Our Best Version

Happy 2009!  We’re going to kick-start the year with a series on how to turn discouraging challenges into motivating ones.

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This morning in Minnesota, it was 6 degress (-14C).  As I walked out onto the icy pavement, I felt the familiar tingle on my cheeks. This winter has been colder, snowier and harsher than the average in recent years.

Minnesota isn’t the coldest inhabited area on this planet, but still, I can’t help but feel amazed that so many of us live in this harsh climate.  I’m a lucky one.  I have a down coat, -40F boots and waterproof gloves.  The 10-minute walk to the bus station is all that is required of me.  I would say living in a cold climate has its challenges, but those of us who are here have learned how to thrive in this environment.  The climate is harsh enough so that people who don’t thrive in it really have a hard time living here.

As many of you know, my family all caught cold in December.  It was not a tragedy or even major trouble by any stretch.  We all managed to have a good time for the holidays.  But for us parents it was a long and draining month, which was busy and challenging enough without any of us being sick.  I unintentionally took the second half of the month off from blogging.  Decembers can be a very challenging time to begin with, but the overlaying of several challenges made it extra difficult.

Two Kinds of Challenges

Life is full of challenges, big and small.  Unless you’re on vacation (which you should be, from time to time) you’re always facing some kind of challenge.  Fundamentally, there are two kinds of challenges:

• Motivator: they invigorate you and give you energy, and
• Deflater: they suck your energy and make you want to go hide.

Commonly, it’s easy to think of all challenges and problems as deflaters.  People would rather not deal with them.  For me, kids being sick was such a challenge.  It was draining and tiring — a problem I’d rather not have.  I’m not saying I was lax in my effort to make them feel better.  But did I get up in the morning going “how am I going to make my sick kids better today?”  Nop.

But while being with sick kids may never be something you look forward to, every challenge is an opportunity for growth and/or improvement.  By looking at the potential every problem brings, you can start to turn a deflater into a motivator. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome, new visitor! Thanks for visiting my site. My name is Ari Koinuma, and this is my blog about becoming who you are meant to be.

Be sure to check out the home page, which will give you an overview of this site and points out some of the major themes. If you enjoy what you see, please drop me a comment, or subscribe, so we can keep in touch. I look forward to getting to know you!

Happy Holidays to all the readers of OBV!

I am sorry I’ve been posting less frequently and slow to respond.  As I said in my previous post, all of December we’ve been dealing with sick family — all four of us got sick at once, and some of us are still dragging our feet in recovering.  I didn’t plan to take it this slow in December, but the truth is that I really have little energy for creative work and I hadn’t built up a stash of rainy-day posts to put up.

One way or another, December seems to find a way to force me to slow down every year, and it appears this year is no exception.

As always, I’m so grateful that common colds are the extent of what we deal with.  My heart goes out to all families struggling with major illnesses, particularly those involving little children.

I wish you all a wonderful Holiday season!

Complaining is commonly considered a negative act to be avoided, and for the most part, I agree.  However, if the choice was between complaining and bottling up your hurt inside, then complaining is definitely the lesser of two evils.  Below, let me tell you how I use complaining to let out my steam.

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I didn’t post for over a week because I’ve been dealing with some sickness in my family.

Nothing major, of course.  Just a common cold.

This has been happening several times a year for us since becoming parents.  And every time it happens, I feel very grateful — not because we’re sick but because common cold has been the extent of health problems we’ve had so far.

Now, if you are the type of person who never gets sick because you live a truly enlightened life — low stress, good outlets (exercise, hobbies, arts), sound diet and sufficient sleep — then this post won’t apply to you.

But I’m not there yet, so I’m glad that whenever there’s a build-up of negativity in our lives, we have these minor breakdowns.

Not everybody is like this, I know.  Do you just tough it out by taking Aspirin or something?  Thinking to yourself, “I can’t afford to get sick right now?”  And when someone asks you how you are, you lie and say “I’m fine?”

There are occasions when this is a good practice, of course.  But if you’re putting up a perfect face every time, it can build up to a greater trouble.

Tell It Like It Is

I don’t know about you, but in my family, when we’re sick, we tell it like it is.  We talk about how awful we feel, how painfully it hurts, how uncomfortable we are.  As I said above, I do mention that I’m grateful it’s nothing serious, but we don’t “beautify” our pain — it sucks, and we say so. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the Blog Carnival: 10 Posts about Realizing Your Potential.

Unfortunately, this will be the final edition of this carnival I’m going to put together.

It’s been a good run, but at this point, I decided that it is too time-consuming to do what I set out to do. P

But I didn’t want all the quality submissions to go to waste, so here are the somewhat-edited list of entries, more-or-less sequenced so ones I liked are closer to the top. There are some quality posts in there — I hope you enjoy browsing through them one last time.

I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who has submitted to this blog carnival this year.  Keep on writing about realizing our potential!  We are doing a very important work for the humanity. Read the rest of this entry »

Life is full of unexpected twists and turns.  But how often do we actually plan with that truth in mind?  Not often enough, in my case.

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I am a man rich with mistakes.

Yet, one of the bigger mistakes I keep making is that when I plan things, I go about it as if I can pull everything off without any mistakes.

