Lessons crammed into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid

A lady came over today to volunteer with packing some envelopes today at my house. I didn’t know the lady, and my first reaction after introducing myself was that she was very socially experienced and that I didn’t really want to talk to her. After the initial exposure, I went over to the back room and contemplated two decisions: should I help the lady with the envelope packing, or should I read the “Person of the Year” Time magazine I held in my hand (with the Art Deco Obama portrait)? It was the the prototype scenario to the type of decisions I usually make: being social and chancing the uncertainty of serendipity, or being asocial and creating productivity through self initiative. I have found that the asocial typically trumps the social, but today I decided to help and get to know her better. It was one of the first best decisions I made in a while.

To begin with, she is very social and enjoys talking which was a very helpful plus since there isn’t much else to do but talk when we’re stuffing flyers into an envelope. At 50, she came to the states at about 40 and earned her citizenship within the first year despite the fact that she came without knowing English. She carried with her history and memories that date back to the China embroiled in the cultural revolution, and I learned a lot about her experience under the Mao regime along with her time as she was “sent to be educated” in rural farmlands as a high schooler. She mentioned how many in China were “forward looking” (translating to a pun for “looking towards money”), mainly because of the intense competition resulting from overpopulation. She talked of becoming the manager of a small factory, and how she used her accumulated relationships to buy enough time to study for college entrance exams and get into one of the top colleges in China. This gave her a chance to pursue a high skilled job, which eventually landed her as an entrepreneur of 2 businesses and brought her to the States. She also talked a bit about the “culture” of business in China, about how the absense of laws made business very dependent on the leverage of relationships. Those who learned the rules of the book survived; those who didn’t were heckled to bankrupcy on bogus charges in no-time.

A few things that stood out was the utility of sports. Not only should sports be the daily dose of exercise, it is also crucial in being the lubricant of social interactions. The sport doesn’t necessarily have to be one in which many people participate (the expected “social” element), but that it creates opportunities to be social because it opens different fields of communication along with different contexts of solidarity. For instance, if you know a boss only in the context of the work place, then naturally the only kind of relationship and discourse that happens remains particular to the social dynamics of work–the boss is in power, and you are to follow instructions. However, if you know the boss through a sport, then you not only are able to talk in a different way, if you are good at the sport, then your skill in that area becomes of interest to the boss–an addition that begins to blur the hardlined relationship that was intially (and simply) boss and employee. In other words, if you can play the sport well, then the social capital of athletic talent is transferred to your status as an employee, allowing you to “sidestep” the bulwurk of “boss and employee”, thus allowing the development of a relationship.  All in all, sports not only build mind-body coordination, it also plays an important role in the social arena.

Another thing that was discussed was the importance of stocks. Stocks made her strong, she says, because she not only had to know how to balance her financial budget and predict the trend of stocks, she also had to know how to endure and persist through difficult times when stocks are low. The money loss from bad judgement is the “tuition fee”, and it is critical always to examine why a particular move (like chess) did not go as planned. She explained that one should never make the decision to buy a stock unless one is 100% confident in its rise. The stock can be very cheap, but if one is not certain it will rise, it should not be bought. Likewise, even if a stock is expensive, if the data predict it to rise, then it should be bought–the key lies not in the relative value of the stock, but in its consequence/future. Doing the homework and making sure the data is as good as possible is where the work comes in. As a side gesture, she compares this to argumentation, mentioning that unless she is 100% certain of the evidence that justifies her position, she will not argue. Her engagement in an arguement rests not in the relative importance of matter, but in the possible consequence/future of making this argument.

A ‘formula’-based lesson she pulls from business is the 1/3 rule, which states that a person’s wealth should be split to three: one-third for savings, one-third for the operating budget, and one-third for risk and investments. The reason being that if the 1/3 gamble in stocks were to fail, a person would not go broke; also, if the 1/3 in operating costs weren’t enough, the 1/3 in savings would cover–each 1/3 step along the way is a “safety net” for ensuring the success of the former. Likewise, this is brought to life, and she mentions that she spends her time accordingly. Because she was willing to take risks with at least 1/3 of her time, her investment has paid off and she was able to successfully come to the States. In this regard, all of the strategies applied to stocks can be applied here: enough homework needs to be done to ensure that the risk that is taken in life has a good chance of reaping a good reward, and if the risk taking resulted in failure, “post work” needs to be done to assess and learn from such mistakes.

Of course, with all this investing and business dealing, there are general, overarching lessons to be learned as well. From this, she tells me that “It doesn’t matter whether there is sucess or failure, as long as there is joy in the process or in the moment”. Sounds cliched, but as timeless as any maxim when considering the decisions to be made in life (especially college). Another gem: “Whether or not a person does something is up to the person; whether or not this ’something’ succeeds is up to God”. I like this quote because rather than decide on a completely “self-based” or a completely “fate-based” perspective to life, she merges the two and essentially leaves the debate in lingo, which is where it should belong. There are things that are determined by man, but at the same time there seems to be things determined by fate–the two are not in absolute. She takes this personal philosophy and applies it to life, commenting that “there are good things in a bad person, and bad things in a good person”. As relativist (and inconclusive, uncertain, and non-generalizable) as this seems, it makes the argument more sophisticated in that it asserts that all things must be taken as particulars. Framing a person or a thing as completely good or bad blinds the psyche to see the corresponding opposite (the good in bad or the bad in good), and having the wisdom to perceive on a case by case basis is the more accurate (albeit laborious) approach.

Lastly, the lady told be about the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. Because she came to the US without an English background, she had to learn the language ASAP–and learn it she did. She bought herself English audiobooks along with their corresponding books and listened to them over, and over, and over again. She must have listened to the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” over 100 times, she told me, and she would try to repeat each sound, ruminating over the language as she tries to read the book. As she pulls out her cellphone and plays for me “Chapter 1 of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, I knew then she was very serious, and very determined about learning the language. Many times, as I listened to the tape, the lady would interject with the predicted phrases, “gorilla!”, “moron~!”, “let him have it!”. I was thoroughly impressed and at the same time put to shame by how less determined I was compared to her.

Ultimately, I learnd a lot about not only China, but also about her as a person: her views, experiences, and personal philosophy. I was very glad I got to listen to her story, but I was even more happy in making the right decision. From last semester in college, I learned that a lot of times, seredipity turned out to have the more interesting and productive outcomes. I always feared spontaneity for its unpredicatable element: there is a broad spectrum in which things can be either extremely productive or pathetically worthless. The fact that the dial to such an invisible spectrum was not in my control always kept me away, and more often than not I would retreat the the safety of my abode where I can crack open the spine of a book and waste time. I remembered many of the times when I “went rogue” and did something random, and the times I “stuck to my gun” and studied. Overwhelmingly, the positive has been in favor of taking the risk. In fact, I think from now on I will learn to take more of such risks but keept it at 1/3 of my overall time. Sounds like a plan with 100% chance for growth.