My GE 14 Saga With Invoke (Illustrated By My Facebook Status)

“Kak Ngah, careful what you write on facebook. Kak Ngah tu penjawat awam.” My mom admonished me one day when I went back to my parents’ house for a visit.

“Kenapa pula, mak? Kerajaan dah bubar. La ni mana ada kerajaan. Time ni lah nak berkempen, nak cakap apa pun.” As usual, I was being my obstinate self.

So, my mother left me to my own devices.

 

The truth is, I use social media to advocate for what I believe in… not really to connect with friends or acquaintances. With real friends, I would just call, or whatsapp or simply meet them face-to-face.

I use facebook to read interesting articles shared by friends, to follow pages of political parties,  NGOs or associations, to follow the news by BBC/Al-Jazeera/CNN… well basically, just to be in the know. And just to update my store of general knowledge. I think Facebook revolutionized the rate of news acquisition and the variety of general knowledge we can be au courant in. That’s why I usually approve most of my friend requests by Facebook even when I don’t really know the person requesting to follow me. These people will share their own news and articles of their liking, and therefore I get to read and learn something new other than my own existing interest. At the same time, the more people reading my Facebook status, the more people I get to reach to share ideas and beliefs with. Facebook is great for social advocacy, if you care about that sort of thing. (But I make sure my instagram followers are real friends that I have actually met and like. haha. I post a lot of silly pictures on instagram, so I am pretty particular about who I am friends with on instagram. My silliness  are reserved for certain people only.)

In the days leading to the historical GE 14, I was very, very active on Facebook. I shared article upon article from many sources that I came across. All those articles had one important thing in common; they all condemned the BN government. My parents were getting pretty worried about how transparent I have made of my opinion about the government.

But to me, if not now, when?

Are we supposed to keep silent when something clearly evil and unjust are happening around us just because we are too selfish to jeopardize our position? Even at the stake of the nation?

So how are we different from the people around Najib whom we labeled as “spineless, corrupted and brainless” in their blind support of Najib. People were always wondering “Kenapalah orang-orang sekeliling Najib ni tak tegur dia? Kenapa diorang tak cuba perbetulkan apa yang salah? Don’t they have the balls to fight for the rakyat?”

Wow! Pandai kita nak suruh orang lawan Perdana Menteri! *clap clap* Well, ask yourself why you couldn’t even speak up for something right even in your own small department! If we ourselves are a ‘yes-boss’ man, then we have no rights to criticize the ministers around Najib! Kita yang lebih bacul! Pengecut di medan kampung! I have no respect for any type of cowardice. These sort of people will never earn my respect or admiration. They hide their weakness and cowardice behind the mask of diplomacy… when the truth is, they are cowards… fighting is just too hard for them… so they just go with the flow. Selfishly, ruthlessly uncaring of the subordinate’s or the rakyat’s plight. Shameless! Shameless! Shameless!

My facebook status, sharing Tun M’s open letter to all UMNO members! One really powerful letter! I am sure ramai ahli UMNO sendiri undi PH!

List of Oppression committed by Najib (and the list is NOT exhaustive)

-Dropping Abdul Ghani as AG and replacing him with Apandi

-Removal of two MACC directors for investigating 1MDB (Datuk Bahri Mohd Zin and Datuk Rohaizad Yaakob)

-Removal of Bank Negara Governor (Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar)

-Sacking of Muhyiddin Yassin and Shafie Apdal

-Removing of Mukhriz as Kedah MB

-Unfair election tactics in which the Election Committee was basically under Najib’s thumb-

– gerrymandering

-election day set on a weekday 

-unfair anti fake-news law

-Registrar of Society refusing to recognise Pakatan Harapan 

-the banning of Tun M’s face in campaign posters

-the rule of 10 days notice to campaign in other constituencies.

All these resulted in an unlevelled playing field between BN and PH in the GE 14. These are Najib’s obvious attempt to steal an election. 

 

I was getting heartily sick of the oppressive cruelty of BN, to the point that I have made some mental plans to migrate to Brunei or Singapore or the UK when I have finished my final exam. I remember thinking “Thank God, I took the MRCPSYCH pathway, so that my qualification is recognized everywhere in the world. I can just pack up and get out!” And I was not the only one who had made plans. Some of my Chinese friends wanted to migrate to Australia… and I didn’t blame them. They have kids whose future are their primary concern, enough said.

 

A few days after the dissolution of the parliament, I saw the status in the INVOKE Facebook page about how they needed 20,000 volunteers for the election. And they only had 4000 so far. That piece of news came across as very alarming to me. That was 16,000 volunteers short of what they actually needed!

I started calling for other people to join INVOKE when I found out that they only had 4000 volunteers at that time.

I wanted Najib and BN to lose… but how could I expect PH to win when they were the underdog fighting against the bully in an unlevelled playing field that seemed to  favour the bully?

PH did not have as much funds as BN to help them campaign and win the election. They didn’t have much funds to entice people to act as their polling agent and counting agent. All they had were their ideals and their integrity and their sincere desire to rebuild the nation.

Guys, I am not the sort of person who like to do any sort of work that involves having to meet and socialize with complete strangers. I don’t enjoy being placed in a situation of discomfort involving getting to know people in order to have to work with them.But it spoke volume of how much I loathed and despised Najib and the BN government that I could even overcome my dislike of meeting strangers and just registered my name online as an INVOKE volunteer. (It spoke volume of how much Mahathir and the opposition hate Najib when they could collaborate to topple him! I NEVER thought I would see Mahathir and Anwar team up again in my lifetime!)

I am the sort of person who love spending my free time reading and writing and surfing the internet for ideas and inspiration to write…that I have never done one single locum in my entire life! All my free time is for me and my hobbies and my family….I make sure my salary is enough for my lifestyle without any need to supplement my income in other ways. And now that I am furthering my study, my free time is even more precious because I get so little time to read now.

If the situation was not so dire, I would never willingly volunteer at INVOKE. I would just inconspicuously watch the progress of the election campaign while being an ardent supporter in the social media rather than actually having to be personally involved or having to come down to the Pusat Operasi Pilihanraya, or having to meet complete strangers and making small talk. In my mind…. doing all these is agony! 

But the situation was dire. It was critical. They needed volunteers and I could not ignore the Invoke’s call anymore. (I had ignored some of the INVOKE facebook status calling for volunteers in the past. I tried to silence my conscience by thinking that other people would step up soon and there was no need for me to volunteer.)

As I have mentioned before… I believe in effort. I really do. I believe God will help you if you are sincere and your effort is enough. The fact that you put in some effort is already a mark of sincerity. If you are just being wishful of a government change without really doing anything…. how really sincere is your wish for a government change?

I took the opportunity to attend a MEGA PACA course when it was held on the 13th of April at Dewan Lip Seang Khor in Sungai Petani, which was quite convenient for me as I live in Alor Setar. I didn’t know anyone there. I went there and had to make conversation with a bunch of older ladies because I sat with them at the same table. But despite all the social discomfort, I learned a lot at this course. It was packed with knowledge regarding the election process, the important roles played by PACA as the last defense against a rigged election process, what we have to do if there were some hanky panky (blackouts, anyone? haha). And I noticed how utterly prepared the PH people were this time around. For example, we were provided with the number of lawyers near our area who we could contact should we need them to come to us for any legal issues that might have taken place in each saluran.

I guess, many people were like me. We were all so alarmed by the small number of volunteers… so we volunteered ramai-ramai and within a week, the number of volunteers increased from 4000 to 17,594 PACAs!

 

Within a few days after registering online to be an INVOKE volunteer, I was added into INVOKE Kedah Whatsapp group. And later, I was added into Parlimen Pokok Sena Whatsapp group,… and then later I was added in DUN Bukit Pinang Whatsapp Group… and then I was added in Hutan Kampung Whatsapp Group (because that was the polling centre where I would be doing my PACA duty).  Yupp… so many whatsapp groups. My whatsapp traffic had never been so busy before the days leading to the GE14. These whatsapp groups contained political hot news and latest information, but sometimes also rumours and hearsay. I was inundated with political datas! But it was up to my judgment how much I wanted to believe them.

When I first went to Pusat Operasi Pilihanraya DUN Bukit Pinang, I met Kak N (the DUN candidate’s agent) who proceeded to brief me regarding my PACA duties and the area I would be assigned to. We went straight into business without much unnecessary small talk (Thank God). I was asked to sign Borang Sumpah Kerahsiaan (Borang A) that all polling agents must sign.  Then, I was immediately made comfortable when we talked politics and our common aspirations for Malaysia and our dissatisfaction towards PAS (the PAS topic will be in my next post, insyaAllah). 

I tried to avoid telling the people in the pusat operasi about my job as a doctor. I really didn’t think it was that relevant to what I was volunteering to do. But they kept on asking where I was working, and then which department… and what exactly did I do in that department… they were relentless in pursuing all my vague answers. They were so surprised to have a doctor volunteering as PACA. All these while they had people of a lower socioeconomic status volunteering to do these sort of work… and mostly for the allowance money (which was not even that much. Only RM 50).

It was like PKSN (program khidmat sosial negara) all over again. I was the only one from MRSM school who volunteered to attend PKSN… and had to make new friends with people of different background from me. Intelligent students don’t seem to care much about volunteering… they are less patriotic… they care only about studies and the number of As they could obtain. After SPM, they will go travel overseas, and get a driving license… they care about themselves and things they can do to advance themselves. If their names come up for PLKN training, they rush to see a doctor to get the doctor’s confirmation of how unfit they are to be a PLKN trainee.  I wonder sometimes, do these intelligent people have any higher ideals in their lives beyond their own day-to-day life? Don’t you care about the country? 

I guess, doctors and professionals are just too busy to be volunteering. But wait a minute… my Chinese friend who is also a doctor had volunteered as PACA too (but at a different DUN than mine). Most of my Chinese friends do a lot of volunteer works for Tzu Chi. My doctor friends from Australia do a lot volunteer works too. Volunteerism is like a way of life. Intelligent people in other places and within other races will volunteer because they have ideals they want to champion!

It is not so among Malay professionals, though. What we like to do is simply to become keyboard warriors and just ineffectively vent out our frustrations with each other (but not in front of the boss. Hahaha! See?) Anyone who is too vocal or too blunt is considered an anathema. This is something in the Malay culture that is so rotten that it stinks so bad. The Malay attitude of  “berdiplomasi, hormat tak kena tempat,” is the very reason BN could get away with daylight robberies and blatant oppression all these years. They KNEW the Malays’ anger  “tak ke mana”. Maybe we had deserved the sort of government we had had all these while.

