It's All in the Mind
By Dr. Tim Ong
This article is as much a confession as it is a sharing with you.
Not too long ago, I chaired a committee meeting for one of the non
profit religious organization in my area. In this meeting, we talked
about a project we were co-organizing with several other religious
organizations in the neighboring vicinity. I informed the committee
that I had committed our organization to up take 2 small roles in this
project.
One of the committee members raised his concern that our organization
may not be able to take up these two additional challenges as we are
short handed and busy with our own activities. He went on and on about
the difficulty my decision to commit, without first seeking approval
from the committee, has imposed on the entire organization and he was
trying to do it as subtly as possible.
In my mind, these two roles that I had committed the organization to
were very small roles which do not require a lot of resources. In
addition, being the president of the organization, I sometimes need to
make certain decisions and commitments on behalf of the organization
without having the luxury of consulting the entire committee first. In
fact, I would have expected the committee to stand by my decision as a
show of support. It has always been my practice to support my committee
members whenever they made a commitment to other organizations or
societies.
So when he continued to press his point, as if he was speaking for the
rest of the committee members, I decided to push him to make a stance,
thereby putting in a spot. He was visibly taken aback by my
aggressiveness as he did not expect me to respond in this way. By
nature, I am not an aggressive or confrontational person. I do not
believe anyone in the committee expected me to become confrontational,
so when I suggested that we take a vote to decide whether to commit to
the roles, everyone else very quickly said yes so that we can move away
from this issue.
However, that was not the end of the story.
After the meeting, I blasted out an email to all the committee members
informing them that if they were unwilling to support me in the two
roles I had committed our organization to, I would be willing to do it
alone. I wrote the email feeling very disappointed with the lack of
support from my committee members and the tone of the email was
correspondingly so.
Now here is the bummer!
After some time for reflection, I realized to my own horror that I had
made a big assumption that everyone's support was not forthcoming.
There was no real evidence to suggest that the rest of the committee
members were not supportive. I had simply created that hostility in my
own mind through an assumption. I had not verify my assumption. Based
on that assumption, I blasted out a strongly worded email to everyone.
Wow! What was I thinking?
I had created a suffering out of nothing, and made everyone feel
stressed out and uncomfortable in the process. If we can do this
working in a non profit organization where we profess to uphold all the
highest ideals, imagine the destruction our untrained mind can unleash
in a competitive environment.
To add to the embarrassment, I had actually just given a talk called
"It's All in the Mind" prior to the meeting. So, one moment I am
telling everybody that everything we experienced is in our mind only,
and the next moment I myself got trapped in my own mental creation.
The lesson here is clear - book knowledge is of no use if it is not
followed by rigorous mental cultivation.
(Here is a challenge for you. Can you recognize at least two more assumptions that I had made in this article?)
About the Author
Dr. Tim Ong is a medical doctor with keen interest in self improvement, mind science and spirituality. He is also the author of "From Fear to Love: A Spiritual Journey" - a book that explores our hidden fears and how we can overcome them. Dr. Ong shares his personal experience as well as relates stories and lessons from his patients. You can get a copy of his ebook here (with a special discount): From Fear to Love.
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