It had not been a happy renovation period. The cracks that had formed all these years underneath the beautiful facade started to show once put to the test.

Greatly saddened, hurt and disappointed.

Words have a lot of power. I am reminded once again.

I don't like to see a self harm in progress. Some ignorance might do me some good. It's really none of my business how ppl live their lives.

Sigh.. why do I always meet such ppl?

Is there fairness here? I have to say there isn't.

27年来第一次有人用'脆弱'来形容我。

其实还蛮贴切的。说真的, 面对我在意的事的时侯, 我的哭点其实很低。只是没有很多事情是我在意的, 所以也造成了很多人对我的误解。

在面对不被理解这一块, 我真的是特别脆弱, 也特别在意。

说真的, 被发现是一种解脱。虽然是我的经理发现的, 但是我很开心至少她是很清楚了解我的能耐。我不需在再背负着一些她对我不切实际的期望。轻松了很多。

This trip has taught me that I still get embarrassed and uneasy around strangers whom I have to interact with. And I realised that I have been letting myself stay in my comfort zone for too long. I have gotten too comfortable to move out of it and have started to fear the unknown.

Has the recent years been a regression? I don't want that to continue. Time to push myself!

You frustrate me to no end. The older you get, the worse it becomes.

Totally sums up my thots when I met my friend the other day.

Brennan: i went to see Sweets
Booth: y?
Brennan: bcos something is wrong with me
Booth: Bones, nothing is wrong with you
Brennan: no, i thot today when we apologise to each other that everything was fine
Booth: bcos we were being polite
Brennan: yes, we were polite but you still knew that everything wasn't fine
Booth: i was ah.. hoping that it would be.. you know, in the future
Brennan: but only if we admit that it isn't fine right now. Sweets said that i am subconsciously rebeling against the fact that my happiness is now contingent upon your happiness and christine's.

_____
sorry for the spoiler!

but i totally understood "only if we admit that it isn't fine right now"!

Was catching up with a friend yesterday on our recent experiences over dinner.

She was sharing her encounters of setting up her company, the obstacles she met and the people who aided her along the way.. and something struck me halfway thru our conversation. She has been taking a lot of actions to get her to where she wants to be and regardless how well thot thru or not her plans were, she believed that she could achieve the results that she wants. And even though some of the things that she encountered were unexpected, she manages to find ways to overcome them.

I think that's the difference between a thinker and a doer. It's not like she doesn't think, she does but she prefers actions than inaction after thot. And that is something I need to learn. My bro is right, I have a lot of thots in my head but they will just be thots if I don't do anything about them. I'm not a risk taker by nature and though I have learnt to be a calculated risk taker thruout the years, I still need to take more actions and with more urgency. I'm too contented and laid back. I need to change my mindset and find my drive. Time to step up my learning curve and my actions.

Dating Mistakes ‘Nice’ Guys Often Make

 Truth be told, most women feel a little strange going out with nice guys because they tend to appear too nice for their own good. The lack of apparent flaws makes them seem fake. These men play their games so safely that they forget to include a little danger or excitement that women so adore. In their desire to come across as nice, they often end up being too polite. Women are perceptive enough to catch such pretentions. Knowing that you’re pretending to be nice makes them wary of dating you anymore. Rather than trying to make an impression, nice guys should work on being desirable instead, to be able to keep their partner’s attention cemented.
________________________________

the above is a partial article from mensxp.com.

i thot that i was the only one who felt so, but apparently it's common. reading this article solved a question that has been at the back of my mind all these while. 

第一次，被人说我令人失望。 第一次，哑口无言。第一次，终于明白有些误会一旦不当场解释，会被更多的误会淹没。第一次，哭诉无门。伤心。

不被理解。不懂得如何解释自己。难过。

我本以为只要坦荡，诚恳，诚实的对待人生，就会活得开心，活得自在。可是，原来现在的人已经不能接受这样的生活方式。错愕。

我该如何是好？我又该何去何从？有谁能指点迷津呢？困惑。

It seems that I have the tendency to over pamper ppl. And I have been receiving the "fruits" of doing so.. I can't say that I don't deserve them..