The day before the election, I came down to Pusat Operasi again to take my SPRM name tags as a counting agent and a polling agent. I realized that our situation was so dishearteningly sad. I was quite worried, to be honest, when I compared the PH’s resources to that of BN and even PAS. Other parties had many agents, so they could do a duty roster consisting of 3-4 shifts, allowing their polling agents to rotate duties frequently. And they had different people to be the polling agents and the counting agents. Whereas for us, our duty as a polling agent was continuous with our duty as the counting agent too. We only had two shifts as polling agents from 7.30 am until 5 pm. From 7.30 until 12.30, the first polling agent would be on duty (while the second polling agent went to vote). From 12.30 to 5.00 pm, the second polling agent would take over from the first polling agent (to allow the first polling agent the opportunity to cast his own vote)  Because I was the second polling agent, I had to negotiate with my first polling agent to allow me to pray my Zohor prayer first before I took over from him. And after 5 pm, the first polling agent will return and join the second polling agent at the saluran, but this time, both of the polling agents would switch their ‘polling agents tags’ to ‘counting agents tags’. 

See? That’s why I was given two tags: polling agent and counting agent! We were so short of staff. We could only watch as other PACAs from other parties came and went and rotated multiple times for toilet breaks, lunch time and even ‘rokok time’. 

 

And while other parties sent two polling agents each shift (one for the DUN candidate and one for the Parliamentary candidate), we could only send one agent. So I was the polling agent for both DUN and Parliament candidates. Double the work…. double Borang 13 to be filled, double Borang 14 to be filled. And it was also my first time doing all these! I was such a novice and was simply learning everything on the go. Thank God the PACAs from PAS were quite helpful. PH agents and PAS agents formed a kind of team, helping each other… we didn’t talk to  the BN agents as much. Haha. 

The polling and counting process in my saluran was quite smooth-sailing. Our presiding officer (ketua tempat mengundi/KTM) was quite cooperative and very reasonable. After all the paperwork was done, and all the numbers tallied nicely, my Borang 14 which contained the formal result for each saluran was signed without any hassle. I snapped the picture of Borang 14 and sent it through the Whatsapp Group. And then all the PACAs and SPRM officers said our goodbyes and our apologies for any offences caused.  I went out of the polling center at 8.00 pm and managed to submit my Borang 14 at the Pusat Operasi around 10 minutes past 8.00. People in the Pusat Operasi asked me to join them hanging around but I politely excused myself. My duty was done and I needed to withdraw to my own familiar environment.

My facebook status after I have submitted my Borang 14 to the Pusat Operasi, which meant that my PACA duty was done and dusted. Alhamdulillah.

I rushed to my parents’ house for Maghrib prayer and Isha prayer and then I came down to be with the whole family in the living room to watch Astro Awani on TV (even though we ended up following the results through the internet because the election results on TV was so slow). I have never been THIS excited in following the election results before. This time, I was directly involved in the process, directly involved in the making of history.

This was my facebook status while awaiting the results of the election. I was alarmed when I heard that in some places in Sabah, KTM had refused to sign the Borang 14.  My friends in my various Whatsapp  asked me whether everything was ok at my saluran. I reassured them that everything was smooth and fine at my saluran. And they made their usual joke about me “Berani KTM nak buat pasal kat tempat Afiza jaga”. Hahha. But actually, the more experienced PAS PACA was much more vigilant than I was. I only followed what they did and supported all their objections. LOL.

I only slept at 4.00 a.m when I was reasonably sure that PH had won. I could never sleep before knowing for sure who was the winning party. The whole family was jubilant! We had dreamed of this… but we didn’t dare to dream hard because it felt like a battle between David and Goliath! In that historical battle, David had won, of course. But how sure were we that PH could replicate David’s epic win against all odds? It felt too far-fetched…too good to be true… too much of a fairy tale. We toiled and persevered to  the end, of course… but we didn’t dare to hope too much, lest we would be too disappointed.

But miracualously, Alhamdulillah, PH had won against all odds too! What do you know, huh? See? Dreams do come true, sometimes. 

Haha! Nampak tak merah menyala status Mak Ngah! Merah itu kemarahan rakyat terhadap kleptokrat! Dan merah itu juga semangat juang dan semangat kemenangan rakyat!

I felt like all my effort and my exhaustion and my emotional investment in the whole thing had paid off. I played a very small role in this election, I only did what I could… but it accumulated into a big collective effort. Our role as PACAs and as responsible Malaysian voters paid off! We had grasped in our hands a resounding success!

Thank You, Allah, for always reminding me repeatedly that efforts are required for us to receive YOUR help… even when it felt like it was against all odds. YOU had allowed me to experience the same Sunnahtullah again and again. That I should always “Tie my camel, then trust in Allah.” Don’t bother about the odds. Just do your part!

Allah said that He is what His slave expects Him to be.

The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said, “Allah the Most High said, ‘I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am. I am with him when he mentions Me. If he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly greater than it. If he draws near to Me a hand’s length, I draw near to him an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.’”

So expect that Allah will grant you your dreams when you do your part! And you yourself will channel your effort according to your expectations. Expectation is a powerful thing! We work in accordance to our own expectation and ideals about ourselves and others. And if we set a low standard in how we should behave, then that’s it! We won’t volunteer, we won’t fight, we won’t lift a finger, we won’t speak up… we will just be cowards!

I am sure the GE14 saga will be made into a political case study in political science courses around the world. Our election was closely followed by International media the world over. How a small nation can topple a kleptocratic government without shedding even one drop of blood! That’s gloriously inspirational! That’s something Malaysians should be proud of!

The peaceful Malaysian Spring bloomed hopeful flowers rather than burned building and damaged bridges! May 13 tragedy has been overshadowed by May 9 victory. People won’t talk about May 13 without also talking about May 9 to the future generation next time. This is the power of the rakyats who came together for their love of Malaysia, putting their racial consideration aside! Look how far we could achieve when we fight hard enough.

For now, I leave you guys with more pictures of the election day and some of my FB status throughout the election day.  Here they are!

 

 

I put up this status the day after the election day! I was so happy that PH won! Alhamdulillah.

Everyone played a small part… even the postal voters did what they could in their own limited capacity! But collectively, it made up into a gigantic effort that had succeeded in toppling the kleptocrats! This is our glorious Malaysian history!

And yes… oh yes… what a time to be alive!

 

 

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Work Hard, Play Harder, Contribute Always

WORK HARD

The month of April (till early May) has been a helluva hectic time for yours truly.

I have been swamped… right, left and centre. At the end of most days, I was left exhausted. 

When my colleague Dr. T said that she needed me-time in one of our binge-whining session, I was quick to jump in and said the same. “Yeah, I need me time, too.”

She looked at me incredulously, “Kau single, punya banyak me-time lepas habis kerja”

No one has any idea.

My idea of me-time is me on the bed… with a good book… for two straight days, at least. A really good book that left me staring at the wall, stunned… by the beauty of its words. By the crazy plot twist! By the dialogues! 

When I am at home, I may be by myself… but not the whole of that alone hours are me-time.

Studying at home is NOT me-time…. that is studying time, all right? Going shopping for groceries or clothes or shoes is NOT me time… that is necessary shopping time (I don’t enjoy it much). Doing house chores at home is NOT me-time… that is a necessary household maintenance time! Hiking is NOT me-time… that is exercise time which is necessary for physical health and fitness (though I enjoy it, of course). Listening to political lectures or religious sermons through Facebook and Youtube is NOT me-time… that is increasing-general-knowledge time (though it does feed my need for intellectual stimulation and I like it too). Going out with friends to catch up and gossip is NOT me-time… that is socialising time (and it is done so that my friends won’t think I didn’t care about them or have forgotten them. Because I do remember them in my heart… of course.)

Seriously! I need a lot of alone time….to do all those things… and a portion of those times MUST be spent reading a good book in order for me to feel like I have enough me-time. In order to feel refreshed and rejuvenated! 

Adulthood is killing me slowly (okay, I have to stop being a drama queen. Hahha. I like having my own money as an adult. LOL. But seriously, what was I thinking when I used to want to grow up as fast as possible when I was a child?)

Whenever I feel extra tired, I would remind myself of what Imam Ahmad Hanbal had said to her son:

So, yeah…. life is a never ending struggle. Don’t expect to rest here in this world. Just work hard. 

That was what I told myself when I had to organise Autism Awareness Day on the 21st of April 2018. It took 2 months of careful planning, various meetings, numerous phone calls and a few unrestful nights to get it done but Alhamdulillah, after all the hard work, it was done and dusted. 

The picture of the staff and committees that had worked so hard to organize Autism Awareness Day on the 21st of April 2018

PLAY HARDER

It was very nice and sweet of my colleagues to say that “We should all go to Pulau Songsong to blow off the steam and relieve some stress.” As though they were planning this trip for the sole purpose of making me feel refreshed after the past hectic months.

The truth is – and I know it – they wanted to go to Pulau Songsong… because they WANTED to go to Pulau Songsong. Whether or not it was specifically for my stress relief was neither here nor there. The fact is, they needed a driver to drive them there, anyway. And as I have always been the designated driver for the girls, of course they wanted me to come along. Hahah. Nice of them to pretend that it was all for my stress-relief, though! LOL. 

But yeah, I was glad they pushed me into doing it. Just like in any social activities, I ended up enjoying it more than I initially thought I would. And I need these type of friends to push me into it… otherwise I will be forever buried inside my house with books. 

The truth is, I relieve stress by solving the cause of the stress. If it is exam that’s causing me stress, I deal with the exam and get it over with. If organising an event is the source of stress, then again my stress can only be gone once the event is done. And all I need afterwards to de-stress is just to be alone, to enjoy my solitude and  dive into the fantastic world of my mystery and fantasy books. That’s all. 

But I am glad for people around me who didn’t give up on me when I was quite hesitant to go. If they didn’t push, I wouldn’t go. But they did, and I ended up really enjoying myself. 

That’s why an introvert person need an extrovert friend…. yin and yang and all that. The introvert is content with what she already has; already content with her own thoughts and the world inside her head. She doesn’t think she needs more. She doesn’t know that there are just as many fascinating things in the real world outside… until the people around her had pushed her to and she has no other choice but to realise  that the outside world is just as great. So that next time, when they plan another trip, she will be much more willing to go because she remembers her positive experience from the previous outing.

In fact, I really can’t wait for the next trip. 

Below are the pictures of the beauty of Pulau Songsong. It ALMOST felt like we were in the cheaper and primitive version of the Maldives. To those who don’t know the history of this enchanting island, Pulau Songsong was previously used by the Royal Australian Force as a missile testing ground in the 50s. The island has been closed off to the public for many years until circa 2008. Until now, the island does not have much in terms of amenities. No chalets (so camping out is the only option), very primitive toilets and a very simple and small surau. I hope the state government would do something in terms of development for this island. It was said that this island has one of the best coral systems compared to the rest of the nearby islands in the area. 

Below are some of the pictures of the enchanting Pulau Songsong. I highly recommend my dear readers to pay this island a visit. The cost of the entire trip was only RM50 per head (for the boat and for the food that we brought to be barbecued).  So much value for money, isn’t it? 

Such a nice clear water…

The rocks are really that colour. It casts a beautiful hue and glow to the surrounding water.

This picture was taken on the other side of the island (the less crowded side)

The turquoise colour of the sea is really calming, ain’t it?

