation.
Bruce Lee – “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
A Hundred Eyes – “Kung Fu is supreme skill from hard work. A great poet has reached Kung Fu. The painter, the calligrapher, they can be said to have Kung Fu. Even the cook, the one who sweeps steps, or a masterful servant, can have Kung Fu. Practice. Preparation. Endless repetition. Until your mind is weary, and your bones ache. Until you’re too tired to sweat. Too wasted to breathe. That is the way, the only way one acquires Kung Fu.”
My doctoral dissection is less than 150 pages, short by many standards, and especially in my field where as a friend puts it so eloquently, verbal diarrhea is common. But as one of my advisors put it, it has at least double the work of a standard one. It was heavily influenced by General David Petraeus’ own Princeton dissertation on the US military’s counterinsurgency efforts during the Vietnam War and of course, the bible of strategy, Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and actually when I think more about it – the Bible itself.
The data analysis and writing took a relatively short period – as I recall just weeks. The hard part was coming up with the concept – this took years, a ton of reading, and waiting for everything to really set in.
This one is about waiting.
Especially in faith.
My favorite song of all time is U2’s With or Without You. I used to teach what I thought was a pretty insightful interpretation of the lyrics to my Sunday School class. I wrote a lengthier explanation to someone earlier that I may post at some point – that’s its own story. But I digress.
I read somewhere that the song has three entities in it. The singer, a woman, and a “you.” The woman represents sin or something negative and the “you” is God. Listen to it from this perspective, it can hold water.
The song’s main theme and lament at some point is about waiting. And how we do that – for resolution, hope, justice, grace, love, God to show up.
Recently, I remarked to my daughter’s godfather that U2 writes Christian songs without their listeners knowing it. Pearl Jam does it without themselves knowing it.
I took my daughter to a U2 tribute band concert. I think this is the one song that captures who I am the most – the ethereal opening, simple and solid bass line, the piercing guitar, and somewhat hidden, conflicted lyrics.
This one is about my maternal grandmother – a truly remarkable person and the reason for many affected lives, in and outside the family. About many lessons including resilience, endurance, hope, and origin stories.
Grandma was dropped off by her father at the orphanage when she was 9. He told her he would come back for her in 2 weeks but never did. Grandma waited by the door of the orphanage in vain. We don’t really know why she got dropped off but it was likely because they couldn’t afford to feed her.
Later, she was “given” to a wealthy family to be an indentured servant. They were cruel to her, making her wash the roof in the rain to save water. She got sick. Grandma also got beaten a lot for misbehaving. Guess who else took after her – yours truly and her great granddaughter – her first great-grandchild with her blood.
Although she couldn’t swim, she rescued two of her master’s family from drowning. And survived a Japanese bombing AND torpedo attack. In the latter, she was so brave, she stole into the luggage compartment to retrieve their possessions when the ship was sinking.
Raised 6 kids, survived poverty, widowhood. Tough and smart as hell. Never sat die. Confronted a woman who was trying to steal away grandpa. Threatened to chop off a burglar’s hand with a meat cleaver. Quit smoking cold turkey overnight just out of sheer will.
On her deathbed, still sharp enough to curse out nurses by their mother tongue.
Tough as hell but also kind. Loved pets and people.
Many lived because of her.
I met her master’s family at her funeral. Because it was a Christian ceremony, no Samuel L. Jackson options were available to me.
I almost didn’t want to write this one, but it’s memorable for many reasons – 20+ years and I still can’t wrap my head around it. I’ll let you decide.
This incident occurred in Indiana during the winter of my second year in law school. I attended an Asian American fellowship hosted at a Korean church.
Another church set up a retreat held at a site several hours away, I drove our group on a Friday evening. It was snowing and Indiana roads are often dark. When we got to the site, the only means of entry was a one lane road. It was night when we arrived. The first event is a worship service where within moments, everyone is crying loudly.
How do I know it was everyone? Because the senior pastor pulls me up on stage in front of everybody and asks why I’m not crying. I’m too tired to respond. He then places his hand on my head and asks whether I feel anything – like a tingling. Nope. On my chest. Nope. Exasperated, he asks what’s wrong with me – I reply “I’m Chinese.” He then goes “Oh, ok” and lets me go.
For the next two days, we are subject to what can be only described as emotional manipulation. They feed us meals consisting of small styrofoam cups of instant noodles. No showers or bunks, we sleep on the floor, overflowing toilets. We get woken up early and kept up late for services. I wanted to go home after the first day, but we were snowed in.