By being so accommodating and accepting of behaviors that, frankly speaking, sometime should not be condoned, I have trapped myself in a situation whereby I cannot stop being accommodating and accepting. Well.. It's not really can't and it's not a chore to be accommodating and accepting. Just that there are times when I get tired and I am down on energy. I'm not perfect. I need break times. I also need ppl who can be accommodating and accepting to me as well. But obviously I have created relationships that do not allow me to have such enjoyment.

Maybe I'm really masochistic. Lol. But once in awhile, I would love to switch roles..

Then again, the optimistic side of me thinks that maybe these ppl also over pamper me to the point that I don't realise it as well. Maybe.. hopefully..

"朋友是我们的镜子，我们的记忆；我们对他们一无所求，只是希望他们时时擦亮这面镜子，让我们可以从中看看自己。" - 米兰.昆德拉

I believe most ppl make the mistake of letting someone who is good for us slip us by. And then we make the second mistake of holding on too tightly to the ppl who are sort of ok but not really good for us, out of fear of repeating the first mistake. Which finally cause us to miss out on the opportunity of meeting somebody who might make our lives great.

Time for a change?

Am I living it wrongly?

我不是一个很会压抑我的心情的人。遇到看不过眼的事，我无法置之不理。可能是很多事情我看得到,但觉得我无能为力吧。所以变得消沉和negative, 觉得面对一些我无法改变的事, 令我觉得疲累不堪 。我知道我应该professional一点,但我却力不从心。

我不想继续这样, 有谁可以教教我吗?

When will we be able to make sense of what we are experiencing?

I thot I have lost my passiveness.. but it seems to have a stronger hold on me than I expected..

Finally the gathering snowball caught up with me. Time to find a good coffin.

When the person you are with makes no grave mistakes, does it make you wrong to decide to leave this person?

Is it a selfish and immature decision to end it?

If two people no longer enjoy the company of the other or if one feels so, if one loses oneself to fulfill the other and gets no satisfaction or happiness, if one knows that there is something that will always be a problem between the two of you, a wedge so huge due to the disparity of value and principle, should one just merely remain to be with the other person just cos they did no real wrong?

I seriously don't agree. I know sometimes I see gray as black or white and I might be too quick to cut ppl out of my life but I do not think that ppl should remain together just becos gg separate ways with this person will make us look bad. Becos they technically did no wrong so that makes us the bad person and make us feel guilty for making that choice.

I believe there is something such as overstaying in other ppl 's life. Ppl come into our lives to give us an experience. Usually they add value or let us learn a lesson. But when they overstay, they stunt our growth. I see a lot of ppl stuck in the diff stages of their lifes.. sometimes it's cos they are unwilling to let go of the past.. sometimes it's cos the ppl they mix with are unwilling to let go of theirs..

So I believe in letting the person go to experience more things in their lifes without me. Staying together will just be overstaying. But having said that, it does not mean that I don't work hard to maintain my relationships with ppl. Just that I don't feel so.... attached.. sometimes I may want to.. but usually it's more of a want than a need.

For all you know, my logic may be faulty. But this is what I've concluded so far.

All thot and no action.

Do I want to live my life like that?

We have all grown in our own ways thruout the yrs..

Sometimes we tend to forget that others have the capacity to grow.. Today I am reminded.

Life is actually a wonderful journey, a story with exciting twists and turns. You will never know the ending until you have read to the last page.

I'm also being reminded that there are still some things I need to be more mature in...

故天将降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为，所以动心忍性，曾益其所不能。- 孟子

i'm returning you for awhile. no energy.

hmm.. yesterday made me realised that i have things to be grateful for.. maybe in times of difficulty, one gets to see more clearly the things that matter the most..

i am blessed.

am i that unforgiving?

why can't i tolerate mistakes?

sigh..

have i forgotten how to laugh? and find humor in things?

i'm sorry to have made you feel awkward today.

just realise that i have a fear of disapproval..