Haha our creative photographer had edited the picture of us posing in the water . It looked as though we had just finished fighting off monsters deep inside the water.

CONTRIBUTE ALWAYS

Another reason why my April month was so busy was because I had used up most of my free times to volunteer at Invoke for the recent election. And I was so happy and jubilant when Pakatan Harapan won stunningly and gloriously against the oppressive Barisan coalition led by the kleptocratic Najib and supported by his shameless cronies. 

I have decided to write a specific post about my involvement with INVOKE (the brain child of PKR’s vice president, Rafizi Ramli). Perhaps, I will do that in the next post, Insya Allah.

But in short, I had volunteered at Invoke to be a PACA (polling agent and counting agent) for Pakatan Harapan around one month before the election. I had to attend a few courses and talks organised by INVOKE, Pakatan Harapan and Pusat Operasi Dun Bukit Pinang. I learned how to ensure a fair election, how to detect any hanky panky during the voting process, how to fill up specific forms while being a polling/counting agent (Borang Bantahan, Borang 13, Borang 14. Borang 10/ Akuan Identity, really so many borangs) and I was also given the phone number of lawyers that can be contacted if the presiding officer (Ketua Tempat Mengundi) refused to sign Borang 14 (the formal final result of the voting for each saluran). We also went through scenarios of what to do if certain circumstances arise (electricity/power blackout for example) and who we should contact to advise us on legal matters on the election day should any skirmish/argument take place. 

So the duration of April and early May was so exhausting, guys! Sometimes I was post-call, but I made myself attend the talks/ceramahs anyway at the pusat operasi. I believe that I am doing this for my beloved country.

I was raised by my parents to be really patriotic. We were hard-core UMNO supporters once upon a time. My father encouraged me to volunteer to go to PKSN (Program Khidmat Sosial Negara) while awaiting for my SPM results… in fact, I used to like going to BTN (but mainly for the outdoor activities haha). After medical school, I could have stayed in Australia like some of my other batchmates but my parents had reminded me of my duty as a Malaysian scholar to come back and serve the country. It was one of the hardest decision I had to make that I actually had to do istikharah for it because I was so torn apart (I rarely do istikharah in general because most of the time, I am pretty certain of my decision based on the facts and figures of the situation). I watched and enjoyed a lot of patriotic movies like Sarjan Hassan, Leftenan Adnan, Tanda Putera, and Ola Bola. My father would always say things like “Orang Melayu kena kerja kuat dan rajin, Tengok macam orang Cina! Siapa lagi kuat berusaha, dia yang akan berjaya.” My father would feel so proud when my school marks were better than the Chinese in my school or if I was the top scorer for any particular subject. In his mind, he was not being racist but he was being patriotic. He cares about the Malays and he has always been a part of some political party or some organizations that champion the Malay cause. 

Every general election is like a raya for our family. My maternal aunt’s house in Sungai Limau has been a bilik gerakan for BN since I was a child. It was still used as BN’s bilik gerakan for the recent GE14. But this time… WITHOUT the participation of my parents’ and myself. My aunt was so disappointed when my parents and all my siblings had, ehem, well..  ‘defected to  the other side’ (hahha. In her mind, it was the ‘evil’ side). Unlike the top UMNO members, my aunt was just an ordinary patriotic party member who thinks of UMNO as the Malays’ sole chance of surviving. In her mind, she is doing all these for her country too. She thinks she is supporting the same UMNO that she has been supporting since she herself was a small child. Nothing my parents said could ever shake her belief in UMNO. 

My parents are now a proud member of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia. They had switched allegiance since all Najib’s scandals started coming out in the social media 3 years ago. Then they joined Parti Pribumi Bersatu after Tun M set it up around one year ago. Me? I am not sure if I will ever be able to overcome my hesitancy in joining ANY organization, unnecessarily. Organisation has rules. And with me, I tend to break any rule if I don’t agree with it. I don’t respect position, insensible rules or diplomacy or form without substance. I respect fairness and justice, ideas, intelligence and plain speaking. You can be my boss, but I can go against you if I think you are wrong. And because of this, I can never be a good member of any particular organization. And I probably never even want to. I love being free to form my own mind and if it happens to be against any organization… well, that is EXACTLY why I am not a member of any. 

I prefer to volunteer the way I did with INVOKE. In my mind, I was not volunteering to be a PACA because I was a member of any of the component party of Pakatan Harapan (because I wasn’t and I am still not. I probably won’t ever). I volunteered because I wanted to ensure a fair election that will bring Najib down! The destroyer of this country must be punished and justice must be served. I volunteered for my own personal principle even if it meant I had to sacrifice my study time or my reading time. 

And when Pakatan Harapan Alhamdulillah won, I felt an immense joy that was bordering on euphoria. I felt glad for the opportunity to be directly involved in this historical election that had seen Najib and BN perished in the hands of ordinary citizens who love Malaysia. The parliamentary candidate I was assigned to be a PACA to (at Sek Men Hutan Kampung Saluran 2) was Dato’ Mahfuz Omar… and Alhamdulillah he won the parliamentary seat of Pokok Sena. 

After seeing our beloved Tun Mahathir being sworn in as the 7th Prime Minister at Istana Negara via the LIVE broadcast of RTM2, the whole family cheered. Welcome back Tun Mahathir! And of course, welcome back Mukhriz as the MB of Kedah!

For now, I am your fan… but remember, if you betray the rakyat’s trust I will not hesitate to change my allegiance again. And so do many Malaysians in our age group. They say that this is the Malaysians Tsunami…. but it is MOSTLY the tsunami of the younger Malaysians! Who would have thought that we could do it? Alhamdulillah!

A proud Kedahan. That’s me.

And thanks Rafizi, for creating INVOKE as a platform for many patriotic Malaysians to volunteer and be part of this momentous occasion. The kleptocrats are down! Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah! It’s time to rebuild the nation. 

In the mean time, now that the election is over with a resounding glory, I can finally rest. May the rest of the month of May be a bit more pleasant and peaceful. I suspect that until the election fever is over (personally, it takes me some weeks to get over my election fever; I always have the tendency to follow many political news for many months after the election day. And what I read and thus what I think, is what I tend to write), many of my future posts will be about this country or about politics in general. So, stay tuned, if you like that sort of posts (and I am sorry if you don’t. Please feel free not to read my posts. If you do like that sort of posts though, you might encounter ideas or opinions of mine that you don’t agree with. Please feel free to comment or better yet, create your own blog and spread your own beliefs and ideas. This is now a FREE country!)

I leave my dear readers with a reminder to “Work hard, play harder and contribute always”.

Until next time, insha Allah. 😉

Core Project

Professor Brian Little argued that people are more than just a bunch of traits. There may be many people out there who have the exact same personality traits as you (maybe all of you tested as INTP in your MBTI personality test) but there is something about you that makes you unique (from the rest of other INTPs), regardless.

In psychiatry, we have many trait theories and of course my personal favourite is the MBTI personality theory. I always tested as either INTP or INTJ. 

But we also have other personality theories/tests. The common and easy one we usually learn in our Part A Psychiatry exam is the OCEAN personality theory.

O stands for Openness to Experience (how open are you about exploring new interests – being creative/flexible/ curious and adventurous. Personally, I rate my openness to experience as moderate. I am not creative and I am not that flexible. Once I have perfected my point of view and my principles, I rarely change my mind. But I am very curious in nature and that’s why I read on many genres and on various issues. And I am quite adventurous especially when it comes to outdoor activities. I like to travel and learn about new cultures. So, I think I am pretty open in certain things.)

C stands for conscientiousness (how organized, how thorough, how much planning you put in your work. How hardworking you are. I also feel I am moderate in this. I must care ENOUGH in order to give a good effort. I care about my studies and my work, so I am organized when it comes to those sort of things. But I can give up easily when it comes to doing things that I am just not interested in.)

E stands for extraversion. (Extroverts are those who are recharged by having social interaction. The more they interact, the more energy they have. Whereas, introverts are those who are recharged by having some alone time. The more they interact, the lower their energy level becomes. Introverts do enjoy social interaction with people they know well, but even so, they NEED some time alone in order to recharge before they can come back to interact some more. I am very, very introverted. Outside office hours, I really just want to be by myself and do my thing.)

A stands for agreeableness (how kind, how ‘nice’, how affectionate you are. I am not that agreeable. I am not universally nice. I am only selectively nice. If you do something that I feel is very irresponsible or cross a certain principle, I won’t mince words in how I let you know that you are a slacker and you better buck up now and meet the standard! But I think I am nice to my friends and my family….. but still…if they do something that I think is unacceptable, I will let them know….eventually.)

N stands for neuroticism (how tense/moody/ anxious you are. I think I can be quite neurotic… but again, only about things I really care about. Like exams. Hahha. Or when I am planning for something important, I get a bit tense…. ehem, or a lot tense. When things go awry or opposite to what I want, I cannot even hide my displeasure and it would show on my face… or show through my words. I guess I am moderate to high in neuroticism).

But remember, Brian Little said that we are more than our traits. What makes us unique, he said, is what we have undertaken as a core project in our life.

Brian Little used himself as an example when he said that we are more complex than just our traits. He said, that he is an extreme introvert. But because he is a professor and his personal project is TO PROFESS, therefore he has to act in an extrovert manner when he is teaching his students, be more jovial and more animated, so that his students will be interested in what he has to profess.

In his TED talk ‘Who Are You, Really? The Puzzle of Personality’, he said,

“How about the idiosyncratic you? As Elizabeth or as George… you may BOTH share your extraversion or your neuroticism. But are there some distinctively Elizabethan features of your behaviour or Georgian of your behaviour…. that makes us understand you better than just a bunch of traits… that makes us… love you. Not just because you are a certain type of person….. So what is it that makes us different? It’s the DOINGS that we have in our life. The personal projects. You may have a personal project right now, but nobody may know it.”

He continued to say that the personal project can be anything. It might be your mom. You might be an agreeable person. But you act disagreeably in order to remove the administrative barrier that keep your mom from getting the kind of treatment she needs at the hospital, for example.

He termed this ‘out of character’ event as adopting a ‘free trait’.

 

Take myself as an example: I am an introvert. I am not universally friendly and very slow to warm up to strangers. But if I am suddenly being placed in the position of asking for a sponsorship in order to organize a non-profit event, won’t I have to adopt a ‘free trait’ (out of character traits) and act like an extrovert with people I have never met before just because I need their sponsorship? Yes, right? That’s what I have to do, isn’t it?

I will have to smile when I don’t really feel like it, and act like I don’t mind when you are not on time or when you don’t deliver your sponsorship on the day you said you would. I would have to be so conscientious in following up on things I never really care before. Normally, I won’t ask people for their help and I won’t bother to follow up on whether or not they can help if they can’t immediately say yes to my request. Because usually, I can always find other ways to accomplish the same thing without having to ask for help multiple times. But because I have to run a state-level event, I will have to act like asking people for money and sponsorship, and keep on messaging them to find out their answers are something I don’t feel embarrassed about. Like it is something I don’t hate doing. Like I do things like this all the time and I am not stressed about it.

