2015

It's the season for reflecting on the past year, thinking about the New Year and maybe making a few resolutions. This past year was a little different for me in a number of ways. I've just finished a short- term assignment in Singapore with a different kind of project, in a different part of the worId, and with a different way of working. We went to a different church. It was also the year when health issues came to a head and I eventually realised that they were pretty much all linked to stress.

All of this gives me a different perspective moving into 2015 and so hopefully my resolutions have a little more weight this year:

1. Work less - I guess a fancy way to say this is that I need a better work-life balance or that I need to work smarter. ln my case I think I just need to work less in order to redress the balance and be smarter in my work.
2. Exercise more - me and several million others in the world I'm guessing! But my reason isn't to lose weight but, linked to the first resolution, to lower my overall stress levels. Plus I'm not getting any younger!
3. Serve God in community - I recently read a book called Community by Brad House. It re-affirmed to me the importance of small groups in the church but added an emphasis on those groups being invested in the community. I want to be part of a group like that.
4. Finish my PhD - I've done the coursework and written the papers. I just need to pull together my dissertation, defend it and I'm done with my degree at IIT.

And that's it. Four resolutions are plenty! Anyone else have different resolutions this year?

Happy New Year !

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U Shaped Curves and Work-Life Balance

I'm not a sociologist, nor a psychologist. In a different blog I might open up about my opinion on the latter so-called "profession" (hint-hint) but for this blog I wanted to give some thoughts on the former. I have a growing appreciation for sociology and my favorite sociologists are probably not on anyone's list of conventional sociologists... I have a high regard for Robert Lewis and particularly his book Raising a Modern Day Knight in which he addresses the topic of raising healthy young men in the modern world. My other favourite is Malcolm Gladwell.

I recently finished reading David and Goliath in which, typical Gladwell style, he covers a myriad of topics from the London Blitz, to entrepeneurship, to school class size, and tries to tie them all together. His device for doing this was the "inverted-U". The argument goes that life is not linear and that more of something (or less of something if it's a bad thing) is not always better, but that beyond a certain point things stop getting better and actually turn downwards again. On the topic of class size he makes quite a convincing argument that there's an optimum class size somewhere in the high teens to low 20's and that going smaller doesn't work so well.

The concept of U-shaped curves or inverted-U curves resonated with me as it's common to see this in engineering where there's often an optimum point on a curve for all sorts of things... pH for biological systems, lifecycle costs of capital vs operating costs, improvement in my pool game vs number of beers I've had... OK the last one wasn't strictly engineering!

It struck me that the inverted-U could also be applied to work-life balance. It's obvious that if you're a lazy git or a "jobsworth" that does the bare minimum then you're probably not the most productive employee for a firm. What's not so obvious is that if you maximize your effort and try to do so for year after year then you might just burn out and then you're worse off than a lazy git (plus you'll have stress issues and have no life outside of work). Sure, people talk about "working smarter" instead of harder, but they still mean work more overall, I think, or at least it still seems to work out that way. The figure below puts all this into a graph.

 

From a personal perspective I've recently realized that I'm way too far to the right on the curve and have been that way for a couple of years now. My goal for 2015 is to figure out how to dial it back a bit and get into a sensible zone where my life is balanced and I don't burn out. How about you?

 

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Power made perfect in weakness

I'm currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's latest book David and Goliath. It's a fascinating read. In the first section he talks about how more and more of something is not necessarily the best thing but that an inverted "U" curve points to something more optimal, including wealth and school class size. As an engineer and modeler it makes sense to me as I often run into "U" curves that indicate a sweet spot for something.

In the second section he talks about "The Theory of Desirable Difficulty" and discusses how certain impediments and disabilities can work to your advantage in the long run. He talks about the fact that a lot of entrepreneurs are dyslexic and gives a compelling argument that their dyslexia was a big part of making them entrepreneurial!

At the start of the section he quotes the following verses from the Bible:

I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7–10

This morning I went to the local Wesleyan church to worship and the topic of the sermon was exactly the same scripture! The speaker challenged us to think about the "thorn in my flesh" that God has given us that drives us to Him and makes us depend on Him. She said it could be a physical condition, a temptation or some other difficulty in life.

