Jonathan's wisdom on being happy

Why are so many people unhappy with their lives?

Two possible reasons:

1. They are unappreciative little shits.
2. They are worrywarts.

I'm a happy person. You wouldn't believe it if you see me but it's true. I am cursed with a resting bitch face, but inside I'm very positive.

How do I manage it? One quick and easy way is to imagine all the ways my life could be even worse than it is. For example, I might be afflicted with an incurable terminal illness, but at least I was born in a developed economy with access to healthcare. If a baby is born with the same disease as me but in Africa, they will face a terrible fate.

Similarly, school might be stressful, but at least my father is paying my way through university, and I don't have to worry about finances on top of studies, unlike those who self-fund their education.

This is what I mean by appreciation. There's a huge element of luck in life, and bad things happen to everyone. It's important to keep things in perspective and understand that although the situation might not be ideal, it could be a whole lot worse. Then you'll realise that hey, you're not so badly off after all, and thank your lucky stars for rescuing you from circumstances that would have been far more bleak.

As I said, there's a huge element of luck in life, and bad things are bound to happen at some point. What sets happy people apart from unhappy people is their response. Unhappy people will harp on the negatives, and their thoughts will circle round and round the so-called problem. This does nothing except drain them of all their mental energy, making them frustrated and irritable.

In contrast, happy people will first ask themselves: "Is there anything I can do about this? Is this situation within my control?" Because if it's not, why bother stressing over it? Just adapt as best as you can, then forget about it and move on with your life.

And if the situation is indeed within your control, then go straight into fixing the issue. Don't waste time overthinking things as it'll only serve to complicate matters, and complexity is the antithesis of happiness.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: No one and no thing can make you unhappy. You make you unhappy. Feelings are a choice, so if you want to be happy, it's as simple as making the decision to be so.

Giving a shit

(HOT OFF THE PRESS! This post is freshly written. It is not a scheduled post.)

According to Mael and Ashforth (1992), organisational identification is the feeling of connectedness with the organisation that one belongs to. It's almost as if you and the organisation you are part of are actually the same entity. People with strong organisational identification behave in characteristic ways. For example, they tend to use the word "we" instead of "they" when talking about the organisation.

Have your eyes glazed over yet? Sorry about that. You can take the psychology student out of the laboratory but you can't take the laboratory out of the psychology student.

Let me break down organisational identification into simple, albeit crude, English for you. Organisational identification means giving a shit about the group you are in.

Is that better?

Take myself as an example. I'm studying Communications and New Media (CNM) at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). So I have three social identities linked to my current educational life:

1. I am a CNM student.
2. I am an FASS student.
3. I am an NUS student.

I'm very strong in organisational identification. So I care deeply about the wellbeing of my department, my faculty, and my university as a whole.

Which is why I involve myself in online discussions about CNM, FASS, or NUS. It's not that I like being a busybody, but I feel the need to intervene in order to promote the reputations of CNM/FASS/NUS, or protect them from harm.

Enough about workplace psychology theory. Where is this post leading to?

Here's the story.

On 15 November, an NUSWhispers poster, ostensibly a Year 4 CNM major, lamented that they were "pretty upset" because "almost all the good profs left" and "most of the fun courses are gone". I saw the post and thought nothing of it at first, because

1. I don't feel the same way, and
2. complaint posts are very common on that platform but most of them fizzle.

But of course, being a CNM major myself, I couldn't help but leave a comment to joke about Bertha Henson. It's not that I have anything against Bertha Henson. I haven't met her in my life and don't believe in passing judgements on people I've never personally interacted with. It's just that the sound of the words "Bertha Henson" tickles my funny bone somehow. Don't ask me why. My mind is strange.

Anyway I thought that was that. But two days later another post appeared on the platform, seizing on the topic of the first. The new post worried that CNM would lose out to the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) because it was getting rid of "useful modules" while keeping "tons of useless theoretical modules". It also called on the "dude in charge" to "spare a thought for budding communications practitioners".

Look, an online falsehood! I had to set the record straight. "It's not a dude in charge," I wrote in the comments section. "She's a she." I went on to say that I was equally concerned but reminded everyone to be appreciative of the Instructors we have left.

The next day, another post was published on this topic. The writer acknowledged my point that we still have good teaching staff, but was afraid that they, too, would quit their jobs soon. The writer also asked if the department would listen to us if we raised these concerns to them.

