On Tuesday night, Hanhui asked me to pass the rest of our care group some forms to process, as it was urgent. Yesterday night, he asked me whether I had done so. I realised that I had forgotten to do so.
So, Hanhui called me around later on at midnight, and asked me to think
NOT about what I
should have done, but what were the attitudes in my heart that caused this to happen.
After thinking, I told him, "Laziness and fear of rejection." I elaborated further with him on these two.
Hanhui listened, and then explained to me that he had, in a sense, delegated authority to me regarding the passing on of the forms to the others, and also, responsibility, because my forgetting to pass the forms to the others yesterday affected not just myself, but the ENTIRE group.
And he was looking not for the what-I-should-have-dones, but what-are-the-reasons-that-I-did-what-I-dids. We're not perfect, after all, but we can understand what are the attitudes factors that cause us to do things wrongly.
To paraphrase:
"Remember what I told you last time about godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow? Worldly sorrow merely says 'sorry' to make the other party feel better, like if you accidentally step on his shoes, but godly sorrow makes you look at yourself to really understand why you do what you do, and to consider the results of your attitudes."
Shared more with me on this, that for me, I need to discipline my mind to focus not so much on the what-I-should-have-dones, but on my personal attitudes and values, because I have a tendency to think in terms of 'do this' and 'do that'.
And this tendency makes my mind tend to degrade into doing things for the sake of doing them, without seeing the value of what I'm doing.
That's one reason why he doesn't usually address the issue of ill-discipline so much as the issue of seeing the VALUE of what I do, because ill-discipline is simply a behavioural flaw, a symptom of an attitude.
And that attitude is whether I see the value of what I'm doing or not.
He talked with me for a few more minutes, and then he told me he had to answer a second call, and eat his dinner.
"Dinner? At midnight?" I thought. So I asked him, "Are you feeling hungry?"
He chortled, and said, "Super."
