Goodlooking Conundrum!

I don't think I would really want to date a very handsome man.

It's what I would call the George Clooney conundrum (puzzle) :)

On the one hand, who would'nt want to go out with the sexiest man alive - according to me and the People magazine, so it must be true.

On the other hand, even Mr Clooney has a downside.

I remember reading an aritcle about watching his latest squeeze at the Oscars. Most women probably envied her. The writer said she was not. She saw a receipe for disaster.

According to the aritcle - 'If she does'nt end with him, she's runined for life! Once you date George Clooney, the bar's set pretty high. And the Oscars are the summit of glamour.

How do you top that?

There she was in a coutoure gown, arm in arm with the most handsome man on the planet. Can you imagine? After that they break up and she has to start dating again, where's the next guy going to take her - the moon?

I guess the only way would be to the opposite end of the spectrum. A bald man without charm, looks or a libido. That can't be too hard to find :)

That's why I would prefer to date guys who are not movie-star calibre. Infact, the more ordinary, the better. Having low expectations means never being disappointed.

By sheer Darwinian logic, the partnerships that last are the one between equals, including equals in the physical sweepstakes. A woman can be a notch higher than the man, but still cannot be way out of his league or there'll be problems.

While attractive male friends are invariably paired with equally attractive females, many of my gal pals who are considered 'hot babes' are actually open to guys few notches below. They don't even consider it dating down!

So guys even if you are a Danny Devito , there is still hope if you can deliver good punchlines as most women magazine survey's on what women want top 'sense of humour' on the list, 'with a good heart' and 'must love dogs' as absloute essentials in a man.

And ofcourse near the bottom of the wish list, above 'able to hunt wild boar' and gather fire wood, is "preferably does not look like elephant man".

Pairing up someone who looks like, say Brad Pitt, must be terribly stressful unless you happen to be Angelina Jolie. Even though, am dead sure, she must be awfully insecure as well what with the multiude of women all around the world who must be plotting to get their claws on her man.

A friend of mine, so smitten was she looking at her good looking beau while driving crashed into a tree. Now, being older and more mature, she has learnt her lesson and says - "when I was younger I would have gone for a hunk. But these days its more important that the person is more into me. And so far I have not met a good-looking man who wasn't in love with himself".

I would add to that : Thanks but no thanks. I don't want to be second fiddle :)

Anyways, finally there is ONE very good reason why I will never go out with a handsome George Clooney look alike - so far, not one has asked me out :(

Darn......

Leadership........or

Singapore is a country on the move, always.

Amazing amount planning goes into keeping this little red dot city state a first world country, relevant and enduring in the story of world civilisations.

Whether its planning 15 years ahead on a new reclaimed port terminal or airport or a new PM - the government machinery is always on the planning and pre-empting mode. Scenario planning and decisions and moves that the Goverment makes makes it work like a corporate, quiet literally!

PM Lee is already talking of his (unknown) successor! Considering he is just in his early 50's and still has another, atleast, a decade plus to go on (means another 2 elections of 5 years each still to go).

Singapore's first cabinet leaders have all long since gone from the scene, save MM Lee. The orderly succession planning he set in motion with SM Goh Chok Tong and onwards to current PM Lee Heien Loong - will face an uncertain transition. Probably Singapore's next PM is not even in politics as yet and certainly will not have legitimacy of previous PMs, conferred by MM.

Whew!

Lesson for organisations and perhaps countries .......

All this has got me wondering on what makes a good leader?

Leadership is, according to one definition : "The ability to secure the willing commitment of people to the achievement of specific objectives"

There are 4 key concepts here - :-

1. willing commitment
2. people
3. specific objectives
4. ability

Number 2 being most important according to me.

Leadership is not about just management but a natural consequence of one's integrity which is a sum total of one's experience.

It is both inspirational and aspirational in that it enables both the leader and the led to touch the better part of their own-selves. Its not just about getting work done, but I think it should help transcend our smaller selves and make us deliver the bigger purpose.

