Logical and Illogical Logics

There are always two sides of a coin. Take logic. It helps us to understand many things. On the other hand, people can twist and turn it to serve their purpose.

The following is a case of "logical thinking", which shows over-generalization of "pattern" without validation:

Fact 1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer  fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Fact 2. The Mexicans eat a lot of  fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Fact 3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.

Fact 4. The  Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Fact 5. The Germans  drink a lot of beers and eat lots of  sausages and fats  and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

I know you don’t buy the conclusion here, simply because the conclusion is quite far off. But how about the false logical assertions that is more subtle and believable?

Like: “All good students go for tuition. If you don’t take tuition, you will lose out.” or, “We need a lot of protein for growth, therefore we must eat meat.” Recently I heard there was a so-called health expert going around to promote Vitamin-C as solution to all sorts of illnesses. This guy can put up a lot of “evidence” to support this points.

Our world is full of all kinds of assertions. It is not so easy to differentiate fads from facts. With the advances in marketing and selling, anything can be packaged so that you buy their stories. Packaging essentially show you something and hide from you something – to get you to buy their ideas or products.

Without critical minds, we will just get sucked into the zeitgeist, or the prevailing belief of the time.

The solution is: think twice, think through, get second opinion and don’t get emotional.

There is Tomorrow, Isn’t It?

One day King Yama (阎罗王), the ruler of Hell, walked the torture chambers to see what is happening in his kingdom, after learning the principle of “management by walking about” from a management guru.

It was rather quiet compared to the last time he walked the place a few months ago. He asked his immediate officer, Bull-head, “We need more people here to justify our capacity. Do you have any idea?”.

Bull Head thought for a while and said, “perhaps we can send someone to the human realm and tell them that there is no hell. Then their will commit more sins and come here.”

King Yama said, “we tried that but it didn’t seem to work. The legal system has become so good and their enforcement has become so efficient. Most people observe the law. Look at Singaporeans, they don’t even chew bubble gums!”

“What do you think?” King Yama turned to Horse Face, the other top-ranked officer.

Horse Face thought of the opposite, “Why don’t we tell them there is no heaven? They won’t bother to be good then.”

King Yama said, “Again, that won’t work either. Most of the people have learned that doing good itself makes them happy. There is quite a lot of spiritual movements up there. So they will do good anyway, regardless of whether there is heaven.”

Then King Yama observed that the operators in the torture chambers often have little chats with the people they torture. So he thought the operator would understand better from their first hand information. So he posted the same question to the operator, who is busy frying a couple of snatch thieves.

Without thinking much, the operator replied King Yama, “It’s easy, just tell the people up there that there is tomorrow.”

“That simple?” King Yama doubted.

“Yes. The people who end up here know they should stop doing bad and start doing good. They end up here because they think there is tomorrow. So they kept postponing and postponing. By the time they realize they are here, it was too late.”

“Bingo! Good idea.” King Yama was delighted. He now convinced that management by walking about works. And he gave the operator a banana, emulating how the Hewlett-Packard manager reward an engineer who solved a major problem.

“Guys, let’s send the message up there and start telling everyone there is tomorrow.” King Yama ordered.

King Yama pondered for a while and ask the communication department head, “Transmit the message using the subconscious wavelength, so that the human won’t resist the message consciously.”

-- The End of the Story

p.s: Wonder why you have the urge to postpone good things you wanted to do and bad things wanted to quit? Obvious, right?

p.p.s: The operator then peel the banana given by King Yama. But he accidentally dropped it into the boiling oil. When he finally managed to take up the banana, he found that it was extraordinarily delicious. His innovation of pisang goreng in Hell earned him even more awards later.

Instant Abundance, Easy as ABC

First of all this is not to promote a get-rich-quick scheme, but to promote a different way of looking at life.

If you have studied accounting, you would have come across Activity-based Costing (ABC) – a widely accepted way to record how money is used in organizations. ABC is based on the premise that activities (which are carried out to accomplish goals) consume resources, which cost money. So it goes like this: Activity uses resources that cost money. This premise is very insightful thus brought about the widespread usage of activity-based costing method.

Now, lets look at our lives. We wanted something in our lives. That something could be college degree, job, girl friend, family, car, house, fame, etc. We do lots of activities, which consume resources, to get what we wanted. Most of the time we focus on the activities and the money, and forgot about the middle part: resources. No so? Think about when was the last time you really pay attention to resources – meaning recognize their abundance as well as limitations and act accordingly?

