A Mad Men Snippet For Happier Living

While ironing I caught a random episode of Mad Men in season 5. The team was getting an award at some dinner. Megan, Don Draper's wife, had her father Emile there, at the same table.

“I always thought that you were very single-minded about your dreams and that that would help you through life,” Emile tells Megan. “But now I see that you skipped the struggle and went right to the end.” “It’s not the end, it’s the beginning,” Megan says. “This apartment, this wealth that someone handed to you,” Emile replies. “This is what Karl Marx was talking about. And it’s not because someone else deserves it. It’s because it is bad for your soul.” “Don’t pick at me with your politics because you hate that I love Don,” she says. “No, I hate that you give up. Don’t let your love for this man stop you from doing what you want to do.”

(Most of that paragraph came from another website, www.pajiba.com. Lucky me, not having to recall all those lines.)

Wow. Now that's TV trying to teach us something. Rare but possible, haha. Megan marries Don, and her dad thinks she's lost her spirit.

It's an important lesson for all of us, not to lose ourselves. We all have dreams of some kind or at least ambitions we want to fulfil. A hobby perhaps, something that keeps us happy, a personal contentment.

I remember telling my primary 4 class that I wanted to be an astronaut. Well that's not gonna happen but I would still like to look at the stars and get lost among the pin pricks of sparkly lights. A telescope would help.

Maybe not losing our dreams too much is key. Life takes us on the usual route for some of us - school, work, marriage, house, more work, kids. (I say some because who am I to judge your circumstances). Along the way we figure out certain things. That we like to draw, a nose for wines perhaps, a flair for cooking, a vision for origami, an eye for photography, a dexterity for number puzzles, hands and legs for tree climbing, musical fingers. Whatever it may be, an activity, physical or mental, that activates our happy centres. We should try to keep some bits of these in our lives, if we don't already pursue what some might say would be our true calling.

The Mad Men example I suspect exemplifies the sacrifices we tend to make as we jump into various life stages. Even love may prevent us from being at our fullest and oddly enough, happiest. It's scary but makes sense. My mum left her home and school to come to Singapore and had me and sister. I know she regrets not having spent me time studying than taking care of her family back home in Ipoh and then here. A childhood missed. She's pretty good with art and did some of my praised pieces in primary school. Well, we tend to figure out our regrets when we aren't in control of circumstances.

So do something. Today. Watch your kids and figure out their talents. Teach them not to forget. We need a happier planet.

Railroad Lessons For A Five Year Old

This week is my nephew's first as a five year old. Five is when kids start asserting themselves more. In fact, putting him in his place has always been a challenge and now his linguistic prowess reinforces that dogged determination, adding much to the frustration to the blindsided adult trying to teach him a thing or two.

I bring up this story of stubbornness because today he blew up over really nothing. This week I progressively unleashed the wooden marvels known as the Ikea train set upon this toddler. On Monday I gave him a basic two-train and tracks kit. It also came with a bridge. He was delighted. On Tuesday, I gave him additional tracks, surprise number 2. Today, got surprise number 3 - curvy tracks and another bridge. With all these additional equipment to build his railroad empire, he set about the usual way of joining the implements and then wondering why they didn't loop back around. He started to move furniture to accommodate his engineering whims and fancies. I told him he needs to think about how that can happen. This conversation happened as I partook upon an oatmeal, biscuits and dried berries breakfast and his Highness in the floor in front of the TV. I finished quickly and joined him. I proceeded to explain how the curved tracks joined up and what he could do with them. I broke up his existing linear display and proceeded to form a figure-8 with the new bridge in the centre of this new magnum opus. Quite nice if I say so myself. But then I am 38. My intention ultimately is for him to craft out a plan in his head and build that, so I started to break up my masterpiece which my nephew had already started layering on the rolling stock. He burst into protest then tears. He hit me with the dismantled pieces.