Like Gandhi...like Nelsen Mandela - selfless and yet selfish towards that common cause of the common man.

A leader should have the courage to follow convictions contrary to prevailing views and even one’s own inclination, and rise from the ability to be honest to nurturing and listening to the voice within.

While being different from the rest, a person can’t be a leader in isolation. He has to be a team player, realistic of individual and others strengths and weaknesses!

But being different always carries a price!
You have to have the guts, the honesty and be a people's person.

Each one of us is a leader in our own sphere.
We all are a mixed bag of people from different walks of life, thrown together by the call of history to create history.

Life's reset button

In the last few months, life has been staring me in my face, head-on!

My mind wanders when I attend funerals.

I look around at the people who show up and wonder what sort of crowd would attract at my own funeral. I wonder how they would send me away, what kind of things would people say etc etc......In my short and yet not so short life, I have been through enough myself, heard, seen, felt the pain and joy of people around me.........but most importantly I ask myself : should my life end tomorrow, would I have been happy with the way I lived?

The answer turns on two key things, I think.
It is, first knowing what it is exactly that will make you happy.
Then secondly - and more importantly - it is having the guts to do it, for life has a strange uncanny what of whittling down options.

A case in point is the life of this lady, who is a friend of my friends. Lets call her Jen.
I got to know of Jen's rather sad and tragic life in one of those long lazy weekend discussions my friend and I get into ever so often about life and our times......there is so much hatred, lonliness, sadness, pain and un-fulfillment around!

Gosh - it really must hurt hell-va-lot.
It hurts so much that I don't even know how badly I'm hurt!

Anyways, getting back to Jen - a young professional, doing exceptionally well with an MNC, living alone. She has been in a relation with a married man for the last 15 years of her life! The man while completely and obsessively in love with her has not got around to marrying her as yet. Reasons are several - children were growing up; could not ditch his wife since she had no other means to live despite the fact that he does not love her and claims a 'functional' relation only with her; his old parents etc etc.

(I personally think he is a weak man and his fear of shame trumps taking real hard decisions)

Today, that man is back with his wife (because she threatened to leave him and the fear that his kids will disown him) Jen is heart broken and alone and lonely and can’t focus on her life. She has no way forward (at least for now). The only life she has known was dedicated to this man, centered on him, his happiness, his career, his duties and commitments.

While my friend has tried and tried hard to get her moving on in life………I don’t think she has been successful.

I have reasoned out with my friend that maybe, just maybe Jen is lucky to have gotten out of this scenario NOW and not later. Imagine, Jen could have been a discontented mother in a loveless marriage also.

Anyways, now, finally Jen will (hopefully) decide to move on. As they say, time is a great healer and no-one ever really died of a heartbreak! (ya ya I know I sound cynical)

The difference between the two scenarios (1. being in a dead-end relation and 2. taking a hard decision to move on) still takes my breath away. The second one is not easy. But it’s something the societal conviction insists Jen will not regret. The first one made her follow her heart and something / someone she really wanted! (But alas life has an uncanny way of whittling down dreams and love)

But now, whether forced case or otherwise, she has some figuring out to do in life.
Jen’s story is not the only story out there, of course. Many people, I have come across in life have altered their course in life to achieve happiness.

But I’ve also come across many who have not, even though it seems that they want too!

I don’t blame them because life can impose some very real constraints on people – from bread-and-butter issues; to expectations and conventions laid by society etc etc.

But then there are people like Jen who have hit the reset button on life once again, and try and get to where they really want to be.

Truth in life is that one can never ever be 100 per cent happy with life. The trick is to get away from zero and try and head for ‘around the 70 per cent mark’ at least!

So what if I really die tomorrow, I will at least go with a smile and my pocket fuller with what I’ve done than things left undone!

