A couple of weeks ago, we had received the unexpected news that our late-grandmother had passed. She was 103. For the next five days, we would spend part of our days at the funeral at the void deck of the HDB block where she used to live (along with our two older aunts). Knowing that we have to navigate a complicated environment at home, for most of the funeral, we knew that we did not have the necessary mental or emotional bandwidth to process what our grandmother’s passing would mean to us (personally). So, yes, we kept our emotional guard up for the entire week.
That said, we did witness how the passing of our grandmother affected our father. You have to know that our father is probably one of those few “strong men” left from his generation. You know the type — they often like to portrary themselves as strong men, and never shed a tear in public. They would see tears, and asking for help as weakness, or in some cases, incompetency. To my father’s generation, you have to be self-sufficient and you need to figure it out yourself.
But, this time, at the funeral, we saw a very different side of our father. One that we can honestly swear, we have never seen before. He did not cry or anything. Nothing so dramatic, but we did see him tear up several times during the funeral (up till the end when we were at Mandai for the cremation ceremony). Now, we might be able to guard our emotions and mental space for the most part, but we do still experience empathy. And when we saw our how our father was affected by the passing of his mother, it really hit us in a way that we did not expect. It made us think a lot more about our own mother (who thank God is still around today, and also pretty healthy right now).
Watching how our grandmother’s passing affected our father, it definitely gave us much to think about in the days and weeks to follow. That is what we want to talk about today.
Something has Shifted
On the weekend when the funeral finally ended, we felt something shift deep within us. It was so deep, and almost fundamental that if we hadn’t been more mindful, we would’ve certainly missed it. Having spent the week witnessing a different side to our father, we could not help but empathise what what it would’ve felt like for us if we had lost our own mother. We truly do not know how we would react under those circumstances. It made us more mindful and aware that while our own mother is still around today, she is getting old, and the thing about life is this, we can never truly know what might happen tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. The time that we really have is now. And now is really all we have. So the question that popped into our mind was, “How are you going to treat your family, and especially your parents while they are still around?”
It is so important to put things into perspective, so we will give you a brief look back on our own life. For most of our life, we have always struggled with this need and reliance upon other people for external validation. It was like an addiction of some sort. It was never formally diagnosed or anything, but we knew it was always there. And for most of the past forty years, we had been living in a way that is either meant to please our parents (because we were afraid to cause them disappointments), or by swinging to the other extreme end of trying to be 100% authentic and giving them an ultimatum to accept us for who we are, or not. Both were extremes, and both never did work out. Ever.
So, here we are, thinking to ourselves, “How can we treat our family better, but not in a way that is trying to please them, but rather, to do it in a way that is in on our terms?” Let’s put it another way, “How can we be a better son to our parents, a better brother to our siblings, a better person at work, and other different social settings, while also staying true to who we are at our core?”
A Cell Membrane is a Permeable Wall.
Even though we do not have a clear or complete answer to give you right now, we actually do know where to begin. That starts by learning how to navigate and be okay with being in the middle. It means learning and exploring how to be okay with making certain compromises while still being able to protect the core integrity of who we are and how we want to show up. And we can’t do that if there is a solid wall all around us. This isn’t about trying to keep everything out. This isn’t about trying to accomplish some form of internal purity or self-perfection. It is about creating a barrier that can both protect what is crucial to who we are, while also being receptive towards what is also good for us (if it is coming to us from an external environment).
The best way to really think about what we’re trying to develop here, is to think of it like a cell membrane. The whole true function and purpose of any cell membrane was never to prevent everything from entering. It’s about knowing how to recognise what is okay to accept, and what to reject. It’s about knowing how to find and maintain that balance of the conditions within the cell, versus the conditions of the environment surrounding it. That is our personal development mission here.
Discovering Our Own Middle Ground for the First Time
Recently, we had just attended a family dinner, a gathering where our older sister decided to treat all of us to a Chinese BBQ place because she had recently come into some funds. So it was her celebratory moment. When we got to the dinner gathering itself, we had been mentally and emotionally preparing ourselves for the event. But it wasn’t really about the preparation itself that ended up in our daily journal entry for that day. It was how we ended up showing up that evening.
Sure, to our parents, and siblings, perhaps all they could really see right now, is this old “shell” version of who we are. When they look at us today, they still see “Weizhi”. That is the version that they have always known. But deep down, we are no longer that same person that they thought they knew. We are different. We are Danny.
Yet, at this dinner, we knew that we can’t really show up fully as ourselves yet. At least, not in a way that they could accept or see. So, we had to navigate that evening and figure out how much of ourselves we’re willing to show them. By the end of the evening, we believe that they must’ve felt something different, even if they cannot quite put their finger of it yet.
One clear example was something that our own father said to us during the ride back home after dinner. He said that he felt that there was something different about us. Through the way we spoke and the way we carried ourselves, he felt a kind of “lightness” coming from us. And he really liked it.
We weren’t showing up (as fully as we could be) because we needed or wanted their approval, or for them to notice that we are different. We chose to show up the way that we did because we knew that that is on our own terms. And that evening, that was the very first time in thirty odd years that we felt like we were actually “in the room”. We say that because when the shell was around, it always felt like we had been excluded from much of the life experiences. Sure, we were around for a lot of it, but for most of it, they have felt like a blur. We described those blurred memories as “gaps”.
But, this time, for this family dinner, we were there. Fully present. Even if they can’t fully see us. And that’s okay.
Learning to Recognise Future Versions of Middle Ground
At this moment, while we are writing this blog post, we want to say that we are honestly just beginning to discover and understand what living with a middle ground would mean for us. This is a new territory for us. Honestly, we haven’t quite figured it out for so many other different aspects of our life and work. But we are slowly learning.
For example, in the form of our personal missions and objectives, we know who we want to be, and we know the kind of work we want to be doing (and are currently doing). We already know the kind of standards that we want to have, and the kind of value that we can bring to our work.
But, under the circumstances, we also need to learn to find our own middle ground. One that isn’t like issuing an ultimatum, or picking extremes. Being okay with a middle ground also doesn’t mean that we have abandoned our missions, or that we have decided to compromise and lower our standards. It’s more like we’re learning to be okay with not winning all the time, or getting things exactly the way we want it to. It is also about not totally giving in to other people’s expectations and demands.
Take for example, right now, we are currently in the midst of attracting (finding) the right work opportunities. Having a middle ground we can accept without compromising our own standards and expectations means being okay with a lesser monthly pay. Sure, we know what we are worth, and what our potential value is (globally speaking). But at the same time, there are so few opportunities locally that matches who we are, it would be unrealistic for us to expect or hope that that would happen soon or in the near future. And sitting around waiting and hoping for the ideal opportunities to reach us isn’t going to work either. So, yes, we do need a new middle ground.
Saying okay to a lesser pay now isn’t a compromise on our standards, or who we are. Our standards and values can remain the same. If the work that is being offered to us meets a minimum of SGD 9,000 a month, for example, then yes, it is something worth considering seriously. It might not be ideal, but it will still serve as a vehicle that would help us to reach our ultimate mission objectives. The real compromise and shrinking here would be to accept something that doesn’t align with who we are at our core, or share the necessarily overlaps with what we can do.
So, what would a future middle ground as a son, or a brother to my siblings actually look like? Frankly, we don’t know. Not yet anyway. This is something that we suspect could take time to discover and develop. Maybe years, if necessary. But that work to finding the middle ground, and to be the better/best son, brother, co-worker, and industry leader that we can be (on our terms) begins here.
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