When you are running an event, you have to be patient in dealing with many people. Person A complains to you about Person B. Then Person B complains to you about Person A. Then Person C complains to you about Person A and Person B. Or your boss tells you to change something (multiple times!) in the Program Booklet, so you then have to go to the booklet designer and apologize to him for troubling him again but can he please, please, please do the changes again, you beg. Or you are stuck in a war between 2 committees; BOTH insist that the job does not belong to their committee. So, you resist the temptation to be your usual character and say “I will do it myself lah kalau dah susah sangat” (you resist saying that because you know you can’t do it yourself, this time) and be patient and listen to their problems, ‘pujuk-pujuk’ /cajoling them with soft words, in order to get things done.

So in the above example, I adopt a ‘free trait’ (that of extraversion and agreeableness) in order to advance a personal project. Because I care about my work (and unfortunately sometimes it involves organizing events), I have to adopt ‘out of character’ trait to advance a personal project that I care about.

And I am not the only one who does this. Everyone behaves outside their character because of their personal project. And Brian Little said, that’s what makes you unique… that’s what makes you MORE than just a bunch of traits that you share with many people. It’s the things we DO and the core projects that we embark on (that necessitate us to behave in a counter-dispositional manner) that make us different from one another.

That’s why at the end of the day, our traits are our traits (something we in our own self know about ourself if we are self-aware) BUT where it counts most (in reality, when things must get done), we are what we repeatedly do. Or rather, we BECOME what we repeatedly do, even as we know that it is against our biogenic trait.

I guess, that is the basis of attending occupational therapy and training,right? Why train if we can never change?

 

However!!! He also said, even though adopting ‘out of character’ free traits may enhance well-being when we become successful at the project we pursue, it can also COMPROMISE well-being because it challenges your autonomic nervous system (The fight or flight or freeze reaction! With me…. I tend to fight than flight or freeze.)

Indeed! Behaving out of character is stressful. Pretending to enjoy excessive social interaction is stressful. Forcing yourself to be okay about asking for help, managing conflicts between people, dealing with people you cannot stand, dealing with sudden multiple changes because there are too many heads and different ideas to follow…. are stressful. Prolonged excessive environmental stimuli is stressful to an introvert.

See? There is an EMOTIONAL COST to adopting ‘free traits’ behaviour when it is done in a prolonged and excessive manner. Continuous ‘free-traited’ behaviour means dealing with chronic stress. In which case, I suggest you find a different core project that most of the time complement your real personality.

Choose your core project wisely. Make the cost worth it.

The Grit of A Beloved Patriot

I grew up when Tun Mahathir was the prime minister of Malaysia.

My whole family adore this guy. Like, seriously.

It almost felt like I was indoctrinated to adore him. He was my Prime Minister throughout my whole schooling years. In school, the concept of ‘Wawasan 2020’ envisioned by Tun Mahathir never failed to grace the lyrics of our dikir barat or the sub-theme of our choral speaking. His famous words of ‘Leading By Example’ (Kepimpinan Melalui Tauladan) was used numerous times in our debate speech. His ‘Look East Policy’ (Dasar Pandang Ke Timur) was also a favourite theme in any elocution contest.

You see, the reason Tun M was very quotable was because he was very original and very visionary. And remember, in his student days he was a writer, writing scathingly against the British and Tun Abdul Rahman by using the pseudonym of CheDet. He is quotable because he is talented with words and know how to use them to describe his vision.

My admiration in him remained strong even after the Anwar scandal. It was made even sturdier after he successfully steered our country out of a painful financial crisis.

My father always talked about the brilliance of Tun M in bringing back Malaysia from the brim of disaster that was the 1997 financial crisis. We talked about how he defied the IMF formula in managing the financial crisis and how with great courage he did the unconventional thing and went counter-current by choosing to peg our Malaysian ringgit at 3.80 ringgit to 1 US Dollar. How he turned a deaf ear to all the uproar of criticism when he firmly stuck to his decision of ringgit pegging. He was so resolute. So determined.

 It took balls to ignore criticism and do it your way. And when it turned out to be the best way anyway, the sweetness of victory must taste like the manna of heaven.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying he is perfect in my eyes. Because no one is perfect.  But we cannot deny that during his leadership, our county made progress in leaps and bounds. His style of leadership was so different from the usual inefficient, timid ways of the Malays. He has the willingness to put forward unpopular strategies, the courage to be confrontational, the desire to instil discipline and introduce competition. He is gutsy! And I admire guts in anyone because that is something Malays are very lacking in.

I read a book written about him when I was in standard 6. I still remember the title of the book; ‘Mahathir Di Sebalik Tabir’.  The book was written by Zainuddin Maidin in the early 90s. I remember how proud I was when I read about The Dawn Raid (of The London Stock Exchange) and The Buy British Last Policy.  When the book was written, the financial crisis  did not yet happen. But I came across that book in Sekolah Rendah Asma school library when the financial crisis was ongoing. Reading that book gave me a glimpse of what kind of man Dr. Mahathir was and it gave me hope that he would be the man to turn the financial crisis around, God willing. I never doubted that SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, Malaysia would get out of the crisis successfully in his premiership. It was at the age of 12 years old that I learned to really admire this patriot, thanks to the book ‘Mahathir Di Sebalik Tabir‘. I particularly enjoyed reading the episode of the Buy British Last Campaign which had ended with Lady Margaret Thatcher having to strike a deal with Dr. Mahathir to end the campaign. I particularly loved his firm witty words in his letter to Margaret Thatcher. At last our former colonizer had to acknowledge the power and sovereignty of a small developing country like Malaysia. That is a sweet victory!

A few years ago, I also bought his autobiography: A Doctor In The House, his famous memoir. I have finished reading all the 1000++ pages some time ago. But I found myself re-reading some of the chapters recently after I came across his HILARIOUS facebook status regarding the recently held Sinar Harian forum “Adakah Tun M terlalu tua untuk jadi PM.”

He wrote in his facebook status “I am here guys. Say it to my face.” There was a picture of him sitting at the front, directly facing the stage where the panelists were talking about whether he was too old to be a PM. (Hahah. ROFL.) One panelist in particular was made uncomfortable by his presence. Such a stomach-tickling moment that one was.

That’s how you fight your enemies. Boldly seek them out. Go face-to-face. With bravery and a flash of humour.

Below is the you tube video of the whole forum session. The forum wasn’t that factually stimulating, in my opinion.  But I watched it anyway just to see the moment when pandemonium broke loose as  Tun M calmly sauntered into the room. Haha.

So funneh!!

Tun M reminded me of one of my favourite TED talk in YOU Tube about the power of grit. In the end, it wasn’t your IQ that made you stand out and succeed. It was grit. The not giving up. The persistence. Grit makes you try one more time. Do it again and again. Until you get it right. Until you attain what you wanted. Until you excel at things.

Listen to this 6 minutes TED talk, guys. It would totally inspire you, I promise.

Tun M, a 93 year old man, is surely one gritty man! A passionate patriot! A great sophisticated statesman.

I wish him luck in his political career at this age. And I hope he will win his parliamentary seat, wherever it is he will be contesting for the upcoming general election. Even if he is too old to be a prime minister (but if anyone could do it at this age, it is him, God willing), I don’t think he is too old to be an MP.

Tun M has my utmost admiration. Forever shall he be remembered as the best Prime Minister Malaysia has ever had.

You Reap What You Sow

There are times when I think people are very blind to injustice and unfairness. 

If you cannot speak up against small injustice that happens in your surrounding and general environment, then you have no rights to talk about how bad the state of corruption in this country. How can you expect ministers and government officials to admonish their prime minister, when we ourselves cannot even speak up about things that happen in our own very small, very insignificant environment?

I personally do not feel the need to kowtow to people or kiss anyone’s ass at the cost of justice and fairness. If the cost of building harmonious relationship is by sacrificing justice and fairness, I don’t need to preserve such relationship. 

I keep friends that have the same core values and similar life principles. Other friends can choose to align their principles with me or not… their choice. But I am not keeping close relationships with those who cannot appreciate basic tenets of fair treatment and justice. In this, I am firm. 

If I am a client of a CBT session, the therapist would say that justice is my core belief. It is the lens through which I examine every single matter in life. Relationship is important, but not as much as justice. I didn’t say this, the Quran does. 

Even in things that do not affect me personally, if I think it is wrong, I will speak up about it. And I am not like this by nature. No one, in their nature, simply for no reason likes to ruffle feathers and makes things uncomfortable. I am like this by training. Because it was ingrained within me (by my father, by my learning of  the religion) that if you don’t have the strength to speak up against small injustice that happens around you, what makes you think you will have the strength needed to fight for bigger things later? 

Some people told me that “decision has been made”. I just laughed. No one is questioning about whether or not decision is made or NOT made. We are questioning the fairness of the decision. Other people may not say it outright that the decision was wrong (because not many people are like me.)  But they think it, they feel it. And they will remember it. 

At least, when I am honest in my opinion, it gives everyone the opportunity to pause; to think first and not make a wrong decision. Or an unjust decision.

I have full insight regarding how I might come across when I am too blunt. But I still won’t change because I notice that without my bluntness, it is easy for people to sweep issues under the carpet and pretend that everything is right. 

Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, may Allah have mercy on him, said, “May Allah have mercy on a man who shows me my faults.”

Al-A’raf 7:164 taught us that we should never be among those who are not worth mentioning. The people who are not worth mentioning are those who in this life, when they saw injustice, they fell silent. 

***

No one likes to do extra-work.

But if you have failed miserably to complete your task last year, you should have the spine to shoulder the responsibility this year and try to compensate for what you didn’t accomplish last year. Other people had done their part. And now if it’s your turn, you have to develop the strength to get it done.

Someone who cares about you will take you aside and tell you, “Look, Allah will not put you through this if He doesn’t think you can handle this. This is your turn to do it. No one likes to do this task. That is why we should develop rules on how the decision is made regarding who must do it. As long as you haven’t completed your turn, other people will always feel resentful when they have to do something that you somehow can skip. When you give excuses like this, it reflects badly on you. People talk about you. How they have to pick up on your slacks because you couldn’t do what had been originally assigned for you! So, please do this! I will help you!”

A person who doesn’t care about you would say “Well, decision has been made. If the authority says you don’t have to do it, then you just don’t have to do it. No need to discuss anymore. Let the authority choose other people to replace what you should be doing. You can just ignore what other people feel about how you have shirked your responsibility.” A person who doesn’t care about your personal growth and development would encourage you to have the sort of behaviour that he himself has displayed all these while. So that you can become as chronic as him!

Is that a real friend?

If I had a friend who (by rights of justice and fairness) failed to do her responsibility, I will take her aside and tell her, “I know life is difficult for you. But citing a random personal reason for not doing something that you should be doing is not the right thing to do. Come on, you are better than that! There is more to you than that! I will help you!”

Strength of character is not developed by maintaining the same routine each and every time, hoping that you can somehow escape your task. We won’t get any new experience by behaving like any extra work is a burden rather than a challenge. 