"What if it arises from associations of previous uncomfortable experiences that are triggered from the mother’s request e.g. – shame – other’s disapproval – self-doubt – potential conflict – argument and bad atmosphere.

What if it has nothing to do with the current request but re-lived emotions and discomfort from previous times?"

maybe..

have i been childish? i believe i'm merely being cold hearted.

sigh. tired.

when my leaving colleague's only request of me was to see me in a skirt/dress on her last day at work..

i believe i need to do some self reflection... lol..

and i negotiated a wedding invitation from her in m'sia if i am willing to wear a skirt/dress to her wedding..

gosh i will miss her..

i guess it's a good thing that i have learnt in these past few years to miss ppl.. it's sad and nice at the same time.. interesting experience..

i wish you all the best sook yee.. may you have the life that you want (minus the coffee).. hahaha..

silly girl.. wat are you thinking of?

some snippets of conversations in Touched by an Angel..

"you'll be surprised by the baggage that ppl carry with them, especially the ones you can't see. half the time it's filled with the past, and looking inside can be the most frightening thing that a person ever does."

always surprised.. and i do quite a bit of the looking as well..

"he didn't say it was gonna be easy, but he says it's surely gonna worthwhile"

life is never easy but i believe it's worthwhile..

"going from love to hate is easy but going from hate to love is hard"

ppl say it's a fine line between love and hate.. but i think they should remember the line above as well..

"the world is full of ppl who don't want to get involved， that's how trash like this can happen"
"evil thrives when good man do nothing"

so true..

"there is always gonna be another job but there's never gonna be another daughter"

ocassionally, we forget the important things in life.. i guess it sums it up.. ppl whom we love are more impt than the other things in life..

"you said: i'm never gonna let anybody hurt me anymore, i'm going to be strong, i just won't feel anything and they are never gonna see me cry"

i tell that to myself quite often sometimes.. but yes.. i think feeling is something i need to do.. to let it out.. and let it go..

"yes, she has to learn to understand wat you are feeling but you have to try to understand wat she needs as well. the day comes in every daughter's life when she sees her mother not as her mother but as another woman with a heart that can be broken."

sometimes i forget that.. sorry my dear loveliest mother..

"i don't know wat i'm doing here.. i just hurt so bad that i had to do something. i want to make her hurt as much as i did"
"and you've succeeded but do you feel any better now?"
"no"
"bad things are always going to happen in this life and people will hurt you. but you can't use that as an excuse to fail or to hurt someone in return becos you'll just hurt urself."

sometimes i wish to retaliate as well.. but yes.. we are the ones that end up getting hurt in the process.

"forget wat he said, wat did you hear?"

sometimes we need to get pass our own emotions that were stirred up by wat ppl said, only then, can we truly hear wat they are trying to tell us.


"when you try to hide wat's underneath, you'll just end up miserable."

i like mine straight ahead, honest and no camouflage too.

"but she doesn't want any help"
"then it's up to you to help her want it"

easier said than done.. sigh..

"i will forgive you. not today, but some day."

wise choice.. am i that wise?

"is anything ever an accident?"

i don't really believe in the fate stuff, but i believe that everything happens for a reason..

"that's right, it has got to be her choice.. something tells me that she doesn't think she's got a choice.."

sometimes we are so blinded by the situations that occur till we believe that we do not have a choice in the matter.. that's why i always try to remind myself that, in life, we always have a choice..

"you have the right to be less than perfect.."

i wish more ppl could have told me that.. and i would like to think that one day i would believe that statement with my whole heart..

