I am reading "Stupeur et Tremblements" by Amélie Nothomb for french class. It is about a bi-lingual Belgium lady who lives in Japan and speaks fluent French and Japanese. She works in an established Japanese firm where she encountered many inconceivable challenges from the beginning of her career at this firm. She understands the hierarchical order and to be submissive to the higher ranking employees in Japanese culture. Though she is tasked to perform dull and repetitive menial jobs, she took the challenges in good faith. I am only part way through the book, until this point,the book is entertaining.
One of her responsibilities was to photocopy many copies of the rules of golf. Upon completion of this task, she knew in high degree of confidence that her superior will find fault in her work and she was destined to redo the task . The reason given was her copied document was not aligned. She was instructed to copy one page at a time over using a well engineered auto paper feeder that produces consistent and precision results. C'est un incroyable!
Somehow, Jackie Chan's Kung Fu movies came to mind where Jackie was set out to learn from a master. For most of his movies that I have seen as a child, his master started him off with routines to build his foundation for Kung Fu. For example, he performed very basic squats and stayed still in the squat position while he balanced weigh on his shoulders for a long time. Jackie's master guided him to be better in martial arts while Amélie's superior was being ridiculous for not leveraging her strength for the betterment of the company.
At some point in our lives, we encounter people that truly want to help us move forward and some we wish were just a figment of our imagination. One must be smart to distinguish the two extremes and make the best of the situation. I am a firm believer that success is sweetest when you have worked hard and overcome road blocks before fruition.
I listen to "Try" by Pink especially on a trying week and the song keeps me motivated to go on.
Here's the chorus that truly inspired me to go further:
Where there is desire
There is gonna be a flame
Where there is a flame
Someone's bound to get burned
But just because it burns
Doesn't mean you're gonna die
You've gotta get up and try, and try, and try
Gotta get up and try, and try, and try
You gotta get up and try, and try, and try
For those who are having a trying week —make the right sacrifice , pick your battles, take baby steps, internalize Albert Einstein's definition of insanity and have the courage to have the difficult conversation. Bonne Chance!
