semylee

Just signed with JES Island. This would be the second professional contract I’ve signed in my life. It’s strange. I’ve been working at JES for 3 weeks already, but I feel like today made it official. I’m no longer working illegally lols :P Cheers to an amazing year!

this past weekend was another wisdom-filled weekend thanks to my grad class and church. the grad school-church punch combo has been knocking me hard. so, among the multitudes of things i learned in school, the one that really stuck was our discussion on personal power versus positional power. to simply define:

positional power: the power and influence that is given to one from an external source. this may include money, prestige, family heritage, job title, degrees, a nice piece of land, and anything else that would give you an upper hand. 

personal power: the power and influence that is completely internal to oneself. this includes your confidence, ambition, adaptability, determination, character, self-worth, and other positive qualities that one has attained through life experiences. 

positional power can only get you so far due to the fact that these can be easily stripped from you. you change the surroundings, situations, and people, those with positional power find that they have no power at all. in contrast, those with personal power, no matter what waves of changes their life comes in collision with, they will continue to hold power and influence over the people around them. a true leader doesn’t merely possess a positional power, but personal power. a true leader knows how to influence person and persons outside of their comfort zone in unknown arenas. 

this gets to a point that my pastor (it’s his birthday today!) made today. we are to be the salt of the earth .. not of the church. we may hold positional power and speak in great authority in the house of God, but do we exert that same power outside the walls of our saltshaker?

God’s desire is to shake us out of that saltshaker and sprinkle us onto the flavorless arenas of the world. we all possess personal power or saltiness because God’s already given it to us. let’s get out there and bring more flavor to the world. 

today in class, i learned a very interesting concept. it’s not new where i’ve never heard of it, but it was fresh in a way that i haven’t experienced before. that’s what learning should be like every time. 

anyhow, the expectancy theory proposes that an individual’s decision to behave in one way or another is determined by the expected results and rewards of his/her choice. the expected results and rewards are of utmost value to the individual, which is what drives his/her decision. not too complex and in many ways obviously inherent to human nature.

to give a generic example, bob possesses a high valence in making his co-workers laugh. why? purely his enjoyment in the sound of laughter (that’s his reward). bob notices that they tend to laugh a lot when he tells clever ‘yo mama’ jokes. however he doesn’t have many ‘yo mama’ jokes of his own under his belt and he’s running low, but he knows a friend who’s got an entire stash. however, his friend only tells ‘yo mama’ jokes over fish and chips. therefore, according to the theory, this is how the scenario will play out. bob will make a greater conscious and even unconscious effort to spend time to take out his friend out for fish and chips so he can learn some more ‘yo mama’ jokes so he can use them on his co-workers to make them laugh for the prize of hearing laughter. did you catch that? ridiculous example but i think i got the point across. 

like i said, nothing really new. we all tend to materialize this behavior whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. but let me get to the revelation i got from this lesson. 

in the relationships we walk out with others and even with Jesus, there’s something about the relationship we hold in high valence. let’s be honest with ourselves, we invest in relationships where we expect something incredible to be birthed. even in difficult relationships, the only reason we choose to continue investing is because we see a potential of something beautiful and worthwhile. the greater the expectancy, the more effort that will be put in. 

a while back, i listened to a sermon by pe teaching us to expand our capacity to receive. i also believe that along with that we need to bring an increase in the area of our expectancy. when we expect more from our relationship with God, we are bound to make a greater conscious and unconscious effort to spend quality time with Him and go the distance in our walk with Him. no relationship is effortless. we need to learn to see the beautiful in our wonderful and not-so-wonderful relationships. learn to develop your ability to expect more. 

i love school :) 

today i took a step closer to finishing up grad school. last year i accepted a mission i didn’t think possible a few years back .. going to grad school. i say impossible since i never much enjoyed studying and i daresay learning. i never properly learned to love learning, which is what i believe school should be about. aside from that, it’s been over a year now and this june i’ll be graduating. a big portion of that graduation depends on this project documentation that i’ve been slaving over the past umteen months. i’m proud to say that the first draft which was due nearly a month ago is finally complete. just got the final draft, two more classes, a final presentation, and a walk down the graduation to go :) cmon cmon :D