When I had to do it, did I like it? I didn’t! But I had to do it, so Alhamdulillah, I did it. When my friend had to do it, she didn’t like it too. But did she do it? Yes, she did. When she asked for my help, I felt GLAD to help and be involved in whatever way I could because I wanted her to be able to do it too. Now, that’s real friendship. 

Real friendship is NOT you encouraging your friends to abandon ship and let it sink when the going gets tough. Real friendship is whispering to your friend’s ear “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Let’s do whatever we can to keep the ship afloat” Real friendship is telling your friend, “I will help you with your task.”

Don’t let it be said that men are slackers and it takes women to complete simple task that men simply cannot perform. Rise to expectation, and trust Allah to help you.

 

Trust in the most uplifting, most motivational Sunnahtullah that Allah has taught us: Effort is required to qualify for Allah’s help. As simple as that. 

 

The Enlightened Man & The Pygmalion Effect

My father turned 61 a few days ago. He was born on the 5th of March 1957, the first born in his family. We all had a simple celebration at Swensen for my father’s birthday; Me and Alida’s treat for the whole family.

Even though he is now 61, but I still remember him as a man in his 30s, strictly checking my academic tasks and asking my mother or my nanny (my beloved Kak Milah) whether or not I had studied according to the schedule that I was supposed to adhere to.

As a child, whenever I heard the sound of his car on the driveway when he returned from work, I would run out of the living room (where the TV was, hahha) into the study room and pretended that I had been lost in diligent concentration of whatever academic book I was supposed to be reading at that time.

But then he would pop up into the study room and said, “Kak Ngah, tadi lupa tutup kipas kat depan ke?”

Damn! Busted! Hahaha.

When I told my friends about why I couldn’t go out to play for too long, all my friends in the neighbourhood never really understood.

And me? I never understood why their parents never asked them to study like my parents did.

I was also surprised that among my friends, the mothers were the ones who would pester them to study or to finish their homework. In my household, it was always my father who would put the fear of God in our hearts to perform our academic task. There are times when I wonder, how would my father deal with an ADHD child or a slow learner child? Haha. It would be interesting to see.

My father did not pester me to finish my homework, because he knew I would finish it on my own (simply because I didn’t want to be scolded by teachers. And I also had a reputation to maintain. I couldn’t let it be said that “Afiza is not as good as Afzalina at school.” Hahha. Sibling rivalry helped me stay motivated. Looking back, I really did owe my elder sister a lot.)

Instead, he would pester me to finish an additional academic task that he set out for me. I had one English article to translate per day. Every week, he would buy The Star or The New Straits Times newspaper, and then he would put an asterisk mark to seven articles he wanted me to translate into Malay for the whole week. In our childhood life, that was the most torturous task for me and my elder sister. But my elder sister had it even worse than me… she had to translate 5 articles per day.  And she had to do it for 2 years. I only had to do it for one year…

Whereas Izati and Alida did not have to do it daily like I did. And Wani… didn’t have to do it AT ALL! (I guess, by the time  the younger sisters were at the age to do the article translation, my father was pretty busy with his business already and didn’t have the time to monitor them properly. So they got away from the worst academic task of me and my Kak Long’s life)

I have to admit that I have been the cause of many rules formation in the household.

Until now, whenever we siblings get together, we STILL reminisce on the crazy brain-racking article translation that we had to do. And we would have a great laugh.

It is good being the middle child. Because the eldest child always gets it worse when it comes to parental expectation. The eldest child is the victim of parental enthusiasm. The eldest child is ‘the project’!  The experiment! If the eldest child is successful, then the chance that the rest of the siblings would also be successful would be high too… or so most people thought.

My father only has daughters…. five of them. No sons. But because he is an enlightened man, we never got saddled with a lot of what society would label as ‘women’s task’. We mostly got saddled with academic tasks. Whenever people commented to my mother “Bestnya ramai anak perempuan. Boleh tolong mak.” my mother would roll her eyes. Because we rarely helped her in the kitchen, if truth be told. (Sometimes, I feel sorry for my mother. Most of us inherits my father’s genetics; not just in looks but also in temperament and personality.) Of course, she made sure that we knew how to take care of ourselves; we could make our own drinks, we knew how to cook scrambled eggs, simple fried rice…and we knew how to sweep or mop the floor, and how to operate the washing machine. We took care of our own school shoes and our own school uniforms and wrapped our own text books. My mother would always say, “Kak Milah is for me… to help me. Not to help you. Wash your own school shoes!” But we were not expected to do only house chores. Academic tasks always took precedent over anything else… because my father said so.

One of my friends used to tell me how her brothers never had to do any housework and she was the one who had to do it as the only daughter in her family. I remember thinking, “Thank God, we don’t have brothers.” (Look, I don’t mind doing housechores, but it must be equally divided, gender notwithstanding! Otherwise, I would totally rebel.)

My father has taught me a lot throughout my life. Even without learning psychiatry, he kind of applied the concept of Pygmalion effect (or Rosenthal effect) in raising us.

Basically, in the theory of Pygmalion effect, it states that “we become what is expected of us.” It all  has something to do with expectation. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which we strive and behave in a way as to be in concordance with our own expectation (or other people’s expectation of us). It can be seen among students at school. You can see the difference in motivation and attitude among students in the first class and students in the last class. Students with poor expectations from their teachers (those in ‘kelas belakang’) internalize their negative label and perform poorly, and those with positive expectations internalise their positive labels and succeed academically. (That’s why whenever possible, make sure your kids stay in  the first class…. teachers’ expectation on first class kids would propel them to succeed. It is the Pygmalion effect. You can google it yourself if you want to know more about this. I learned this in my Part A specialist exam.)

“You delivered because you were expected to.”

–> That is the gist of what Pygmalion effect is all about.

So you yourself can apply this Pygmalion effect on yourself. If you put a high expectation of yourself, then you will push yourself to deliver. Even if you might not obtain the kind of result that you originally wanted, the result would STILL be so much better compared to when you expected nothing of yourself. My father might say that he expected all of us to get number one, but he was still just as happy if we obtained among the top ten. Had he not expected anything at all, we might feel complacent with just minimal effort.

There were so many incidents in my life in which I had internalized his positive expectations and manage to deliver what he wanted. 

 

1)He taught me to stand up to bullies. Always.

When I was 10 years old, Izati who was seven years old at that time got elbowed on the face by a 14 year old boy in the school bus. I still remember what had happened. This 14 year old boy had stepped on Izati’s shoes. Izati was upset because her school shoes was new and white. She was just like a typical excited standard 1 girl who would be upset when people step on her school shoes. So, she retaliated by stepping on the boy’s shoes, just to even the score. The boy then elbowed Izati’s face on his way out of the bus. I was shocked but I couldn’t do anything at that time as the boy was already gone. My father always kind of expected me to look out after my sisters at school but at that time, heck, I was scared. I was a child myself. 

Izati then told my father about what had happened. My father turned to me and said “Kak Ngah, esok Kak Ngah pi bagi warning kat budak tu.Kalau dia buat macam tu kat Izati lagi, ayah akan jumpa dia.”

I was like, “Whaaatt? Why me? It’s not my problem! Why can’t Izati warn him herself? Apa kata ayah terus pi jumpa budak tu saja? Why do I have to give him a warning? He is a big boy. He is in secondary school!” But I couldn’t say the words. Because I didn’t want my father to think I was afraid. (But of course, I was! Hahah). My father EXPECTED me not to be afraid, so what could I do, right? 

When my father was out of the earshot, I turned to Izati, “Zati yang cari gaduh, kak ngah pula yang kena pi bagi warning!” I was so upset at Izati for putting me into this trouble. But I didn’t have a choice. My father ALWAYS followed up on the task he had given me to do.

So the next day, I gathered all my friends who also boarded the same bus as me and strategized about what I should do. It was a bad idea to talk to my friends about it. They made me even more scared. They were telling me, “Afiza, dia tu budak sekolah Al-Bukhary. Budak sekolah nakal tu. Dia tu memang kaki buli. Dia pernah tumbuk orang tau!” I was like, sh*t. What had Izati gotten me into?

But the thought of not doing the task my father had assigned me to do was never an option. I was more afraid of failing the task my father had set me out to do.

Another friend of mine said “Lepas awak bagi warning kat dia, awak terus lari pi seat belakang bas. Jangan tunggu depan dia. Nanti dia tumbuk.” In my mind, I was like “Lepas bagi warning, aku lari? Damn! The warning won’t be effective like that! It would look like I was such a coward.”

But what choice did I have?

So that was what I did. When I got into the bus, accompanied by a few of my loyal friends who also boarded the same bus, I went to the seat where he was sitting and said in a shaky voice, “Weh! Ayah aku cakap, hang jangan nak pukul adik aku lagi. Ayah aku warning dia akan mai jumpa hang kalau hang buat macam tu lagi.” I was trying to put on a brave face. And that was the first time I used ‘aku-hang’ to anyone. Hahah. I didn’t really plan to run, you know. I wanted to casually walk away. But then I saw him getting up from his seat. So, without further ado, I ran. Hahha. I ran to the back of the bus where I had more friends waiting for me there. Somehow, he decided not to pursue me to the back of the bus. I was so relieved. Maybe my warning was effective after all. Hahha. When I got home, I straightaway told my father that I had delivered the warning. My task was done and dusted! (Of course, I never told him that I ran away afterwards. Haha)

 

2) He taught me hard work and perseverance always yield a good outcome

Whenever I told my father I could not do some academic task or that I found certain subjects difficult to master, he would always say, “Baca sekali tak faham, baca lah dua kali. Tak faham juga, baca 10 kali. Sampai faham.” In short, you just have to accomplish your mission. No matter how hard you have to work at it, you just have to do it.

Just do it!

My father’s name in Arabic means The Determined One. The Resolute. The name suited him really well.

When he wanted something, he would not cease his effort until he got it. He told me that his life’s motto is “usaha selagi daya”. Admirable, isn’t it? He was the only one among his siblings who pursued a university degree. Also the only one among his cousins who has a degree. Despite my grandfather’s insistence that he stop schooling at the age of 13 (to help my grandfather with rubber tapping), he somehow got someone who was respected in his neighbourhood to convince my grandfather that education was important and he should be given the chance to finish secondary school, at least. My grandfather gave in under the neighbourhood pressure and my father’s determination.

My father was sent to Sekolah Menengah Khir Johari, living in a hostel where he could focus more on his studies. My father really enjoyed the school. He was the best student in his school for SPM. He wanted to continue into tertiary level studies but my grandfather could no longer spare him  the luxury. So, he worked as an immigration officer, and when he was about to marry my mother, he switched his job to a police officer for a better pay. When PDRM offered their officers a chance to pursue a fully-funded tertiary education, my father jumped at the opportunity. But instead of taking law like many of his friends in the PDRM, he took Accountancy. I guess, he loved business and maths and calculation and stuff like that. (I certainly didn’t get that genes. LOL. The Math gene went to my elder sister who is now a statistic lecturer). After he finished his degree, he quitted PDRM to do business. I guess, he was never the sort who can work for others or follow the dictation of someone whose order he couldn’t understand or respect. Blind following is never his strength.