Parallel Universe

I have been to Dharmshala several times for holidays and I have been blessed by the Dalia Lama in person. What an amazing innocent laughter he has. I still remember him telling me that I have very pretty and sad eyes! And that I shall get my happiness eventually, that I deserve!
Anyways, thats still to be realised but in the last few weeks the worldwide protests over Tibet have got me thinking, thinking about the many millions of people in Tibet who may never realise their dreams.

Seems unlikely in my lifetime atleast!

Anyways, China has always fascinated me. This is one country that I have yet not managed too travel though! Hopefully one day I shall cross the great wall......

In my last two years in Singapore, I have been confronted with various news reports in newspapers, tv, internet - about two China's - the official one that is mostly a sucess story, and the less pretty one that 'they' just do not want us to see.

The world is inundated with glowing facts and figures which show China's sizziling double-digit growth, that the country has come of age as a confident big nation and that this governments 'people first' has lifted 400 million out of poverty in the past 25 years etc etc

Infact, so enamoured I am with China that I have written in the past in my blog on its soft power.

But now........all under heaven is peaceful and happy - not!

For all its achievements, out on the pavements and dirt tracks, China has a parallel universe. This is where cagey clouds of tension hang. With months to go before the red carpet is rolled out for the Olympics, rights and social groups are reporting more interception and detention of the ordinary folks. As Beijing goes on a over drive to seperate appreances and reality, the ordinary common poor man will remain invisible and silenced.

Today China's counter-offensive moves against recent disturbances for 'free tibet' appear robust and excruciatingly detailed. While China has realised that importance of countering what it sees as adverse publicity, its efforts are unlikely to produce the desired results, given the country's overall non-transparent track record. They even fudged the actual records of SARs outbreak deaths in 2003!!

Detractors are unlikely to change their minds over Tibet despite the media campaign.

Like the boy who cried wolf, the problem that the Chinese government faces is that even when the truth is finally told, it may not be recognised as such!

Huge credibility problems..........

Haves and the Have-nots

There's nothing quite like an airplane to emphasise the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.

Money talks. No where is it more apparent than in airplanes. It's a cruel world where the rich folks - or those working for rich companies which foot their travel bils - are clearly seperated from the rest.

If you are wealthy you sit right up in front in first or business class. If you are not, kindly join the unwashed way back in the economy or cattle class.

Everything is designed to emphasise the class divides!

It starts right from the time you check-in (red carpet versus ordinary grey ones), to how much luggage you can carry, to where you can kill time etc etc.

And it continues all the way into the plane - no queues, just stroll into an exclusive entrance - get seated with extravagant legroom, michellin-star food and more attentive service from prettier airhostess!

Oh and then they make you feel even more bad. The higher paying privileged ones deplane faster and be with their loved ones that much more quicker.

Man my poverty sucks!!

Back where I sit, we are packed like sardines in a can, the sponge in the headrest can disintegrate if you don't handle with care; inferior food served in plastic trays (make me feel humbled) and I can never ever catch the stewardess attenetion ever to get a (plastic) glass of water!!

Sigh!

Ya ya ok - I know I suffer from business class envy.

But its strange, other manifestions of rich versus not-so-rich divide never bothers me at all. I dont give a hoot if others possess the matieral accroutrements of modern life - nice bigger homes, gadgets, big cars, designer clothes, good looking rich husbands - which I most certainly lack.

For some strange reason, air travel has started to bring out the worst in me. And who can blame me when everything is crafted to stress the difference between the superior and the inferior.

I am LEO and apprantly have a big ego with a even bigger attiude and this stark divide makes a wee bit dent in my fragile ego :)

In anycase, I console myself, once you step off the plance, it's back to democracy. No matter how much caviar or Moet you've imbibed in the superior class, everyone has to walk through the same metal detector and be subjected to the same checks by immigration and no-where are these checks more mortifying and humilating than in the US and UK.

Besides, in the end, a flight is just that, a flight. It's not the journey that matters but the desitnation and what and "who" awaits you there. And if I have to go through this hell - I'll do it over and over again.