The last few days
have been an emotional roller coaster. From a variety of
perspectives, that just congregated into a mass of emotions, thoughts
and eventually, resolutions.
Last Friday a friend
left Malaysia. That was sad and quite painful, but that was not the
bad part. The bad part was the way he had to leave...he was notified
on Wednesday evening/night that he needs to leave on the same Friday.
He had to arrange and pack everything in one day, while at the same
time trying to spend time with friends and his Malaysian girlfriend
with whom a whole lot of issues had to be discussed also. The fact
that his girlfriend is my house mate makes me particularly interested
in the story but I believe even without that, all the conditions of
his departure are not something that I like or that I think is
normal.
From my time here so
far, I understood that NGOs are not that different from corporations.
Or at least not from a management perspective. The people working for
NGOs are generally extremely passionate about what they do (which is
not something I can say about people in corporations). But in terms
of processes and policies being implemented, as well as management
style, the same mistakes are being made in NGOs as in the corporate
world.
I believe I
mentioned earlier also that my NGO is reorganising. Going through
change is so inherent nowadays to all kinds of organisations, that
it's not such a big deal anymore. But there are different ways of
going through changes and making people leave in just 2 days and to
make them leave a whole life behind on such a short notice, is not
my idea of good change management.
I will not dwell
much on other aspects of the process that are not being very well
managed in my opinion, but all this has led me to a whole “What am
I doing here?” ; “Is this the place where I want to be?” type
of thinking. Considering I am at the moment a bit more emotionally
invested in this country than I had anticipated, this was not really
a particularly nice train of thought to be in. And it took quite some
energy and perseverance to turn it into something positive. But then,
the universe or karma or whoever else you want to believe, sent help
to the rescue. It always impresses me how things come to you when you
most need them. In this case, it was about the following:
- a surprise
birthday party for one of my students that made me realise that I do
enjoy the teaching a lot. That it is very rewarding and that I
already feel quite attached to “my kids” :)
- an email from a
friend reminding me that “honest and open experiences” are what
truly matters. And that in some way or another I ended up here
accumulating these types of experiences and I should remember to be
grateful for that
- an open
conversation and a good hug
- a trip with nice
people and a night of free dancing. I danced on Saturday like I
haven't danced in a looong time. With no thought and no barriers, and
just pure enjoyment! I remembered Ruth and our conversations about
“dancing with your whole body”. It felt so good and liberating
and had me wonder why it took me a while to do this again. My whole
“open and positive” attitude that literally got me through my
first month in Malaysia, where had it gone?
And then it hit
me...all this crap happening around me (organisation wise), it really
gets to me! As relaxed and level headed as I am trying to be! The
negative vibes surrounding this change process is really affecting my
whole life philosophy thing. But at the same time, there's so many
wonderful things happening to me and around me, and I don't want to
stop exploring that yet.
So I have come up
with some guidelines for myself, to get me through the rough times
that will for sure come again.
- Enjoy the moment!
Focus on the glorious times I'm living now, rather than whatever
might happen tomorrow or later this afternoon :)
- Surround myself
with people that give me good vibes. Blatantly avoid (or minimise
interaction) with anyone that gives me anything else. I have too
little time in this country to be wasting time.
- Do more dancing!
All types of dancing! Logistics are difficult due to my work
schedules, but I need to figure out a way to ensure I continue doing
what I love most doing.
- Feel the pain!! I
watched quite a cheesy movie last Thursday (Fault in Our Stars – if
there is anyone that has not cried to that movie I will buy them a
beer!), that had as one of its themes a line in a book – it said:
“Pain demands to be felt”. I found that quite relevant,
especially in light of the homesickness that at times comes over me.
And I decided to remember to embrace even that, rather than trying to
transform it in something else. I am not yet sure if I will succeed
but let's see how it goes.
Now that I read them
again, these seem pretty good guidelines for life in general. I just
feel that if I wrote them now down, it will be more difficult for me
to forget them :)