At this juncture I must make clear that I don't have insider information on the happenings within the CNM department. But my comment in response to the latest post proved eerily prescient.

This is my comment in full:

Hopefully the remaining ones are okay enough with whatever the circumstances are to stay. If they wanted to leave I think they would have done so already. And I suspect the department is aware of these concerns. It would be ironic if they did not monitor this channel for mentions of them, given what they teach!

I don't know if my comment forced the department to do what they did. Maybe they were hesitating on whether to act on these posts and my comment was the straw that broke the camel's back. Or perhaps they were already going to take action anyway, with or without my comment. But on 19 November, a mere four days after the controversy had started, the department sent out an email inviting students to participate in a focus group session which aimed to gather feedback on the teaching and curriculum of CNM.

The only thing I knew about focus groups was that they are used in qualitative research. My Introductory Research Methods class in polytechnic had taught me that much, but didn't go into great detail about it because psychological researchers like numbers, not words. But I also knew that I had to attend this particular focus group. I'd never been involved in one before, and it would be an enriching experience for me. Besides, I have lots of opinions on how to make CNM better, and was excited to have the opportunity to share them with the management.

I signed up that very same day, and was rewarded with a confirmation reply the following day that, infuriatingly, misspelled my name despite the fact that I had typed my name twice in the registration email. It happens fairly often and it pisses me off each time.

Some preparatory work was needed. I'm strongly introverted so I get stressed easily in group settings. Sometimes I'll forget what I wanted to say or my mind will go blank when it's my turn to speak. To combat this, I recalled something I had read in one of my psychology books in a previous life. It would help to allay my anxiety if I got my thoughts in order beforehand and wrote them down. So that's exactly what I did.

The day of the focus group dawned. I was thrilled but a tad nervous. Fortunately, it turned out that only one other student came, rather than the four that the department had been hoping for. After all, it's reading week, and most students are studying for exams. I have exams to study for too, but the focus group was too important to me and I couldn't bear to miss it.

In the room, there were: the department head, the department deputy head in charge of curriculum, some random young Chinese professor who was just observing, one of the department administrative executives, the other student, and me. The small group size put me at ease, and also allowed me to have more airtime in which to present my views.

The solid interviewing technique of the department head helped tremendously too. Her positive reputation among scholars and students in her subfield isn't unfounded, as one doesn't gain respect in academia by lacking research skills. She wasn't aggressive in her probing questions, giving the other student and I plenty of space to elaborate on our points on our own. When we had finished speaking, she would summarise what we had expressed by paraphrasing with her own words to make sure we were all on the same page before moving on. And she didn't get defensive at the criticisms, instead verbalising her own concerns about our suggestions in a mature manner so that we could understand and brainstorm possible workarounds together.

I was pleased to know that she had seen my comments on NUSWhispers. She even thanked me for the contributions. Truth be told, NUSWhispers is just the tip of the iceberg. I do most of my "work" on Reddit, which is more suited to longform discussions.

What made me happiest, however, was the discovery that my outlook for the department is quite well-aligned with hers. She told us of some new measures she has in the pipeline to fix some of the major problems students face regarding module choices and timetabling. They struck me as being sensible solutions and I voiced my support for them. After the focus group was over, she had a short chat with me one-on-one and I told her that my purpose in attending the day's session was not because I wanted to see how I could benefit myself between now and my graduation. I'm heading into my final academic semester in January, after which I do a six-month internship. Whatever initiatives she introduces will be too late to have any effect on me. And anyway, I don't think the degree structure that I have gone through is so terrible as to render me completely unemployable. What I hoped to achieve by attending the day's session was to give my perspective on how we can tackle an issue that I've noticed on various social media and am troubled by: the perception on the street among outsiders, especially pre-university students who are deciding where to enroll, that CNM is inferior to WKWSCI because a degree from the latter is a surer ticket to employment in the communications industry than one from the former.

Bottom line: CNM has lost its shine and I want it to regain its lustre.

Having met the department head in person and hearing her talk about what she plans to do, I think she's capable of digging CNM out of this hole. She took over a department in a shambles, and from her first day on the job even had to replace a whole bunch of office staff and faculty members who had left at the end of the previous department head's reign. It will take her a couple of years to patch all the leaks and stabilise the ship. But she seems serious about engaging with the students, and will be holding a town hall meeting with CNM majors in January. Overall, she appears to have a vision for the future of CNM, including a unique proposition to set it more clearly apart from WKWSCI. To cut a long story short: she gives a shit.