I would like to put forth these two assertions:

1. We have more resources than we think
2. Resources don’t always cost money

Just to name a few - have you thought about these resources you might have: your knowledgeable parents (or in-laws), smart subordinates, helpful friends, your talent in language (or any other fields), your good look, your underutilized computers, your already-subscribing internet connection, and your vacant-and-waiting-to-be-rented shop-houses. Furthermore, you have a lot of hungry investors, eager donors, and you have ability to reach them.

If you just spend 30 minutes making a complete list of resources you have, you will be amazed the abundance your have. You will immediately recognize that most of them don’t cost extra Ringgits.

Now you are rich. Aren’t you?

And if you are not starting to think big, you have got problem.

Grateful to My Primary School Teacher

I wrote the short paragraph below to thank my teacher, who played a big part in making who I am. It’s the time of teachers day, and I think the paragraph is still relevant – so I publish it here again.

Having gone all the way to doctoral level in the journey of study was never easy. A lot of people have supported me. If you ask me who I would thank the most, I would date it back all the way to my first 3 years in my primary school in Mantin, Negeri Sembilan. My form teacher then was Mdm Luo Ai Qun (罗爱群老师). She took care of me, advised me, and inspired me. And I still remember she pointed out to me how much I must be grateful to my mother, who worked on two laborious jobs at that point in time. “Express gratitude to your mother by studying diligently.” She said. For the next 30 years, I did precisely that.

I have made a card (see below) to thank her.

Structural Approach

Life is fluid.

That fluidity creates ambiguity, uncertainty, confusion and loss of direction. The solution to fluidity problem, in engineering, as well as in life, is to put in structure. Just like civil engineers put up structure to fix the positions of beams, wall and floors, structure in our lives fix many aspects of our lives: time, space, social interactions, as well as other aspects of our activities.

The way structures work is quite simple: it limits choices – time, space, people and ways of doing things.

What? In this age of freedom of choice, who want to limit choices? You say.

Wait, please hold your horse. Let’s not get into the negative sides of structure. You probably will appreciate its values as you starting to see my points.

In fact, structure is very much in all aspects of your life: (1) you are in a family structure. That limits what you can and should do to your parents, children, etc. Their expectations towards you is quite firmed up; so are your expectations toward them. You have promised (if not vowed) to your spouse that you won’t do something that will destroy your relationship. So your family function properly. (2) You are in an organization, a company. Your role is prescribed. Your deliverables are specified. Your working hours are stipulated in the employees’ handbook. You follow the Do’s and Don’ts of the company. (3) You probably have promised your priest or master that you will be a religious person. You won’t kill, steal, lie, commit adultery, drink, smoke, etc. This community structure keeps you being good.

So do you still think structure is no good?

Yet, you may say, we need freedom.

Fair enough, but you need to do it wisely. How?

You use structure to your advantage. Here are few ways that I have done it and I find it useful to help me:

1. When I wanted to become a vegetarian, I simply told everyone I know that I will do it. I established a structure of expectations. So becoming vegetarian was never a struggle. You can use this structure if you want to quit smoking, gambling, or any other kind of small or big vices
2. I got married early. I cemented the commitment from my wife. Therefore eliminating major sources of doubts that we are not meant for each other. Then we focused on building our family and bringing up our next generation.
3. When I decided to go for my doctoral study. I told my lecturer, friends, family members. I told them them when I am going to start, what will ensue and what kind of support I need from them. I set off the journey and completed the study. I survived because I have put in the structure.

In fact there is an entire discipline of applying structure to organizations, called organization theory. It is a boring subject, really. I studied it, and even taught it. It is only when I apply to my personal life, the meaning of structure comes to life.

Theory of Constraints

Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a philosophy of management and improvement originally developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. A trained physicist, Goldratt became and “management  guru” with his book “The Goal”.

Goldratt probably was laughed at by his academic peers, for coming up with such a simple idea. The theory didn’t even have an equation – quite a shame for a physicist.

But Goldratt’s shame in the academic world turned into fame in the practical managerial world. I wasn’t accidental. The theory, which I think is more like a principle, works.

Not only it works in the job of a manager, it works almost everywhere. It works for a student, a parent, a worker, a doctor, a lawyer, a politician, even a priest.

The TOC simply instructs us to find the bottleneck to our current performance, remove it, then work on the next bottleneck. Then do it again, and again.

The key value of TOC is not what it tells you to work on, but what not to work on. ie., don’t waste time on non-bottleneck.

Simple, right?

But how many of us are just so undisciplined to keep work on non-constraints?

Why? Because bottlenecks are often where our weaknesses lie. It is where our fear is. In short, it is the place where we have avoided – often unconsciously.

Take an example, if you are afraid of public speaking, it will drag your career down for years, until you decided one day to face it and make a breakthrough. Otherwise you get stuck forever.