"forgiveness won't change him, but it will change you.."

hmm.. still learning..

maybe i'm a busybody.

a person who always looks strong, smart and independent misleads ppl to think that he does not need care, concern and help...

even when he opens his mouth and asks for them, no one seems to see it as a cry for help. to them, it's unimaginable, hence they see it as a joke that he cracked.. but in his heart, he is very sad and disappointed. not understanding why the rest don't seem to see that he needed them.. they missed the opportunity to be there for him. and he, in turn, wonders about wat he had done to end up with such results.

has he been wrong all this while? should one not be a person who causes no worry, who can depend on himself to be sufficient and happy? should he change?

we all need to learn to let go...

maybe it's time for you to..

wat does it tell u when someone loss u twice on fb?

it seems i always let ppl lead me to wherever they wish for me to go..

do i not have my own opinion? do i not know where to go?

wat do u do to ppl who write u off as a friend?

nothing. for they are not worth your effort.

good thing i have wonderful friends around me.. hugz to everyone.

i really want to study something.

how to gain work life balance?

why are we always rushing from one thing to the next?

i'm overly concerned.

despite my grumbling... it had been a fruitful trip.. and i have to say, my mum's colleague is a very insightful person..

'you seem very cool.. i mean calm and collected, totally not worried. u are not a passionate person, nothing excites you much.'

'you are a very independent person, you don't like to trouble anyone.'

yar.. i guess that sums it up.. lol..

i'm so readable..

i don't understand why ppl go on holidays... i feel more exhausted than i was before i went for my hols.. my mountain of work has grown even higher.. and i feel sleepier than before cos i sleep even less during my hols..

one good thing about hols is that.. my quality of sleep is much better than ones i sleep in my own bed..

on another note... my tummy has grown alot thanks to the 4 meals a day that i have been eating for the past 5 days in hk.. it's time to do something about it..

are we limited by our thots or is there a real limitation as to wat we can do and achieve?

i always have this qn at the back of my mind... occasionally i take it out to just play with it... most of the time, i believe that nothing is impossible as long as you set your mind to do it.. at times... especially during the times when i feel like a unfit salmon swimming upstream, i start to wonder..

these few months have been trying.. i have never been a very confident person my whole life.. i have had been picking up the shreds of my self esteem thru out the years.. trying to piece them back together after encounters with my parents and my overcritical self.. most of the time i'm quite successful at it... just on some occasions, self doubt creeps in.. and these few months have been one of those days..

will i ever be as good as how you had envisioned me to be? will i ever be comfortable and happy with who i am?

i hope so..

i really don't want to break.. and i really don't want to fall..

but is fear my only motivation?

haha, i think i finally understand how much confusion ppl speaking different languages can have with one another..

super confused. hmm.. but with trust and the willingness to talk things thru.. nothing is unsolvable..

until the next misunderstanding~!

is GG getting any lamer? revealing a fake GG is like faking an O. and it's so not cool..

really nothing to write ah?

personally, awaiting the day they reveal the real GG. i want to see how they can pull it off. i doubt it is possible at all.

it's really funny when you realise that the people whom you try to forget are never far from your mind.. and your memories of them are even clearer than before..

i need to go for a walk and think about my life.. it's time to do some mental spring cleaning before my compartments collapse on me..

was reading thru my posts in july 2008, seems like i have forgotten who were the people and the incidents that i have encountered then..

i have really become quite forgetful lately. shocking but yes.. no recollection of certain memories that i am suppose to have and no inkling of the things that i should have remembered. how old does one need to be to get dementia?

fear of ending up with dementia aside.. it also seems very apparent to me that i have along the way forgotten how to live a simple carefree life and forgotten how to let things go..

i have also no clue as to how i've picked up the habit of becoming oversensitive to ppl's mood and behavioral changes..

must learn to be oblivious all over again. it's not good to care too much when u can't do anything about it.

must also learn to not burden ppl with my complains and concerns.

must be proactive in solving things that plague my mind.

” And I need someone now. I never needed anyone, but now I need someone. Yet, I’m alone. I’m more alone then I ever been. Because, there’s more people now. More people who supposedly love me but don’t. More people who say they care but they never show they do. But, God, how I wish I had just one person. I would give anything to have someone love me. Someone who will hold me and let me cry. I don’t have that. I never really had. It’s getting so hard to keep going. I wonder if there’s anyone who really does care. If there’s anyone who I can talk to when I need to. But, it’s just impossible. No ones there for me. And now, after all these years of being alone … I don’t even really want them there.” - Jacqueline Kelly

sometimes i feel like a lost soul just drifting through life…
by My Attitude - My Life - My Rules club

"You know my name, not my story."