For me it's either my bad sense of humour or my mental state. More likely it's the latter, as the former is more of a thorn for everyone else around me! Over the past couple of years I've slowly discovered that I don't handle stress very well. It started with a panic attack about two years ago (thankfully the only one I've had, but not fun), followed by stomach and throat issues - the doctor called it NERD, no joke - then mild heart arrhythmias last winter and finally insomnia, particularly when I had a month-long stint living alone in Singapore this summer. I remember my mum having stress related stomach issues and taking early retirement in part due to stress, I think, and as I take after my mum in many ways, it's not completely surprising that I have similar leanings.

Adding them all up I think I've had 8 out of the 11 physical symptoms of stress listed on webmd though surprisingly few of the emotional, cognitive or behavioral symptoms. You could argue that the British stiff-upper-lip means I hide things well, or maybe I just didn't notice the other symptoms!! I'd like to suggest another possibility, which is that God is the one keeping me sane! I honestly think that without God's hand on me and the Holy Spirit in me, I'd be in the loony bin or worse already. I've heard folks say that religion is for the weak-minded. In a way, I agree, because I see the fragility of my own mind and I'm extremely thankful for Christ taking hold of my weak mind to make me strong in Him (at least outwardly to others). The worst thing you can do is delude yourself that you've got it all together and don't need God at all. The best thing is to admit your weakness and let Him make you strong.

So, what's your weakness and how can God make you strong through it?

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My Faith Story

Our pastor, Dr Lou Fortier, recently gave an excellent sermon on how to present your "Faith Story" in a clear and God-honouring way. By "Faith Story" is meant the story of how someone become a Christian. So, here's my Faith Story and hopefully I've taken Lou's guidance to heart!

I grew up in England and went to a working class high school called Maryhill Comprehensive School. On a few occasions our assemblies were presented by evangelists who talked about how Jesus had died for my sins on a wooden cross and that He had risen from the dead 3 days later in order to make a way for us to have a relationship with God. They offered to pray with anyone who wanted to become a Christian. Their depiction of the Gospel resonated with me but I was afraid to make any kind of commitment because I was afraid that my friends would think I was weird. Looking back, the feeling that it "resonated," and was true, was God already calling me to trust in Him, but good old peer pressure kept me from commiting.

I left the high school at the age of 17 to go to a sixth form college where I did my A Levels. I still kept in touch with a few of my friends from high school and one in particular told me about a Christian youth group that he had started attending. I was intrigued but never went to that youth group. One Saturday we all took a train to Manchester to do some shopping and I just happened to be with two of the friends who were Christians. I saw a gathering in one of the parks and persuaded my two friends to come with me to see what the gathering was all about - politics, religion or something else. As we got closer I could see it was some kind of Christian evangelistic event and I started to feel a little uneasy. Out of nowhere, a fella came up to the three of us and in turn, starting with the friends either side of me, asked "Are you a Christian?" They both answered truthfully, yes, but when it came to me I lied by saying yes too, hoping this would end the conversation and we could leave. But, no, he had a second question that he asked each of my friends: "Are you a born-again Christian?" Again, they both answered truthfully, yes, but I couldn't lie any more because I knew I wasn't really a Christian and said "No." This fella asked me if knew Jesus had died for my sins; I said yes. He asked me if I knew that if I got knocked down by a bus whilst shopping in Manchester that I would be going to hell; again I said yes. He asked me if I would go to the front of the gathering (in the US it's commonly called an "alter call"); but I said no. He pushed me further to ask why I wasn't willing to be slightly embarassed by going to the front of the gathering when Jesus had suffered such public humilation on the cross for my sins. I didn't have a good answer but I wasn't going to budge. Then he seemed to relent a little and asked if he could pray with me; I said yes. I don't remember the words, but I do remember the feeling and the internal emotions as I prayed with this fella. I felt that God was telling me "Now or never" that it was time for me to decide to follow Him and trust Him. So finally I did trust Him by praying that simple prayer (often called "the Believers Prayer"). My pride or shyness meant that God needed to send a pushy street evangelist before I would give in to Him, but I'm forever grateful for that fella for being so direct and pushy. I don't even know his name!

So that's my Faith Story, or at least the start of it. After that I started attending the youth group with my two Christian friends and unpacked the ramifications of my simple prayer. I learned about Christian community and what it really meant to be a follower of Christ. It certainly hasn't been smooth sailing for me after becoming a Christian, but throughout the ups and downs of my life, I've never regretted the decision I made that day on the streets of Manchester. I heartily recommend it to everyone!

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