The proof in the pudding is in the eating, of course, and only time will tell if she can deliver results. But right now from where I'm sitting, the pudding looks pretty damn delicious.

Reference: Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(2), 103-123.

Do you want to live forever?

Sorry for the clickbait, I don't know how you can attain immortality.

But you can Live On through organ donation, even after you have reached the end of your life.

No, this isn't a post brought to you by the Ministry of Health, much as I wish someone would sponsor my writings.

I just happen to be a supporter of organ donation.

Singapore has an opt-out organ donation scheme called the Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA). Under HOTA, the government has the right to harvest your kidneys, heart, liver, and corneas from your cadaver and give them to patients who need it.

You are automatically part of the scheme unless you submit paperwork to withdraw yourself. But if you do, and need an organ at some time in the future, you will be at a lower priority to receive it.

A lot of people have criticised HOTA for being dystopian, but many other developed countries also have opt-out organ donation schemes. Such schemes result in a higher rate of organ donation compared to if people have to volunteer to donate (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003). This in turn brings better outcomes for patients in those countries. And let's face it, anyone, even you or your loved ones, might become one of those patients if misfortune strikes. Wouldn't you want the best chance of getting lifesaving treatment?

Singapore also has an opt-in organ donation scheme covering the other organs that HOTA doesn't encompass. It is called the Medical (Therapy, Education and Research) Act (MTERA) and you have to register yourself to be part of it.

You can choose to donate just your organs or your whole cadaver, and specify what you want them to be used for. As the name of the Act suggests, organs can be used for therapy, education, and research. Therapy refers to treating the sick, or transplantation in other words. Education refers to using your organs or full-body cadaver for teaching purposes or surgical practice at the local medical schools. Research refers to using your organs for the advancement of scientific knowledge, such as conducting experiments on them or observing them closely, and could contribute to the development of new drugs or treatment methods.

As I write this, I am not yet of legal age but will be by the time this scheduled post is published and gets into your hands. When that happens, I will be pledging my organs to MTERA for all three purposes. The people in charge are free to determine how best to use my gift. I don't think my organs are unsuitable for transplant despite my medical condition, because they are all in working order and my disease is non-transmissible. But if they want to give my organs to trainee doctors for dissection, or scientists for testing potentially groundbreaking medicines, they are welcome to do so too.

Whatever little bit my organs can do to benefit humankind after my death will satisfy me.

Reference: Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives?.

Disability support at NUS

Being an educational institution that has existed since the ancient times, the National University of Singapore (NUS) has had many students with disabilities of all shapes and sizes pass through its corridors over the years.

So it has developed quite a good support system for helping such students cope with life in the university.

The main go-to person for everything related to help for disabled students is the Disability Support Officer (DSO). She takes care of all the students with special educational needs (SEN) in NUS.

Her job includes arranging for government funding for things like specialised transport or assistive technology, advocating for improved accessibility in the older parts of the campus, and being a go-between to relay messages to and from students with SEN and the various administrative departments in NUS. She can sometimes also be observed roaming the campus grounds, guiding SEN students, such as the visually impaired, as they shuttle between classrooms.

She is not alone though. Each faculty has its own Student Support Manager (SSM) in the Dean's Office who looks after the students with SEN, as well as those with difficult family or financial circumstances and those with emotional disturbances or mental illnesses, in that faculty.

Other administrative staff in the Dean's Office will step in to settle issues like examination accommodations and tutorial slot preferences (more on this later).

And of course, individual professors can play their part in helping students too.

My experiences with NUS disability support

When I was choosing which university offer to accept, the quality of disability support was one consideration. I wanted to meet with the DSOs of the three universities that had offered me a place, to get to know them and have a sense of what kind of help they could give me.

The DSO from the Singapore Management University (SMU) told me that I would only be granted a meeting after I had officially matriculated into that university. The staff from the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), on the other hand, conducted a full-court press and even rolled out the chairman of the school to attend the meeting.

The NUS DSO and the SSM from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) also agreed to meet, and we did so one summer afternoon in 2017 in a small conference room in Block AS7, facing the port of Pasir Panjang. An air force cargo plane circled lazily overhead as their quiet but confident reassurances that I would be well taken care of at NUS slowly won me over.

It was a close-run thing. The enthusiasm shown by the SUSS people had really impressed me, as they really made it seem like they were excited to have me join them. The degree I would have done if I had gone there, a Bachelor in Human Resource Management, struck me as very practical and industry-oriented.