A lot of times because of our nature, because of our past experiences, and because of what is status quo, we either intentionally or unintentionally judge a person's character when often we only know their name. Judging a person before we truly get to know who they really are, often results in judging a person wrong, which in turn prevents us from getting to know them as we really should because of these judgments.

You don't know all of the life situations that a person has experienced in the past, and what kind of life experiences or difficulties that they may be facing in the present, so do not judge them. Instead of treating someone as everyone else seems to, treat everyone in the way that most would desire to be treated, with kindness and compassion at all times remembering that you may know a person's name but that doesn't mean that you know their story.

You don't know all of the life situations that a person has experienced in the past, and what kind of life experiences or difficulties that they may be facing in the present, so do not judge them. Instead of treating someone as everyone else seems to, treat everyone in the way that most would desire to be treated, with kindness and compassion at all times remembering that you may know a person's name but that doesn't mean that you know their story.

by My Attitude - My Life - My Rules club.

i have never felt so misunderstood and misrepresented in my life.

don't know wat else to say..

天下无不散之筵席。。

i wish it could last longer. gonna miss u..

wat does it mean that i chance upon ur name after chatting about you?

hmm.. i can only say... it's just too bad.. it wasn't meant to be.

i guess i was really very clueless when i was young.. alot of missed opportunities..

we all have some wat ifs and could have beens in our lifes, it makes life more memorable bah.. if you get all that you have ever wanted.. u might not know wat u have missed along the way..

Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong

By Garth Sundem

Taking notes during class? Topic-focused study? A consistent learning environment? All are exactly opposite of the best strategies for learning.

I recently had the good fortune to interview Robert Bjork, the director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab, a distinguished professor of psychology, and a massively renowned expert on packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out.

It turns out that everything I thought I knew about learning is wrong.

First, he told me, think about how you attack a pile of study material.

“People tend to try to learn in blocks,” Bjork said. “Mastering one thing before moving on to the next.”

Instead of doing that Bjork recommends interleaving. The strategy suggest that instead of spending an hour working on your tennis serve, you mix in a range of skills like backhands, volleys, overhead smashes, and footwork.

“This creates a sense of difficulty,” Bjork said. “And people tend not to notice the immediate effects of learning.”

Instead of making an appreciable leap forward with your serving ability after a session of focused practice, interleaving forces you to make nearly imperceptible steps forward with many skills. But over time, the sum of these small steps is much greater than the sum of the leaps you would have taken if you’d spent the same amount of time mastering each skill in its turn.

Bjork explains that successful interleaving allows you to “seat” each skill among the others. “If information is studied so that it can be interpreted in relation to other things in memory, learning is much more powerful,” he said. There’s one caveat: Make sure the mini skills you interleave are related in some higher-order way. If you’re trying to learn tennis, you’d want to interleave serves, backhands, volleys, smashes, and footwork — not serves, synchronized swimming, European capitals, and programming in Java.

Similarly, studying in only one location is great as long as you’ll only be required to recall the information in the same location. If you want information to be accessible outside your dorm room, or office, or nook on the second floor of the library, Bjork recommends varying your study location.

Interleaving and varying your study location will help whether you’re mastering math skills, learning French, or trying to become a better ballroom dancer. A somewhat related phenomenon — the spacing effect, which was first described by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885 — will also help.

“If you study and then you wait, tests show that the longer you wait, the more you will have forgotten,” Bjork said.

But here’s the cool part: If you study, wait, and then study again, the longer the wait, the more you’ll have learned after this second study session. Bjork explains it this way: “When we access things from our memory, we do more than reveal it’s there. It’s not like a playback. What we retrieve becomes more retrievable in the future. Provided the retrieval succeeds, the more difficult and involved the retrieval, the more beneficial it is.”

Note that there’s a trick implied by “provided the retrieval succeeds.” You should space your study sessions so that the information you learned in the first session remains just barely retrievable. Then, the more you have to work to pull it from the soup of your mind, the more this second study session will reinforce your learning. If you study again too soon, it’s too easy.

