what affects me is the response i have towards whatever event that happened

10 oct was staff conference, a rather poorly done one as far as i'm concerned. Logistically, expo seems to be too big for such an event. The too-high ceiling and black drapery as divider just screams factory and coldness. Did not take away anything useful except for 1 line from the infamous mr. khoo. I somehow have this immense dislike for him. Could be not-so-motivating motivational talks. I am extremely unaffected by such stuff. Detached, as usual.

I was explaining to my colleague why his speech was full of contridictions and invalid claims, and especially the bit on how he says that our emotional state is made up by our physiology (but note, his examples of physiology are posture, tone of voice...) and thoughts. So, while I agree that our emotional state can affect our outlook of life e.g., in high gear, we work more efficiently, are happier, think more positively, I largely disagree when he says that by changing your body posture (e.g., sit up straight, not slouching...) or tone of voice can change your emotional state. It's true that when you feel more confident, you sit up and lift your head up.  But just by lifting your head up and sitting up straight doesn't neccesarily MAKE your more confident. It may help get in trying to make you feel confident, but sometimes the pipe doesn't flow both ways.

And for thoughts. If it was so easy to change our thoughts, who will need the motivational speakers.

Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson was a book I enjoyed on neuroscience. One of the things mentioned was that when certain events occur, while emotions can be evoked in a split second because of past experience etc etc, our response to that emotion however, is not hardwired. For example, when you are driving if some car decides to dangerously cut into your lane, a natural emotional response may be anger, and for some, the "natural" reaction is cursing at the reckless driver. However, on decontruction or if you are bo liao and want to analyse the situation, you can reason that the reckless driver may be in a great hurry - maybe his wife is giving birth in the car, or some loved one is dying in a hospital. Then you may not react with the "natural" reaction of anger. Other than such analysis, conditioning can also alter "natural" reactions.

So the only useful takeaway I had from that speech is what he said on "what affects me is the response i have towards whatever event that happened". Pretty self-explanatory.

And F&N has not reimbursed me the $1.40 for their vending machine that ate my money.