During the financial crisis of 1997-1998, he was hit really hard. It affected all of us, I still remember. But my daily routine didn’t change much… school was still our priority. My father made sure that there would always be money for school stuff and for books… but perhaps not for Taekwondo lessons or school trips or camping expedition that Scouts organized. After all, there were 5 of us to feed, all in schooling age. 

My UPSR was in 1997, the year of the financial crisis. My father had promised me that if I could get straight As for my UPSR, I would get RM50 for each A that I got. But if I couldn’t get straight As for UPSR, I would only get RM20 for each A that I got.  Despite the financial constraint, he didn’t break that promise. And when I obtained my 5As, I was given RM250 on the very day I got my result (but he made me save half of it in the bank. LOL. I spent the rest of the money on story books, of course.) I remember feeling bad for taking the money. I was worried that they might feel burdened by the promise they made. But I knew, my father would have insisted that I take it anyway.  So I said thank you with a lump in my throat.

My elder sister got offered to go to MRSM Taiping after being  the school’s best student for PMR at that time. Whether or not she was going to MRSM, was never a question. Not even when the expense was quite high. She went to MRSM Taiping all the same. We let go the maid. I helped my mom with house chores. After a few years of financial constraints, my father managed to bring the family’s finance to a stable condition when he joined his cousin in setting up a security company. And Alhamdulillah, it’s been stable since then. By the time I was going to MRSM Langkawi, we could afford a maid again. I remember saying to my sisters, “When I was around, mom didn’t need a maid. When I go to MRSM, mom needs a maid. Because you guys are such lazy bums and couldn’t be relied on to help mom! PMR tak score, hangpa siap!” My younger sisters simply rolled their eyes.

Throughout the financial crisis (which my younger sisters did not remember much. Only my Kak Long and I really vividly remember the experience), I never saw my father give up his efforts. He really is the determined one; the resolute.

 

3) He placed education as the most important aspect of childhood

Perhaps, he was affected by his hard life as a child who had to fight his own father simply to stay at school. And that might be why he worked hard to make sure we got the best schooling experience he could afford. We all went to the best national school in the state of Kedah. He would change his address to make sure we all got into Asma School. Perhaps, he didn’t want us to experience the difficulties he had to undergo as a poor child in school. Maybe he wanted to give us the opportunity he himself couldn’t get as a child.

My father loves education so much because that was something he had to work so hard to obtain. He was very single minded in his effort to stay at school. When most kids his age had started smoking (because smoking was cool back then), he never did because he couldn’t afford the cigarettes. All his scholarship money (apparently during his time, secondary schoolers were given scholarships) went for books and savings. Not clothes, not cigarettes…things that other kids who received the scholarship would buy at times. He had to take a longer route to get to the uni. But he did it finally. 

Until now, he is STILL very passionate in encouraging us to continue our studies. He stopped asking my Kak Long to study ONLY after my Kak Long had completed her doctorate. (My first nephew was born ONLY after she was done with her thesis. Priorities, huh?) At the moment, I am pursuing my studies as well, so he stopped pestering me already. He supported my effort by sponsoring my hotel and flight tickets for exams. He is now pestering Izati and Alida to do master every time they come home for a visit. Wani’s time to be pestered will come once she has finished her first year dental officer, I am sure.

As a child, I knew that he would not listen to any excuse of why we couldn’t perform well at school. He would tell me, “Ayah nak pi sekolah, naik basikal buruk tok wan. Jauh berbelas kilometer; naik bukit turun bukit kayuh basikal. Bila naik bukit ayah tak larat nak kayuh, so ayah kena turun basikal, tolak basikal naik bukit. Ayah tak bawa bekal pun, tak ada duit sekolah. Waktu rehat ayah lapar. Tak ada duit nak beli kat kantin. Kadang-kadang cikgu bagi ayah makan. Kadang-kadang ayah minum air paip. Tapi ayah pi sekolah. So korang demam sikit-sikit, kena pi sekolah. Semangat lah sikit!” 

I think for my father, the option was easy. It was either rubber tapping, or going to school. Of course he would choose school! For me, it was either story books/playing, or going to school. Of course I would not choose school, if given a chance. We couldn’t be as motivated as he expected us to be. But none of us had ever skipped school; well, except when we had chicken pox. 

When I told my father, I could not do Add Maths, he was concerned. Add Maths simply stumped me. My father asked to see my Add Maths textbooks and revision books when I got back from the hostel at the end of Form 4. I didn’t know why he wanted to see my textbooks. Perhaps, he wanted to see whether or not he could teach me himself. (There were a lot of things he could teach me himself when I was a child. And he could teach them better than most teachers. I did not have to go to any tuition class for my UPSR or PMR)  When he found out he couldn’t grasp Add Maths, he simply hired me a private tutor because he could not teach me Add Maths himself. “Tak payah pi mana-mana cuti ni. Kak Ngah pi belajar Add Maths saja dengan Cikgu R hari-hari. Dia ajar Kak Ngah sorang saja, 2 jam sehari. So Kak Ngah kena tanya semua benda yang Kak Ngah tak tau… Buka sekolah Tingkatan Lima nanti mesti dah pandai.”

In my mind, I was like, “Hmmm, I couldn’t ask what I don’t know. In Add Maths, I don’t know what I don’t know.” Hahha. But the private tutoring ended up to be really helpful, even as I regretted my lack of holidays that semester break. I did get an A in Add Maths later for SPM. Thanks to my father who refused to give up. He pushed me harder when I just thought that I could only get 9As1D. I was very proud when I showed my parents my SPM result at the end of the year.

When my younger sister Alida was having trouble with Accountancy during her SPM year, he taught Alida accountancy himself. (As my father’s degree is in Accountancy, he did the tax for his own company every year. He still remembers most of what he learned). Alida ended up teaching her classmates when she became the top student in Accountancy for her class.

 

4)He taught me to do my best work

He taught me to learn from the Chinese. To emulate Chinese’ work ethics. To work hard like them.

He is not a typical Malay, my father. He is always on time, for example. He is very logical and very practical. He doesn’t like to talk non-stop about something nonsense. He is a serious guy who doesn’t crack stupid jokes all the time in an effort to appear jovial and approachable. Like me, he was not that comfortable with small talk. He is very reserved and taciturn. He even relied on my mother to keep in touch with his own relatives. Hahha (Actually, all of us relied on our mother to smooth the way for social interaction with relatives)

He is also very meticulous in his work. Before he started his security company, he worked as a Chief Inspector in PDRM. I remember the time when he brought me and my mother to his office one day because he needed to pick something up while we were on the way to go to some place. There was a clerk outside my father’s room who was so nice to me. I couldn’t remember her name. But that clerk had told my mother, “Tuan Azmee ni cerewet. Kalau surat ada tak kena sikit, tertinggal titik ke.. dia suruh taip lain semua.” They used a typewriter at that time. So can you imagine the trouble of having to write everything again just because of some minor error? My mother could only sympathize but she could not do anything about it. My father was exactly like that at home too.

But the good thing is, people learn to present their best work when they deal with my father. He wouldn’t put up with anything less.

 

5) He taught us to prioritize practicality over idealism

“Kak Long dengan Kak Ngah nak jadi penulis? Nak duduk di tepi sungai… berkhayal…. dan makan pasir?” He asked both me and my Kak Long sarcastically when he caught both of us writing a story when we were supposed to be studying. I was only 8 years old at that time. I still remember the story I was composing. It was about a couple of brothers named Steve and David who just moved into a new neighbourhood. The plot revolved around them investigating about the ghosts who were disturbing them in their new house. They were trying to find out how the ghosts came to be haunting the house and how did the ghosts die… well, something like that. As an 8 year old child, I thought it was a very good plot. Haha. (I was influenced by Tamar Jalis stories. Hahha. Except that I was writing my story in English.)

I was so absorbed in writing those stories in an exercise book that I didn’t hear my father entering our study room. I could not hide the exercise book from his view fast enough. I was caught red handed… and the lecture ensued. *sigh*

There were so many times when me and my Kak Long were caught reading fiction when we were supposed to be studying. Every single time, we would get scolded and sometimes given a stroke of rattan on our palms. But me and my Kak Long never learned our lessons. No punishment was enough to keep us away from stories.

My father is the original language lover in our family. He wrote poetry on the front page of his text books when he was a student. Or he would write some quotes he made up himself. It was not unusual for me to find some words of wisdom scribbled on the front page of any old textbooks of my father’s which I took from our bookshelves. It was ironic that he would not let us pursue something that he himself had loved.

I guess the hardship of his own childhood taught him that “Yeah, it is great to do what you love. But in reality, we have to survive and earn our living. We have to be responsible, and not simply follow our hearts or our ideals.” 

He just could not imagine us being able to survive on writing. He didn’t envision his daughters as merely housewives. He believed education is the key to a good life. So he was alarmed if any of his daughters played too much or became absorbed in stories too excessively. He was distressed when we did not display the sort of diligence he expected from any of us.

His expectation ended up making me a doctor.

 

6) He taught me to have excellent work ethics

People have always said, “Don’t be a doctor because of your parents’ expectation. Or else, you wouldn’t be able to do it. And then you will quit half way.”

That’s not true, guys! There are many people who become a doctor when they didn’t originally want to be one. I am one of the examples. Many of my friends are like that too. You can be whatever you want and succeed in things you never dream of. But you have to put expectations on yourself! You have to put standards about your work ethics. You have to possess the right attitude about responsibility and behaviour at work.  Just…have some standards and expectations on yourself! The rest, leave it to God.

My father never pushed me to be a doctor. I could be anything I like (except as a singer/model/actress or anything in the entertainment industry. My parents would have my head if I ever choose to do something like that. Not that I ever had any talent in those things. Hahah). And I wanted to be a lawyer. But the scholarship I was offered was for medicine. So, the rest is history.

Because of his expectation towards all his daughters, all of us pursued our tertiary education in overseas fully-funded by government scholarships. My sister’s master in Statistic was in Warwick, UK and her doctorate on statistical analysis for three-arms clinical trial was in Sheffield, UK. I went to Australia for medicine, as you guys well-know. Izati and Alida went to Auckland for biology and TESL, respectively. And Wani went to India for dentistry. His investments in us as children (he invested his time, teaching us the right values about education, lecturing us, fighting with us against what we wanted to do VS what we should do) saved us from having to borrow from PTPTN because our SPM results made us eligible for scholarships. We started our working life debt-free.

I couldn’t be what I am today without his effort to shape my behaviour and my character. When I was a houseman, he never told me that I shouldn’t quit my work whenever I told him about certain MOs and specialists I just really hated. He said, I could work with him at the company, if I ever wanted to quit housemanship. “But if you want to quit, do it properly. Don’t simply not turn up to work. ” He emphasized.