Not just mistakes — but I used to have a bad habit of planning without any margin of error.  My plans had no room for the unplanned — changes, surprises, accidents, unseen opportunities.

My budgets, for example, used to have no money allocated for unexpected expenses.  My family’s monthly budget is still structured that way, though we now have a bucket under savings called “the buffer” — a wiggle room for any and all unexpected spendings. Read the rest of this entry »

Things get on our nerves.  Have you ever stopped to think why?  Let me share with you a recent event that really made me stop and look at the things that bother me.

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Recently, I was taking my almost-5-year old daughter to her church choir, which she loves.

But that day, we were running late — which was the first time she was to be late for this group.  So I casually mentioned to her on the way that we were running late.  Unfortunately, she didn’t take the news well.

She was uncomfortable at the thought of being late, and when we arrived at our church, she totally lost it.  She asked me to hold her and when I refused (she’s heavy!), she went on to panic because one of her shoe got untied.  Finally inside the church, she started shrieking on the top of her lungs and said that she didn’t want to go.

My daughter being a drama queen was no revelation to me, but I was thoroughly annoyed, and proceeded to drag her to the choir room.  I thought, if I just threw her in there, she’d remember that she actually enjoyed this.

To my further annoyance, she refused to go join the other kids once in the room.  I was very tempted to force her at this point — and then she said something that stopped me on my tracks.

“Daddy, I want to go but I’m scared.” Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing the series on sensitivity, let’s look at the tremendous potential of empathy.  Such an antenna is a very powerful tool, and it can cause a lot of grief — or tremendous joy.

So, I cry watching movies, I get upset when the person next to me is having a bad day, and I get overwhelmed by other people’s feelings.

You may wonder (as I do), what good is this sensitivity, if all it does is just toppling us off our feet?

Well, it turns out, an emotional sensitivity is a very potent gift.  Channel it in right ways, and you can make great difference in the lives of people you touch.

Using Emotional Sensitivity to Create and Strengthen a Bond

I am a father to two little children, and they do what kids do — cry.  They cry when they slip and fall.  They cry when their toy is being used by someone else.  They cry when they have to wait.

And what is the proper first response to a child’s hurt feelings?

You acknowledge it.

“Yes, honey — it’s sad, isn’t it?”  instead of “Don’t cry!  It’s nothing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Long-distance relationships can be very hard. Recently, I received a question from Rajesh about how to deal with escalating suspicion, jealousy and fear while he and his girlfriend are miles apart and rarely see each other. Below is his story, and my response.

I have a simple question. How to get rid of suspicion? Me and my girlfriend have a wonderful relation. But from last few months I have become very suspicious.

Our relation is two years old. We live 1000 kms (625 miles) apart and rarely meet, as she is attending a business school. Due to pressure of study she is busy most of the time and does not give the response she used to give. The matter looks simple, But I think I have complicated it very much. Most of the time I probe her and ask her routine and then I ask why she does not call. I know she is busy with her career, she has few close male friends too, quite obvious but some how I become very angry, I have even abused her. Till now she has taken it, but now I feel the relation is in turmoil. I know its my mistake most of the time but I am not able to control.

For the last 6 or 7 months I have not done anything for myself. I am ruining my career and my day to day life. I know what should be ideal situation but I am helpless. I am not able to control my self. Please help me . I do not want to loose her. She is the most precious thing for me.

Thanks for entrusting me with your question, Rajesh.  I feel your pain.

The Root Cause: Fear and Insecurity bleeds Suspicion and Jealousy

The heart of the matter here is not your relationship — it’s your insecurity.  The long-distance relationship is a trigger, but not the root cause. Read the rest of this entry »

This last week was Thanksgiving in US.  Though I’m not an American, I’ve grown to accustomed to the spirit and the ritual of this holiday.   And indeed, my family and I shared a very special time — it seems that each year we spend with our growing children, the more we realize how important these rituals and traditions are.  Thanksgiving has come to symbolize abundance, family bonding and gratitude.  It has become a very special holiday to me, and this year’s was a great time.

Unfortunately, the rest of this post is not about such an uplifting theme.

The week before Thanksgiving was one of my worst in my life.

On that Monday, I did something uncharacteristic of me, something I have never done before, at least not quite to the extent I did.

It was a grave mistake I made, an action that really goes against my values. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you a sensitive person?  I am.  Life can be a bit tricky for us sensitives, mainly because our reactions to things are not quite “normal.”  Here’s an essay on how I have come to view our sensitivity, and how I learned to deal with it.  Special thanks to my friend Tammy from A Day to Share with Tammy for inspiring this post.

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Let me tell you about antennas.

I have come to think of human sensitivity as antennas.  We all have them, of course.  But we have them in different spots.  Some have them pointing upward, receiving radio signals.  Others have then wide and sideways, receiving TV signals.  Yet another antenna may detect wind, or tide.

We all have them, and we all receive signals.  But we all receive different kinds of signals, and at varying degrees of strengths.

Some of us have antennas that are more sensitive than others.  For example:

• Physical: you body may react more strongly to medicine, food, and other physical conditions.
• Sensory: you may have sensitive eyes or hearing.
• Emotional: you may feel and empathize more deeply, like crying watching TV or reading a book.

The last kind is what I’ll mainly address here, though what I have to say may apply to other kinds of sensitivity. Read the rest of this entry »