"You can build it again! Ow!" I urge while ducking. "No I cannot! I cannot build it again!" He wails in agony only a 5 year old can appreciate. It was as if his pet had died or Ben 10 got cancelled. Calamity of the highest order for a toy has been destroyed.

"All the pieces are still here! You have to use your imagination! Ow!" I plead. With actual tears down his cute cheeks, he screams "Nooooo! I cannot! I cannot!" He immediately reminded me of that failed musician character in Sesame Street (or was it the Electric Company?) that couldn't complete his rhymes. In the end of the scenes he'd go "I'll never get it, never get it, never!" while crashing into the piano keys with despair and melodrama.

Now my mum, the nephew's grandmother and self-appointed Defender Of Evil Against Kiki comes around to scold me. "Why did you destroy the track!? You got to work now!" "Come, Kiki, we build it again on the dining table" she goes to placate the little monster. "He needs to learn to build it again. He can do it" I went to which I received the antagonistic "Go away lah you".

Sigh. I slipped away to brush my teeth. The construction scene outside moves from the dining table back to the floor as my mum realises her notion of railroad design isn't as small as my nephew's ambitions for grandeur.

I come back out and lo and behold, a wonderful figure-8 track laid out on the laminate. Larger, more quirky and fabulous than my earlier attempt. All my mum did was guide the track under the bridge component. Lovely. Happy kid.

So I asked my nephew for an apology. For all the noise, screaming, emotional blackmail, threats to my being, actual bruising on my person and general mayhem that ensued just minutes earlier. Good grief. He threw daggers at me with his eyes. Life lesson part done.

Before I left home, I angled him with "Surprise number 4". He seemed genuinely interested once again. I asked him to say sorry. He did in song. I'll take what I can get, admist the realisation I was very late for work.

A World Of Service

Service, a word goes with "lack of" most of the time here in Singapore. Well it's the poor quality of service that riles us. We complain about inattentive staff, the lack of product knowledge, pushy attitudes and rude demeanours. Well, if you take a good look at it, we're never gonna get good service from Singaporeans. I blame the meritocratic system. If one is taught to differentiate menial, low wage jobs from cushy, highly-paid ones with the context of ambition and progress for the nation (as we pledged each school morning), we associate service jobs negatively, and by extension we treat service staff with a fair amount of scorn. They too sense the scorn and serve it up in buckets. That's why many service persons in the island are foreigners looking for a way up and out. They bear with our incessant demands, get on with their chores and perhaps feign ignorance at our requests when they are too tired for the sake of a paycheck.

On the other hand, there are service folks who are in for the money. Commission drives them to persist and push. Unfortunately, that's all that motivates them, not the needs of the customer. I have met many a salesman at electronic stores who couldn't be bothered to learn the products they were selling. They had no clue whether what I pointed at was what I needed but would sell it to me anyway.

I was in Tokyo recently and true to the myth, the service culture is pervasive, personal and perpetual. Service staff are generally very nice. Even a trip to the 7-11 is a pleasant surprise. It's a culture thing I guess. That aside, I think the Japanese generally do everything with pride, and deliver to the best of their abilities. With everyone putting in 100% and getting acknowledged for their effort. Nice!

I met Tony from Tilam King over the weekend when some friends drove over to the shop at New Industrial Road to get a mattress. Tony explained to me how the bullshit sales persons at big retailers were merely pushing big ticket items without a care; that anti-dust mite protection was a generic ISO fabric/material requirement; that we made mattresses with additional springs that reinforced the saggy centre; that he could custom-make a single mattress for a customer. Tony is awesome. He knew everything there is to know about this products. He even did a thesis on the industry. And a great attitude to boot. We talked about how customers feel about buying large ticket items, why some wouldn't let go of a bad mattress because it cost them so much, and why he was considering PayPal as a payment option. Now that's a salesman. I am definitely going back there if I need something to sleep on.

So we're predisposed to treat sales people badly, sales people don't really care about their customers, and there are some stars in the business of doing a business who treat customers like friends. Service, lets just be better about it.