Along these lines, Bjork also recommends taking notes just after class, rather than during — forcing yourself to recall a lecture’s information is more effective than simply copying it from a blackboard. You have to work for it. The more you work, the more you learn, and the more you learn, the more awesome you can become.

“Forget about forgetting,” said Bjork. “People tend to think that learning is building up something in your memory and that forgetting is losing the things you built. But in some respects the opposite is true.”

See, once you learn something, you never actually forget it. Do you remember your childhood best friend’s phone number? No? Well, Bjork showed that if you were reminded, you would retain it much more quickly and strongly than if you were asked to memorize a fresh seven-digit number. So this old phone number is not forgotten — it lives somewhere in you — but recall can be a bit tricky. And while we count forgetting as the sworn enemy of learning, in some ways that’s wrong, too. The two live in a kind of symbiosis in which forgetting actually aids recall.

“Because humans have unlimited storage capacity, having total recall would be a mess,” said Bjork. “Imagine you remembered all the phone numbers of all the houses you had ever lived in. When someone asks you your current phone number, you would have to sort it from this long list.” Instead, we forget the old phone numbers, or at least bury them far beneath the ease of recall we gift to our current number. What you thought were sworn enemies are more like distant collaborators.

wat am i running from?

today, my cousin asked me to scoop some soup for him..

f, who heard his request, turned to him and said.. you better get your own soup.. otherwise she might end up scoop until.....

he didn't finish, but... the words dripped with sarcasm..

it still hurts after all these years.. that he would still think that everything that i do is... inadequate.

the only two thing that he ever believed i was good at was... being hardworking.. and my ability to argue..


don't know since when he started becoming enemy of the state..

but i have seen, throughout the years.. ppl who have tried to accommodate his character for years until they lose themselves.. i have seen those who have decided that their attitude towards him needs to improve and he should be given a chance.. i have seen ppl who cater to his needs and whimps.. i have known ppl who hope to believe that wat they see is not who he really is, that deep down he is a nice and caring person.. but most of all.. i have seen the disappointment in ppl's eyes.. and the sadness in their voices..

i used to think the world of him.. but bit by bit, his actions made the magic fade.. and wat was left, was the ugly truth.. that ppl are not perfect and that he could never change who he is..

to him.. he is a wonderful person that ppl should be thankful to have in their lives, and that we should be grateful and appreciate him.. i wondered where he got this self image from.. for he never did asked us for our opinions.. nor i believe, did he care for the opinion of others.. he is always a person whom believe himself more than the experts, friends and family who he ever talked to.. i wonder it's confidence... or ignorance.. but definitely, it showed that he could not trust anyone else other than himself.. where this insecurity stemmed from, i still have no clue.. his suspicious nature is not easy to live with and much less to communicate with..

also, his inability to be honest and direct about wat he wants, drives me nuts.. i have never liked indirectness in my life.. it complicates simple matters and certain assumptions or traps and manipulation are always part of such indirectness.. if you know me, i never really liked being trapped or manipulated.. maybe these dislikes came from my multiple experiences of them throughout my life.. not only having to experience them but also i have to see them being done to ppl around me.. he's an honest man alright, the only thing not honest is when he is articulating wat he wants..

the only thing that he is direct about but which i always wish it was not the case, is that he so readily gives criticisms out to everyone regardless of ppl's good intentions.. regardless of the hardwork ppl put in... regardless of their emotions and thots.. maybe he think he's doing everyone a favor.. i just wonder how many can take it with a pinch of salt and not feel offended or insulted or hurt hearing them..

but these 3 things aside.. and maybe another bad habit aside.. he really is a quite ok person to live with.. hopefully one day he will be able to see that we are all doing our best to accommodate him and that he would have to do some adjustments to accommodate us..

maybe a cny 2012 hope for me..

sometimes i wonder if i am dumb... why till now i still don't understand censorship?

Touched by An Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.


Maya Angelou

once you have enjoyed companionship, solitude can never quite satisfy you.

maybe i was thinking abt you when i wrote this.. maybe sharon's right.. miss a good friendship.. i make new friends and renew old ones but no two friendship is ever the same..

