Dear Diary: Can we have Generosity with a Conscience?

Today is a random day. Well technically I was referring to yesterday since it’s past midnight now but I can’t sleep.

Today also happens to be one of those miserable days, my only thought now that insomnia has set in is that I will write down how lousy today was, and hopefully someday in the future I will look back at this and laugh (this wasn’t a bad day after all). So I’m going to tell you about my last 24 hours. I hope writing it down cures depression and insomnia.

In hindsight, it all stems from this time and again thing that I can’t understand people very well. I knew about this in primary school, high school, university, and all my previous job experiences, as well as activities and family.

The other motivation for me to write this day down was this Simon Sinek video (aside: how do I find speakers of this caliber? Do they like hang around some coffee shop?) about business being human interactions. If he’s right, I can really shove all my entrepreneurial pipe dreams coz I really can’t deal with people, at least not at the level I aspire to be.

My close friends often snide me with remarks like “that’s Jiin Joo”, or “for all the good things he brings, I’m willing to accept this attitude as a package”, or “lone ranger”, or “bulldozer”, or the worst “wah Jiin Joo I can sense that change in you after you’re attached” (it must be really bad huh). I’m not really affected by the verbal descriptions of me, but I’m disappointed by the consistency that I get such remarks from primary 1 till now, repeatedly, by the same people, whether it’s my mother, my teacher, my boss, my colleague, or whoever needs to live in the same civilization as me.

I’m really disappointed with myself that way.

I have tried my whole life to give, without asking for anything back. But it’s the manner in which I give that more often than not turn people off.

But what wrong is this giving? Some say it’s because I’m bothering with people who are not bothered. Or to borrow the words from Simon’s video, I’m not in the right “circle” of people who are passionate about the same things as myself. Or to use mandarin: 物以类集，人以群分。

For example, I blog, I spend time editing wiki entries, and in whatever way possible without killing myself I supported some internal social media initiative. The result? A system that only contains my updates, giving people the impression that I’m seeking attention.

Or for example, I tried to convince bosses that petty and selfish acts to discipline employees does not win the hearts and minds of people to adhere to arcane rules (in this case was security related), only to be told that I’ve placed my supervisor on the spot for not being disciplined earlier.

Another time I tried to promote new technologies and reinforce software architecture paradigms to people who might be beaten from their day to day activities, with the hopes to keep spirits high and passions alive, only to be told that I like saying things that only I understand and nobody else understands, despite them being the people who trained me in the first place about such paradigms.

And still I try to motivate. And when I try, I don’t want praises. I can give you praises too if that’s what you yearn, but every praise I’ve received in my life I sense a certain percentage of lie in it. I rather take the facts and/or statistics and enjoy the satisfaction from there instead.

Every other year when I reflect, it’s the same thing – it’s always about me me me. No matter how much I try to give others something that I think matters to them, because of the manner that I give, it always seems like it’s something they have to accept because of me, because I want them to, because I force them to.

So is there a translator that can take every sentence that I form and turn it into something acceptable?

There’s a classic study on beggars’ signs (also mentioned in the video) that I read sometime back that mentions how a simple change in messaging change the fortune of the beggar. Most beggars beg by explaining about themselves, “I’m poor”, “I have 12 kids”, “I’m handicapped” etc. and not about the giver. Should the message be “Give once a month, because you can never give to every one”, or “Give and your day will be sunnier than others” etc. the giver now feels that it’s all about them not the beggar, and it doesn’t matter why the beggar was begging to begin with anymore.

So what’s wrong when I say, “You should go see a doctor” or “You should take care not to hurt other’s feelings” or “You should meet up with the partner to discuss this over”? Yes it’s my opinion, but it’s about you and does not concern me. You’re sick. You should go see a doctor, and if need be I can recommend one. I only wish you well. Why would I be seen as teasing you? You’re hurting people’s feelings, so you should reconsider. I’m giving you the feedback you will never receive as a formidable figure in the company otherwise, why read it as me trying to be a maverick? Do I have to make everything I say sound like the Customer Benefits section of a brochure?

Since young, I was drawn to people who are honest. I remember my school bus driver, whom she gives absolutely no “face” to anyone. She’s very involved with our lives as we do talk about school and friends on our way home. And she will cut through and give that situational comment and adult perspective without reservations. I also remember my days in CMU, or Amazon, where hanging around developers that the rest of the world stereotypes as geeks with impaired social capabilities, often forgetting that the same people builds the FBs and G+s that dictates their social behavior. There, there was only honest giving, no reservations are given when you didn’t indent your code, no wishy washy statements if you stampede onto each other’s code during checkins. If you can’t make it, I’ll write the function for you and so be it, we move onto the next task.

But now, I’m lost. It’s like school all over where people say things like “it’s not my role”, “this is [name of team], you can’t change them”, “you shouldn’t be questioning the billing system”. I forgot how many times I got this “hey Jiin Joo why are you not in class this period?” when I was in school, and I will continue to skip the classes that makes no sense to my education. There were indeed better things I can spend my time doing in school, with no sacrifice to the objective. And when I pushed ahead to instill changes in the teachers, like telling them that their teaching methods are wrong, that there are better ways of solving certain math questions, well, you can imagine the rest.

How to strike a balance of being honest with ourselves, while consistently being generous to others? If being generous to others means turning a blind eye to our own conscience, then does it mean I need to find other circles that share my conscience to live with, or accept and allow my conscience to be molded so as to be able to exude my generosity?