The pastor keeps trying to get me to give in. Physically and mentally exhausted, I do. But I’m the last one to break and I did not cry. We Malaysians are tough suckers when we need to be. I just made up some BS about having to let go and trust God more. I may as well have been reciting Bernoulli’s equation. That’s how much I wasn’t thinking at that point.
Thankfully we manage to go home. As I recall, I play goalie in floor hockey that night. It never felt so good to be alive and free.
A colleague once said true power belonged to me in our unit – the one in the corner who schemed. I wasn’t sure whether to shake my head or laugh.
First, I only sat in the corner once – at the basement of 1 PP with no heat or A/C. The other times, I was actually placed in the middle of the floor plan. Next, I’m no schemer. I took my job extremely seriously, but during downtime played fantasy football (5 teams simultaneously, one even unbeaten) and studied the teachings of Bill Belichick.
I did plan extremely carefully in terms of the Department’s policies and procedures. A significant part of strategy.
That being said, a lot of strategy is muddling through. Make it to the next day. Buy as much time as possible. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. When that happens, muddle. Like crazy.
This principle shows up in history and individual lives. In the Battle of Britain where the German Luftwaffe wanted to soften England for invasion, the British RAF fought back hard. They were strained to the breaking point. Then suddenly, Hitler decides to suspend his plan to invade. The Brits eventually bought enough time to regroup and for the US industrial and military juggernaut to enter the war.
A military friend told me about a fellow soldier who was in bad shape and had to be placed on suicide watch. My friend helped get him through and now he is married with kids.
One of the British slogans for the war was the oft cited “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
I wrote someone about the hockey goalies I admired as a kid – the Washington Capitals’ Don Beaupre and the US Men’s Olympic Team’s Ray LeBlanc. Not the biggest ones out there, but their courage and resilience spoke to me. One of the skills I regret not picking up was learning to ice skate otherwise I would have love to give the ice version a go. I did play a lot of street and the floor versions as a goalie.
This one is about not letting the bastards grind you down.
In high school gym class, we were in the street hockey segment of the semester. So much fun and better than the running ones. Still nothing as bad as the gymnastics segments in middle school where I could only do a forward roll and somewhat jump over the pommel horse. But in street hockey, those hours emulating the butterfly style of saving shots paid off. I was rarely scored on.
This one time, however, I remember making a point blank save of a slapshot by catching it. With my bare hand. For some reason, I didn’t have my catching glove on that day. One of my teammates exclaimed – did you see that? And of course, some enticed rich kid minimized and dismissed it as nothing to write home about.
His name was James. I’ve said previously that almost every Robert or Andrew I know are superior human beings (except one with the ugly wife). My luck with James is more mixed. Most have been arrogant bags including the one who made fun of eating chicken feet at a dimsum restaurant. He was actually a graduate of an elite law school so we see how brains are not everything.
It wasn’t just a good save.
It was a great one.
But he had to say something to ruin the moment. I was too young and not confident enough to understand but it was just his insecurity speaking. You would think people grow out of this but they often don’t. I call it defensive arrogance. Affirm and validate others, it goes a long way.
And if you can’t get that from some, they really aren’t worth that much to begin with. I have some supremely talented friends who don’t really know it. They have been surrounded by clowns of the same cloth who can’t hold a candle to who they are.
When I was a teacher and manager, I would try to accentuate the strengths of whom I was in charge of. When I had to grade or write performance reviews, I placed all the positives in writing and the things they had to work on verbally so it wouldn’t come back to bite them. I didn’t receive the same treatment – I have one that makes me look like Jesus and Judas at the same time. It was written by multiple people and I could tell who wrote what.
The truly strong will carry you. The weak will step on you. Never forget that. Don’t let the latter grind you down.
On a related note,
I sometimes think of how I would customize my goalie mask if I had played at a more competitive level. Usually, goalless have something that is meaningful painted on theirs. Back then, it would have been something different. But now, I’d probably go with a dragon and monkey – the two Chinese zodiac animals of my kids and a combination of the Malaysian and American flag, which are virtually identical – the only difference being the former has a yellow crescent moon and 14 point star while the latter has 50 white stars.
A former undercover would often refer to this concept – viewing the world through different lenses. A significant part of Orientation, the big O in OODA.
Probably oversimplifying this, but basically the more lenses one has access to, the better the probability of generating an effective, efficient solution. Lenses are connected to the diversity of life experiences, skill set, culture (national, ethnic, professional), and other factors.
If you ever get frustrated when someone gives you advice that doesn’t fully address a complex issue, an insufficient or inadequate set of lenses is probably at issue. When they draw on a prior experience that doesn’t exactly fit yours. A possible analogy here is a toolbox. If you only have a hammer in it, you will hammer at everything, including situations which require another tool.