The SMU DSO's blunt refusal to see me put a big damper on my keenness to choose to go there. They have interesting programmes, engaging pedagogy, and a beautiful campus, but they really need to put an end to this closed-door policy when it comes to dealing with SEN students who are not yet part of their university.

In the end, I chose NUS because my home faculty of FASS contained everything I wanted to explore: English Language, Communications and New Media (CNM), and Psychology. I was also convinced that between the DSO and SSM, I was in safe hands.

And I was right.

The DSO was instrumental in setting me up with the relevant departments like the Registrar's Office, which handles examination-related matters, right from the very beginning of my stay in NUS, so for the rest of my candidature in the university, I am automatically granted the extra time that I need to complete my papers, and allowed to type my answers on a laptop instead of writing them by hand. She also helps in unexpected situations: When I ran into some trouble getting to a far-flung auditorium on a rainy day, she coordinated with a residential hall to let me use their secured elevator to cut through their building and get to a sheltered route to where I needed to go.

There are other services she has that I am aware of but have not had occasion to use. For example, she can get a wheelchair-friendly van to drive physically disabled students around the sprawling campus. She also advises NUS Enablers, a student-run organisation that aims to improve the welfare of students with SEN at NUS.

She comes up with her own initiatives too. For instance, FASS is a big challenge for someone in a wheelchair to navigate because there are lots of stairs and not many lifts. It also spreads over eight different multistorey buildings, randomly joined by bridges. Some parts are totally inaccessible due to lack of lift access, while others can only be accessed by going on a roundabout way instead of the straightforward route which involves negotiating a staircase. It was all very overwhelming to figure out when I was new. To make things easier for future students with mobility problems, she is currently designing a diagram to map out the wheelchair-accessible links and areas within FASS. Anyone who has ever seen what FASS is like will know that it is a huge undertaking!

The FASS SSM has also been a great help. She gets my father's car approved by the facilities management department for season parking in FASS and University Town (UTown) carparks at the start of each academic year. When I have assorted little requests, I turn to her. Additionally, she regularly checks up on me to make sure everything is okay, and we have become close friends.

Her colleague at the Dean's Office does most of the nitty-gritty tasks for me. For example, she talks to all the important people to ensure that my tests and examinations take place in venues that are suitable for my needs. She also pre-allocates my preferred tutorial timeslots to me so that I can have full control over the design of my timetable and hence minimise the time I spend on campus. Without this, I would have to ballot for tutorial classes with everyone else and might end up with timeslots that cause me to have to remain on campus for many hours each day, which will in turn cause me to be very fatigued.

Finally, my professors from the many departments in FASS, including my home department of CNM, have been valuable sources of support too. Some have even gone out of their way to find out how to accommodate me and allow me to learn and perform to the best of my ability.

With so many pairs of helping hands available, there really is no reason for any disabled student to fear coming to NUS to study. Help is always just an email away.

Smartphone addiction

Seriously, what kind of magic power do smartphones have, that make them so alluring?

People often stereotype millennials as smartphone zombies, but I find that older folk are not immune to the lure of the gadget either.

Take my mother, for example. She has been on this earth for more than half a century, yet she is more attached to her phone than many fellow 20-somethings I know.

She can sit for hours with her eyes glued to the screen, Whatsapping here, Facebooking there, and playing those terrible puzzle games with colourful balls/flowers/food items.

All old people have their quirks when they use technology, and hers is a peculiar obsession with reading and then deleting every single Whatsapp message she gets.

The catch? She is part of about ten different chat groups, many of which average around 200 individual texts a day.

And being rather advanced in age, her mind and fingers are less nimble, so you can imagine what a struggle it must be for her to cope with this deluge!

Sometimes she gets so carried away that she forgets her real-life responsibilities.

There was once, her pet rabbit was sniffing at her ankles, looking for attention.

It got none. Luckily my father passed by and gave it what it wanted: a few pats on the head.

So you see, smartphone addiction is a serious problem, and it affects everyone, not just the young.

In fact, I think it is more dangerous than sugar.

More dangerous than tobacco.

More dangerous, even, than drugs.

It is the biggest threat to our continued existence as a human race since the invention of the Mayan calendar.

Time to impose heavy taxes on smartphones, to profiteer under the guise of protecting people from themselves curb this harmful habit for the good of society!