Stories about Complacency (Part 3) - on relationship

Apart from jobs, relationship is one of the most important thing that needs to constantly work on. It is rather sad to see so many relationships get broken up because people are becoming too complacent and taking each other for granted. We always think that our spouse or partner will always be there for us, therefore, once the marriage or union has been sealed, we can go on and continue with our “single” lifestyle so to speak. There are some people who proceeded to venture into other relationships by thinking that if that relationship doesn’t work out, they can always have the option of returning to their spouse or partner. In other words, the spouse or partner will be “Plan B” in the relationship. This is clearly taking the spouse for granted. “Taking for granted” simply means being complacent. When one becomes complacent, one will stop working on the relationship which leads to a broken marriage or a broken relationship. Ultimately, it will be the affected spouse / partner and the offspring who will suffer from that consequence.

In Australia, it is a known fact that more than half of the marriages ended up in divorce. When I attended the Family Dispute Resolution course last year, I learned that the bulk of it comes from the Gold Coast which is rather surprising. Gold Coast is known to be a slow and relaxing place but yet the divorce rate (if what I have been told is correct) is the highest. Until today, I am still not able to find the cause of the majority of those divorces. If someone knows the answer, do let me know. When I made my maiden appearance in the Family Court of Australia, I was surprised to find that in the particular court which I appeared, the majority of the people who got divorced were people of Asian descents which again took me by surprise. Asians by and large value honour, integrity and pride in their family. Keeping and maintaining a happy and harmonious family is the ultimate goal that most if not all Asian families strive to achieve. When my family and I moved to Australia, my heart was torn between Malaysia and Australia and whether it was a wise move on my part to move permanently to Australia. You see, at that time I was at the peak of my career and just launched my book called “Mediation Skills and Techniques”. I was beginning to receive recognition in my field with offers to speak and conduct training coupled with an invitation to sit in a prestigious Government committee. I was very tempted but at the same time reminded of the words from a very senior lawyer friend. When this senior lawyer heard about my predicament, he asked me to go with the family and not to leave them alone in Australia. He told me that many years ago, he was in the same position as me. He has a lucrative law practice in Malaysia then and now. At that time (30 years ago), he successfully applied and got Canadian PR (Permanent Residence) for his family and him. Not wanting to leave his lucrative legal practice, he asked his wife and kids to move to Canada and he would visit them often. However the distance between Malaysia and Canada was far apart and therefore, he only get to see his wife and kids twice a year. He told me candidly that till today his kids and him are not very close because he has missed their growing years in Canada which he regretted very much. He said he could have ceased legal practice then and joined his family in Canada because he had enough funds to last him but the business side of things and his selfishness got the better of him. Till today, his wise words still echoed in my head. I too had the selfish thought of looking after myself and not looking out for the family but my friend’s words were too loud to ignore and I decided to forgo the chance of gaining recognition and reputation and be with the family. I can now say with honesty, I do not regret one bit. Making sacrifice and compromise are necessary to make relationship work and to overcome complacency.

Stories about Complacency (Part 2) - on the job

To continue from my last post. Let us look at complacency and our job. Can you still remember how excited you were on the first day of the job? You would have been extra careful and paid close attention to your job. However, the attentiveness and enthusiasm would tend to decline as time progresses. This is because we were becoming too familiar with our job and knew what to expect. To maintain that excitement and enthusiasm in the job, we need to constantly make changes and generate new ideas otherwise productivity would decline.

As some of you know, here in Sydney, I have embarked into new areas of legal practice, namely family and criminal law. I have moved away from my “comfort zone” of commercial and employment law practice. I didn’t realize that by moving away from this “comfort zone”, I have created a new exciting environment for myself. This has increased my enthusiasm, therefore reviving new interest in my work and setting aside my mundane routine. The next question people would asked me is that what would happen if one day I feel that I am getting too familiar or bored with these new areas of legal practice? Well, my answer is that unlike in my previous job, I am no longer in full time legal practice, therefore, getting myself familiar with these areas of the law will be gradual and thus, it allows the excitement to grow slowly. Ok, what about for those people who are in full time practice or doing the same thing, day in and day out, what is going to happen there? Well, when you are getting bored with your work, you have to take a break from your routine by doing something totally different or just take a holiday. You need to take some time to re-evaluate and see if you are able to improvise, innovate or generate new ideas in your work otherwise it is time to change your work routine or job. The world is constantly changing and so are we. In my next post, I will be talking about complacency and relationship.

Stories about complacency (Part 1)

One of the important lessons I learned in life is never be too comfortable or complacent. If we get too comfortable, we began to take things for granted and that will lead to high risk and even disaster. For example, when we do the same job for the longest of time, we will become too comfortable and start taking short cuts. If we are not careful, we may start making mistakes by letting our over confidence be our better judgment.

I remember when I was living in an apartment complex, the residents used to have issues with the hired security guards. When the security guards first started work in the complex, they were very strict. They would take down all of the visitors’ particulars and stopped every vehicle that entered the complex. After a while, the security guards were getting either too familiar (too comfortable) or bored with their job, they began to slack when it came to exercising their duties in ensuring the security of the complex. The security guards would sometimes omit in taking down particulars of visitors or would just allow vehicles to enter without stopping them. The security guards probably felt that they have seen all and by now would know who or what would posed a threat to the complex’s security. This can only happened when the person is too complacent with his or her job. I have suggested to the Management of the complex that it would be wise to consider changing new set of guards every 6 months. This way, the security guards would always be on their toes and would not easily fall into the trap of being too complacent. It is always exciting to do new things and the security guards would have the enthusiasm being in a new environment and working with new people. However, it is time to change once the enthusiasm and excitement die down. Complacency can be our worst enemy, therefore, we must know when to change when things are becoming too familiar or bored. In my next post, I will talk about complacency and job.