In the real world, this is part of the reason why religious institutions have such a difficult time with sexual assault / child molestation issues. Yes, there are definitely many instances of cover-ups and malfeasance. But I also think that this is due to lack of familiarity with justice and victims. Christianity can focus quite a bit on forgiveness, grace – which can be misapplied to overemphasize the needs of the offender or perpetrator. Sadly, I know quite a few instances of this phenomenon.
On a brighter and much more hopeful note, the possibility of combining lenses is exciting. In a world that is increasingly based on overlapping cultures, professions, values, even necessary.
Also connected to leadership. Before Ulysses S. Grant led the Union to victory, he had a series of professional and personal experiences, many of which weren’t stellar. In many ways, however, those experiences and the skills, knowledge gained prepared him for his formidable role and task.
So read, travel, talk to people, watch stuff. Just make sure it’s on a wide scale.
That’s easy to answer. Other than God, other protector. And here’s the thing, you don’t need to be in law enforcement or military to be one. In fact, those fields have their own predators and cowards. Being a protector is a character thing, it manifests and expresses itself in different ways.
We sheepdogs also wait for our Shepherd to rescue us. He knows how we protected the sheep and fought off the wolves. He knows how we got hurt and mangled. He comes for us because we are his sheepdogs.
Who will know what we did?
A few family.
A few friends.
Those we impacted.
God.
And maybe most importantly, us.
Not a bad audience that.
We saw and experienced a lot of evil. Professionally and personally. We are tired. What we’ve tried to tell others has mainly fallen on deaf unknowing ears. The most important people in our lives failed us.
Miserably.
That’s why we did what we did. So few had our six.
Shame on them.
The family and friends who had the power and ability to intervene but did not.
We came for others. One day, no one will come for them.
We still let God build something new for us. I don’t think it will be with just the existing pieces but with new ones. The old pieces will somehow be incorporated into this new mosaic or whatever but it also dawned on me that they will play less of a role than expected. I think that many of the pieces we think are so consequential in our lives are actually less so. It may be the ones less expected that play a bigger part.
But as we already know – once one, always one.
That is the pride that only our true brothers and sisters know.
My DA Chief said that when a priest becomes a bishop, the first thing he loses is his spine. Chief is insightful and funny. And absolutely on point. No need for specific examples but many of us can probably point to an example they know.
This one is about integrity.
It matters a lot and I think it’s more than just honesty for others, principles, the greater good, etc. It is also about being true to oneself. The other things I’ve mentioned are important no doubt but at the end of the day, Hamlet got it right – above all, to thine self be true. Nothing, even if it doesn’t feel like it, is worth losing that. Not position, popularity, maybe even “love.”
It is painful and costly to stand alone.
It might be worse to be labeled a coward.
I don’t know for sure but a thousand deaths and all.
I think this príncipe is also valuable as a test for evaluating others. My kids’ patron saint, USAF Colonel John Boyd said – Ask for my loyalty, I’ll give you my honesty. Ask for my honesty, I’ll give you my loyalty.
Integrity is really hard to aspire to much less accomplish. Everyone fails.
Everyone.
Most if not all of us have a price. Just try to make sure it’s as high as it can be.
Although Thomas More, a real saint, does choose death over betraying his beliefs – to the point where he refuses to do something benign to preserve himself. I don’t think I could have come close to that.
You may not be willing to lose your head. But try to at least keep your spine.
I used to teach a leadership / management course. Yup, those who can’t do, teach. Also used to live close to Harvard’s bookstore. Really cool actually. You can really develop a reading list from walking around. The business leadership section was staggering. If I wasn’t struggling with coming up with a comprehensible dissertation, I would have read more of these books.
I made peace with the following approach. It is somewhat simple (or maybe simplistic), but it’s at least a starting point. I would say, to be somewhat effective as a leader, a combination of the following is helpful (I did teach all of these in class).
Harvard Business School Literature, John Kotter – Normative, often needs good to perfect conditions to actually implement. Does not fully work in extraordinary situations. Does not fully account for human nature.
48 Laws of Power – Amoral, not immoral. Read this. Trust me. With discretion and meditation. A few pages at a time. Humbling.
Servant Leadership – Very tough sell, but it unfortunately is the way to keep one’s soul and actually lead effectively. Again, tough sell, I didn’t expect my students to really buy into it. Worth the try.
If I were more experienced, I would have done more Sun Tzu, Godfather, and John Boyd. In the bullpen – Musashi, Zhuge Liang, Gracian, Machiavelli, Taoist work.
Songs of Pain and Hope 