But I knew he preferred that I completed my housemanship. Because all my life I was taught to do my responsibility, I didn’t quit. Looking back, I don’t think my pride could ever handle that sort of failure. I knew that my MARA contract stipulated that I had to serve the government for 3 years. It was my responsibility to finish what I had started. So, I handled the pressure of working life and gradually found myself able to enjoy housemanship after finishing my first posting! I had only one day of EL as a HO when I had to send my parents’ for hajj… until now I never again had any EL. I’ve only had one day of sick leave for anaphylactic reaction when I was a HO… and then never again. All my holidays are planned. I take my work seriously. Just like I take education seriously. And those are the things my father taught me and all my siblings. His work ethics and my mother’s work ethics were really admirable. I could never surpass them in that.

And because of  this, I must admit that I look down on people who took ELs for petty reasons. Really, I look down on people who are not serious about their work. Sure, you can EL if your family members are sick. I can understand that. But NOT for reasons like “Mak mertua aku mai.” or “Aku kena handle pasal rumah sewa somewhere.” or “KL jammed… tak boleh balik hari ni.” or “flight delay.”

Look, your mak mertua will just have to handle your absence because she came when you were supposed to be working. She would learn her lesson next time and plan her visit properly. And if you are intelligent enough to plan for contingencies such as “KL Jam” or “flight delay”, you wouldn’t need to take ELs. You can plan your departure one day earlier. 

The word ’emergency’ in the phrase ’emergency leave’ MEANS something!  All right? And if it is the same person who repeatedly does this EL thing almost every month? Well, my patience would be running thin! I have expectations on people! Not outrageous expectations… just reasonable ones. I like people who can display some shame when they trouble other people. Because when they feel ashamed for having no choice but to take ELs, I know that these people have standards!

My study leave was deducted from my own cuti rehat! My friends take unpaid leave when their children were sick too long… or they simply took a maid to help with the kids if they wanted to continue working without having to take repeated ELs. Solve your problems! Don’t trouble people continuously with your lack of life-management skill!

Just…plan your life! Please! That’s another thing my father taught me. To plan! Troubling people with our lateness/ tardiness/ flakiness is NOT acceptable.

 

7) He trusted me with his company; his life’s work.

When my parents went for hajj in 2011, they had told me that they put me and my siblings names on some of their properties. They said, if anything were to happen to them, each of us is the trustee to the property under our name. But each property must be EQUALLY divided later on regardless of under whose name it is.

For example, they put my Kak Long’s name for the house and my younger sisters’ name for some of the lands they had acquired before. 

My name was placed for my father’s shares in the company. My mother said, “Ayah cakap, Kak Ngah lagi garang dan lagi pandai nak bergaduh kalau ayah punya partner nak tipu saham or duit. Ayah tau Kak Ngah mesti takkan lepas saja.” I wanted to laugh.

See? He expected me to behave like that, so for sure I would fight nail and tooth if any of his business partners ever try to cheat me out of my inheritance.

Because my father does not have a son, we talk about inheritance/ hibah a lot. My mother and I made sure that my father had done a proper hibah to all of us. Not because we want the money so much (not that my parents were wealthy or anything). But because if faraid happens, I won’t have the money to pay my uncle for his share of the house/cars/shares according to faraid laws. If my mother and us want to keep my father’s house, we will have to fork out the money to pay our uncle for his rights to the house and other properties according to the Faraid laws. And that’s something I don’t want to have  to do, if I can help it. I don’t want my mother to be stranded with minimal security should anything happen to my father. 

I even posted and shared a lot of facebook status about hibah. I also followed the page of Roslina Sabiyah & Co which deals with a lot of inheritance issues. I think it is important that we understand that Islam is very beautiful and gives a lot of options in dealing with any matter. Faraid is only one of the options in dealing with the issue of inheritance.

Below is one of my facebook status regarding Faraid Vs Hibah. I believe, that a responsible man should never rest easy until the security of those who are dependent on him are taken care of properly.

 

***

Not many people are lucky to have a father they can be proud of. In my experience as a psychiatry doctor, I certainly witnessed many sick, irresponsible bastards who think being a father is about being a sperm donor.

Truly, me and my siblings were lucky.

In psychiatry, we have this theory called ‘Goodness of Fit’. Between me and my parents, there certainly exists ‘goodness of fit’. They put pressure, and we deliver instead of breaking under it.

Goodness of fit is defined as the congruence between the child’s temperament and the personalities, attitudes and parenting practices of the parents. A goodness-of-fit is seen as fostering healthy psychological and social development.

Whenever I saw the children in my child clinic refusing to go to school, or was depressed by parental expectations… I always wonder why I didn’t react like them when I was placed under various expectations and pressure? I couldn’t understand why the parents couldn’t manage to persuade their children to go to school? In my household, we have always known that the parents are the boss. Their words are law! If they say I have to go to school, then that’s where I am going. It seems like our parents were so much better at rearing children when there was very little knowledge about psychology and psychiatry in their days.

Now, with so many books on child rearing and general psychology, parents are even more clueless!

Parents would say, “Kalau kita tekan dia sangat, nanti dia buat perangai. Kita takut dia stress.”

And I was  thinking, how come my parents never thought that my siblings and I would get depressed by their expectations? They expected anyway! We got punished, anyway! They didn’t handle us like a fragile, easily-broken porcelain china dolls. As though we will shatter at the slightest stress. Pfftt! Teachers back then were even more fierce than teachers these days but none of my siblings ever refused to go to school and neither did most of my friends at that time. Is it possible that parents these days are just too ‘soft’, and therefore the kids are spoiled…. becoming as fragile as the parents had expected them to be (Pygmalion effect, remember?) Paradoxically, it may be that our softness and indulgence, instead of making them into happy children, make them less resilience in facing pressure in the future.

Nowadays, we have kids that fail to launch themselves into adulthood. Kids who couldn’t take scoldings and stress… with poor coping mechanisms. They grow up into big babies instead of mature adults. (Some HOs rely on their parents to give their specialists some excuses for why they couldn’t turn up to work! This is ridiculous!)

Resilience is not really born. It is made! And it wouldn’t get made if your kids never had to measure up to reality and expectations. Attitude and work ethics are not born, they are acquired… and taught… and carved… into being a deep-rooted character of a person. It is not something you develop suddenly when you start working. So if you want to see what kind of adults your children would be, see their attitude to homework and house chores now. You have to start teaching your children the right values now… when they are still malleable kids. This is something I believe with all my heart.

***

So this blog post is especially dedicated to my beloved papito. I have often written about my mother on her birthday. This is a first for my father.

This year, as usual, I bought him a shirt. In fact, all of us bought him a shirt. He doesn’t have to shop for his own clothes because he will get many new ones on his birthday.

Allow  me to share with you guys some of the pictures we took at Swensen to celebrate my father’s birthday. We were sad that my eldest sister and my youngest sister couldn’t join us due to work commitments (but it didn’t stop us from enjoying the food. Haha.) But the three middle sisters were available for the fun family times. Alida’s and Izati’s husbands were also around.  And of course my beloved niece and nephew (Alida’s children), Ammar and Arissa were also with us that day.

It was a great catching up session.  As we all are grown up now, get-together event is not easy to organize and plan. Selalu tak cukup korum. Adeh!

I don’t have a lot of my father’s picture here because he is a shy one and he only takes group pictures; never a selfie. The role of the selfie queen in our family is shared by both Alida and Izati.

My father really enjoyed the lamb chop here!

 

Ammar, my 2 year old nephew, really loooved the mushroom soup! But we still think that the mushroom soup at Dave’s Deli is still the best we have ever had.

 

With Mom, the other love of my life, and Izati.

The middle sisters! All with identical  thick eyebrows… my father’s genetic gift to all his daughters. Thank God that the model, Cara Delevigne, makes thick eyebrows fashionable these days. I used to grow up feeling like my eyebrows were too thick for a girl. LOL!

With Izati…. the person who had caused me the trouble to face up to the big boy who had elbowed her face when she was in standard 1. We still laughed about it until now.

 

And the food guys! Especially the dessert! I love, love, love desserts… I have always had a sweet tooth, which is why I need to exercise regularly. Because I just couldn’t say no to ice creams and cakes and basically, anything fattening, really! Haha.

This is the best dessert we had that day! No question about it! I think it is called Banana Crumble in Sizzling skillet… or something like that. So good, guys! I feel like going there right now to order this dessert again, as I am writing this.

 

 

Until next time, my dear readers.

Have a great weekend. And enjoy the time spent with family and loved ones. There will be few and far in between as we grow older. So cherish all the time you can get.  *sobs sobs*

Adios! And lots of love from yours truly.

My Friendship Policy

Disclaimer: This is a rant! Do not read beyond this part if you cannot take the negative vibes of outpouring annoyance from yours truly. 

(I did warn you. Proceed at your own risk)

***

Family and friends are some form of rizq. A blessing, really. Your treasure, truly.

Take me, for example. With my family, my best friend, my close friends (some of them work with me in the same department, and some are my school/uni friends), I can be irritable, bossy and annoying… but somehow I manage to keep them anyway. Or they manage to keep me. Or perhaps, we decide to keep each other. Maybe, (well, hopefully haha) my good traits outweigh my annoying traits and the net result is, I am considered fun enough to hang around with. Haha.

I was told that INTJ don’t keep friends. But friends keep them. I think that used to be true, before. But now, I too have learned to make an effort to stay in touch with them and did not depend merely on them to keep in touch with me. As I grew into adulthood, I learned the true value of great friendships that stand the test of time.

I play fair with friends. I don’t like to take without giving something in return. I don’t allow myself to take advantage of my friends. It is just against my friendship policy. I will feel ashamed of myself if I keep taking your generosity without returning it in some way. 

If you have always been there for me, I will rush to you in time of needs. 

At the back of my mind, there is always that account columns I need to keep in balance. It hurts my sense of independence if I feel like I owe something to someone no matter how small. I don’t want to feel like I just HAVE to comply to anyone’s wishes, just because they have been nice to me or because I have been indebted to them. I don’t owe anyone any blind loyalty because  when it comes to friendship’s give-and-take, we have been almost equal. I have made sure of it! You can’t turn around and say, “Afiza, you have to do what I say. Remember how much I have given and sacrificed for you?” Haha. None of that. We are equal in terms of favours and services rendered. I don’t like to owe anyone anything. So when I am pissed off with you, I can be straight and upfront about it. And when you are pissed off with me, go ahead and be straight and upfront about it. In true friendship, we survived all that. And those are the friends that I keep.

With my best friend Dr. F, we take turns paying for food or movies. We decide together where to go for hanging out. Neither one of us has more power over the other. We understand the tacit rule of what makes friendship work. 

With my close friends from the Newcastle Uni, I still keep in touch with them in our WhatsApp group all the time. While all of us are busy with our own lives, any of them can simply holler any of us and ask for help/opinion/a listening ear. It is not unusual for us to ventilate in that group about our daily stressors in our working life and our collective frustrations with the Malaysian way of doing things. There is no fear that other people would say “Pi la balik Australia. Dah suka  sangat compare-compare!” Haha. We have been through a lot together when we were in Newcastle, having only each other for support and strength when our own families were not around for that whole of 5 years. Those kind of bond is not something that can be easily broken… because we have shared a very significant and meaningful past. A beautiful period of life. 