Stop tying pay to performance

The evidence is overwhelming - it does not work

by Bruno Frey and Margit Osterloh

04:46 AM Jan 06, 2012

We have talked about this since the financial meltdown. Now it's time to do it: Unlink pay from performance.

The evidence keeps growing that pay for performance is ineffective. It also may induce executives to take company-killing risks. There are other ways to motivate employees that yield better results at lower cost.

Thanks mainly to provisions linked to performance, CEO compensation has skyrocketed in recent decades, while its correlation with actual corporate performance has remained as weak as ever. This has been most true in the United States, where among the Standard & Poor's 500 the ratio of average CEO pay to average employee salary went from about 40-to-1 in the '70s to 325-to-1 in 2010.

The ratio is not as extreme in most other countries but the trend is the same. Below the top level, mismatches between pay and performance are not so acute. But all variable-pay-for-performance schemes still suffer from four inescapable flaws:

1) In a modern economy, where new challenges emerge constantly, it is impossible to determine the tasks that will need to be done in the future precisely enough for variable pay for performance to work well.

2) People subject to variable pay for performance don't passively accept the criteria. They spend a lot of time and energy trying to manipulate the criteria in their favour, helped by the fact that they often know the specifics of their work better than their superiors do.

3) Variable pay for performance often leads employees to focus exclusively on areas covered by the criteria and neglect other important tasks. This is known as the "multiple-tasking" problem.

4) Variable pay for performance tends to crowd out intrinsic motivation and thus the joy of fulfilling work. Such motivation is of great importance to business, because it supports innovation and encourages beyond-the-ordinary contributions.

The idea that people work only for money has been thrown overboard by leading scholars. Research has shown that human beings are not interested solely in material gain.

They care for the well-being of other individuals and value recognition from co-workers. Many employees apply themselves because they find their work challenging and worthwhile. These non-material motivations point to better ways to get results from the members of an organisation.

One way is to select employees more carefully, hiring people who are truly interested in the work - not people whose primary goal is earning the highest pay.

Another approach is to pay fixed compensation but adjust it on the basis of a comprehensive evaluation of employees' work after some time. This avoids the multiple-tasking problem.

At the end of the year companies can also distribute part of their profits to employees according to their contribution to overall performance, rather than preset criteria.

Awards and recognition are effective motivators as well. Research suggests that effort increases among both the winners and other employees when awards are given out.

Variable pay for performance, while it may seem attractive in theory, creates more problems than it solves. There is no proof that it helps achieve its intended purposes, and other approaches not only work better but also strengthen employee loyalty.

© 2012 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)



Bruno S Frey is the Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Science at the UK's Warwick Business School and a professor of economics at the University of Zurich. Margit Osterloh is a professor of management science at Warwick Business School.

my neighbour an uncle pointed out something to me today..

he happened to meet my bro and his gf when he was going home and my bro was on his way to send his gf home.. then he happen to meet me at the lift lobby as i was on my way home too..

and he said.. 2 left and 1 comes back.. the maths don't add up.. when are you going to get a bf?

i gave the typical answer saying that i was too busy to find one and he replied with a damn cute answer..

he replied... go post advertisment on the newspaper lar..

wahahhahaha... damn funny.. but i think the uncle was very paiseh and also scared i angry.. he kept saying he was joking after that.. lol.. cute..

i would like to know the answer to his qn too..

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ~Henri Nouwen

ppl say the most interesting things..

do i have so little faith?

i don't dare to answer the qn.

why am i so depressing? hah, wish i know the answer.

my blog and my outward persona is so... gemini. maybe i am both.

my actions are limited by my thots.

my thots are limiting my actions. time to change the way i think and do things. it's not conducive for me.

accountability is wat is left when responsibility is subtracted out.

so true..

maybe you were right? hahah.. quite unimaginable though..

no harm exploring this line of thot is there? hmm.. it might just end up being an experiment by itself to satisfy one's curiosity..

maybe it's all just unfair sampling.. i might need to even the odds.. but how?

think.. thinking..