Above all else

Like many parents, I've had days when my kids just don't want to go to school. When they were really small, sometimes there'd be a meltdown, with shrieks and tears.  As they grew older, toddler hysteria "matured" into grumpiness and complaining, especially as schoolwork became a bigger and bigger part of life. I remember lying down one evening with my son after a tiring day at school.  "D, why do you think you have to go to school?"  "To get good results." "Why do you need good results?" "To get to a good class" "Why do you need to get to a good class?" "To get to a good school" "Why do you need to get to a good school? "To get a good job" "Why do you need a good job?" "To buy things like house and car" "What about Bill Gates or Steve Jobs' children? They will probably have more money than they can ever spend. Why do they need to go to school?" "... I ...

Primum non nocere  is a Latin phrase that means “first, do no harm”. Otherwise known as non-maleficence, it is one of the central tenets of bioethics, and is widely adopted in healthcare to handle the many difficult decisions therein. Non-maleficence probably makes sense in healthcare, where there is perhaps a human tendency to over-intervene, and in an arena where severe outcomes to life and limb (and unintended consequences) can't always be predicted with certainty. But more broadly in life, what do we do when faced with difficult decisions? Does the maxim of “first, do no harm” work?  Consider the classic moral dilemma of the trolley problem. A trolley is headed down a track that will cause it to run over 5 people. If you throw the track switch, the trolley will switch to another track where it will only run over 1 person. Non-maleficence might suggest, do nothing. Utilitarianism might suggest that we have a moral obligation to throw the switch. 1 death is better than 5...

I've been volunteering as a mentor for university students / young working adults for several years. These programmes typically last about half a year, and conclude with some kind of closing or capstone event. Most mentoring relationships tail off fairly rapidly after the programme ends. But sometimes, it grows into a long term friendship, in which we continue to learn from each other for years. Those are the ones where you can see that we've made a real difference in each other's lives.  In any self-improvement programme, or even in any relationship, mentoring or otherwise, there are going to be highs and lows. I remember feeling quite inspired myself when I attended an executive management programme several years ago. These programmes typically include some form of coaching/mentoring, on top of the lectures on leadership, purpose and so on. The programme was amazing. Truly a mountain top experience. The question is, where do all the buzz words like "North Star",...

I recently noticed that some dead spots were appearing near the bottom of my TV screen, so we dug out the warranty from our cupboard, and to our relief, the 3-year warranty was still valid - just one month to go!  When the repairman turned up, he took one look at the TV and concluded - nope, this model was too old, so he didn't even have the parts to repair it. So we got a brand new TV from the manufacturer! Woohoo! You know, things didn't use to break so quickly. I happen to have an old TV in the bedroom. You know, those non-smart, non-HD, non-everything TVs. And man, those things refuse to kick the bucket.  Same thing with my old microwave, electric kettle, etc. I bought some of these things when I first got married, more than 2 decades ago. Those things were built to last! But these days, things break a lot faster. One big problem is the issue of deliberately irreplaceable batteries, especially in wireless devices like our mobiles, earphones, and laptops and so on. This is,...

I recently read Strangers Drowning, by Larissa MacFarquhar, which is a collection of essays on the phenomenon of what she calls "do-gooders" - people who go above and beyond to live what seem to be excessively altruistic lives, particularly in caring for strangers above their own needs, and even their own family's needs. It is a scintillatingly good book and I highly recommend it. Ms MacFarquhar profiles several people who have chosen the "do-gooder" life, and interposes some reflective interludes in between the biographies, questioning whether what she terms as "morality" ought to be "the highest human court" and whether such morality might even compromise what it means to be human. For example, if you were to come across your spouse and a stranger drowning in a pond, who should you save? Pure morality, smelted in a furnace to shining perfection, might suggest that there ought to be no difference between the two . And what if there were two ...