In friendship, I don’t allow myself to be taken advantage of. At the end of the day, if I don’t enjoy being with you, I am just not gonna keep you as my friend. (And I won’t enjoy being with you if I feel that I was being taken advantage of) Sooner or later, I will drop you…. because we just don’t suit. But I wish you all the best, regardless.  

If you are too high maintenance (in terms of time, money and lifestyle), I don’t mind losing you. I can’t hang out with you at expensive restaurants all the time, even if you are paying (because next time, I will insist to pay to keep the balance… but then, your lifestyle is out of my budget. Haha). I have never been the sort who is easily affected by peer pressure even when I was a kid. I didn’t pester my parents to buy me branded stuff so that I could hang around the cool kids. In my opinion, kids were cool if they were intelligent and competent. That’s it! If they also happened to be beautiful and kind-hearted, my interest in them will surpass into the realms of admiration. Otherwise, I was just not interested to go out of my way to please anyone… I won’t try too hard, beyond casual friendship. Even in those I respect or admire (perhaps because of their intelligence or kindness or charisma), I don’t necessarily want to be their friends. Friendship requires certain alignments in values, principles, habits and taste… it takes time, adjustment, compromise… and over time, you will reach that stage when you can just be frank and honest with each other when it comes to any issue. There is no longer any need to stand in diplomatic ceremony with one another. Your friend could  take one look at your face and just knew that you were upset about something and pretension became pointless. 

Every layer you see is a “true” part of a person, but different people will have access to different layers. I think this analogy is especially true for INTPs/INTJs

 

If you want to hang out with me, you are just going to have to tolerate my wanting to be in nature and go hiking once in a while. After all, it is free. Expensive restaurants all the time may not be the way I like to spend my money. If you expect too much of my time in order for me to keep your friendship (heck, I have house chores to do, cats to take care of, plants I need to water, parents I need to see, academic books I have to read, and uh, non-academic books I have to devour haha. And there are times the introvert in me needs to be alone and I just don’t feel like hanging out) then I am more than willing to let you go. Go find your own friends. If you expect the sort of investment I could not commit to, I think it is only fair that we go our separate ways.

It comes down to values. Me and Dr. F… we have the same values and therefore we understand each other’s decision. We both value our study time…so if one of us cannot keep in touch because we were busy studying, we don’t go around feeling hurt. We both value punctuality to time… we are always on time whenever we plan to meet each other. (Because if you are not on time consistently and habitually, I will not keep anything beyond casual friendship with you. All of my close friends are on time. Whenever we couldn’t be on time, we actually have the courtesy to let you know immediately so that you can adjust accordingly and won’t have to wait). We both value our families…. if we could not keep our promised date because some emergency involving the family came up, we would simply cancel the date with no hard feelings. We both value honesty, ethical way of doing things… we share the same frustration towards people. We share similar kind of humour too.  And most importantly, we share similar culture and similar background, and thus similar way of thinking. (We were in Sekolah Rendah Sultanah Asma, then Sekolah Menengah Sultanah Asma, then MRSM Langkawi. After that, we were separated for some years after she went for her A-Level and her medical school in the UK ,whereas I went for my IB and my medical school in Australia. We returned for housemanship in the same hospital. We became MOs in the same hospital but in different departments. And now, both of us are furthering our studies. We just found out recently that we even attended the same kindergarten when one of our kindy friends shared our kindy class photo and tagged us on Facebook. We never knew before that we had attended the same kindergarten. See how beautiful fate works? Very serendipitous, ain’t it? )

It is the same with my colleagues. We tend to gravitate towards those who share our values. Opposite doesn’t attract… likeness does. I like people who can get things done. Who have a sense of responsibility. Who would do the hard thing just because it is the right thing. 

We annoy each other, occasionally, of course. But we also respect each other. We stick together without being too clingy and dependent. There are space to BREATHE in that kind of friendship. We run programs / events together. Take exams together. Or went for a hiking/kayaking trip together. Or we went out to eat together outside office hours.  Or went to travel across the border to Thailand together. 

It is through doing all those things together that friendship is developed and strengthened and before you realise it, you are already comfortable with each other and consider each other not just colleagues, but friends. It developed very naturally, without anyone trying too hard, or trying to push our boundaries, or trying to get us to be dependent on him/her so that he/she could dictate how things should be done. 

With real friends, none of us has ever tried to over-step the boundaries or micro-manage one another. It just never happened. If it did, we would voice it out and the person would understand and back off and everything is right again. There are times when I can be bossy. But there are times, when they can be bossy with me right back. There are times when I make decisions. And there are times when I ask them for their decisions. Like I said, I need that account balanced. 

My weakness is… in dealing with people I cannot stand . These are usually people who did not understand basic courtesy like I have mentioned above. People who don’t understand boundaries. People who don’t respect each other’s private time by his/her constant whatsapp messaging. People who always come up with “helpful” suggestions and ideas ad nauseum, ad infinitum…  or people who want to micro-manage other people so that other people would become dependent on him/her, so that FINALLY, he/she could pretend that he/she is somehow relevant and likeable. 

Here’s a tip: If you notice that everywhere you go, you end up not having friends, no matter how ‘nice’ or ‘helpful’ you have been… please do some self-introspection. Doing any of your ‘extra efforts’ will not get you to keep friends if they end up feeling uncomfortable with you. In fact, all your ‘efforts’  would even alienate you from them. 

Like I said, I don’t have to be ‘extra-nice’ or ‘extra-helpful’ or act like I am the manager of everyone and everyone must depend on my direction in order to keep friends. I don’t rely on friends being dependent on me in order to tie themselves to me. (Heck, to all my friends, please be independent for your own sake. While I am more than willing to help you when you are in a tight spot – not just because I am your friend but because I am a Muslim – I have no desire to be anyone’s super hero. I have my own life to lead!) 

In a naturally-developed friendship, we keep friends when our friends happen to have the same values with ours, complimentary attitude to ours, or when all of us happen to enjoy spending time together due to our common interest. We don’t try to force the friendship at the early stage of getting to know one another, and ‘offer’ them help, and ‘get them to feel dependent on us so that we can then dictate the course of events’. Trust me, people will resent you when you try to manipulate people like that. While you may appear nice and tolerable at first, one by one of your friends will walk away from you because they resent your obvious attempt at your over-involvement and manipulation.

And me? I am a very independent person. At the slightest threat to my autonomy, I will leave the friendship. And if you try to control me and boss me around? That’s a NO-NO anywhere, any time, any place… and any one!! You broke that cardinal rule, I am done with you.

So, I’ve left her a long time ago. But I thought, maybe that was just my own issue. I never tried to influence other friends against her.  But over time, I realised… it was not just my own issue. Because other friends also keep away from her without me even having to say a thing. 

***

Another one of my friendship policy is: I do not influence any of my friends regarding how they should perceive others who I don’t get along with. 

I mean, hey… we are not kids, here. (My gang will not mix with your gang and all such nonsense). I don’t have gangs. I have friends. They are free to make their own decision regarding who they want to be friends with. I value the principle of autonomy and freedom. I would never subject my friends to an ultimatum of “if you are her friend, then you are not my friend.” I have more self-confidence than that. Well, I have more pride than that. I don’t need to resort to such things to keep friends. In fact, I would really be upset if my friends try to dictate to me who I can be friends with. Just because I am your friend, doesn’t mean I can’t also be her friend. Just because she is your enemy, doesn’t mean I share the same opinion you have about her. 

Live and let live! Be professional. Be mature. Respect each other’s autonomy.

So, when some of my friends had asked me. “I heard that you don’t get along with her? Why?”

I never told them a single thing. I simply said, “Our personality clash. Nothing really major.”

I never tried to ‘poison’ their minds about that person. I don’t need anyone to fight my battle for me. I can handle it myself. Any of my friends are free to go out with her or talk  to her and collaborate with her… whatever. You do you.   

I believe, time will tell. Time will tell why that person is somebody I cannot tolerate.

And true enough, time did tell the rest of my friends what is it about the person I simply couldn’t stand. Slowly, I watched how people came to me and said “Now, I know.” 

In general, I don’t do public fights or snappy comebacks in Whatsapp groups. I ignore people I dislike. People I dislike do not warrant a single iota of my energy being spent thinking about them. 

However, all bets are off if that person becomes too annoying or try to push my buttons. If you cannot take subtle hints, I will give you the obvious door-slam to shake you awake! And if you lit my fuse in public, then expect an equally public display of fireworks. I am not a doormat. And unlike others who have been secretly moaning over your behaviour, I have no problems simply being forthright to you about it. Yes, even in public.

And I didn’t try to hide my obvious displeasure at her over-involved behaviour, and at her ‘trying too hard’ to stay relevant. Funny enough, without me trying too hard to be diplomatic and ‘helpful’ and ‘over-involved’, I still keep friends. Despite my straightforward, forthright “garang” ways, me and my friends maintain our friendship. Yet her, with all her efforts… manage to piss people off and drive people away.  

Because at the end of the day, please know that friendship comes from a place of genuine regard, respect and acceptance. Never manipulation! Once you have reached a level of comfort in your friendship, friends will tolerate each other’s bossiness, quirks and habits. Because they remember all the good times they’ve had with you and would not ditch you when you are occasionally being difficult. Haha. But if people were never comfortable with you in the first place, and you’ve never had a place in their hearts because of your general annoying habits, do you think people will tolerate your bossiness, quirks and habits? NO WAY!!

Please know that the worst thing you can do to a budding friendship is you trying to force the natural way a friendship should develop at its INITIAL stage by all your manipulative “I am such a helpful person” behaviour. Without you knowing it, you are taking away their autonomy and freedom. And instead of being thankful to you, they wish you to perdition! They feel smothered and suffocated by your over-involvement and your ‘helpfulness’. 

Some people can take the hint when people are put off by their behaviour and they will back off. But some people are oblivious to diplomacy and tact. Getting them to read between the lines is as painfully slow as pulling teeth. So sometimes, you need to be assertive.

When push comes to shove, I will push, shove and slam-dunk! Then you know, that you won’t get away treating me the way you have been treating others before. Others have tolerated and avoided having to deal with your bossiness. But not me. Never me. I don’t tolerate rubbish and nonsense coming from anyone! 

I will deal with you! So that you yourself won’t want to deal with me again.

So remember, not everyone you can poke at without you being poked back! Certainly not me. And if my friends are like me (and most of them are), certainly not them too. We are a bunch of independent, go-getter ladies who give as good as we get. We are not going to depend and rely on anyone without bringing along our own judgment and autonomy.

And most certainly, we are not going to rely on bossy people trying too hard to stay relevant. 

This is what  an INTJ thinks when people talk non-stop (or whatsapp non-stop). Come on, that’s harassment, ok.